Alan Ritchson’s career breakthrough as Reacher, the hulking champion and righteous protector of the underdog, was hardly helpful when it came to starring in the poignant true story that is Friday’s “Ordinary Angels.”

Ritchson’s Ed Schmitt is, in 1994 Louisville, Kentucky, a blue collar widower buried under a mountain of medical bills with a 5-year-old daughter who desperately needs a liver transplant with little hope of getting one.

Alan Ritchson stars in “Ordinary Angels.” (Photo Allen Fraser/Lionsgate)

Until their cause is championed by a stranger, Hilary Swank’s Sharon, a hairdresser who rallies the community to help.

Once Ritchson, 41, won the role, he wasn’t able to meet his real-life counterpart.

“When we got into this, it was just a very busy time. ‘Reacher’ Season 1 had just come out, was an overnight hit and I had like 40 or 50 film offers — and 99% of those were huge action movies, which dovetails off of ‘Reacher.’

“But this script was the most beautiful moving story. It felt like the perfect next step, playing the guy who can’t punch his way out of these problems.

“That’s really much more human and relatable than a lot of the characters that I’ve played. So for me, this was a must and I chased it down very hard. I really wanted this because I feel like I’m a character actor trapped in the leading man’s body. I have a deep desire to play very real people, very different, varying people.

“Jon Gunn, the writer director, was very clear from the very beginning when I came to campaign for this. The first thing he said was, ‘You’re absolutely nothing like what I had in mind for this character.’

“I had to convince him how I could honor the story. He commissioned me to lose as much weight as possible – 20 pounds in less than a month — and to grow the same mustache that Ed has in real life. I gave it my best.”

Come April Ritchson plays Anders Lassen, another real-life character, in Guy Ritchie’s action comedy “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.”

“Anders Lassen is a Danish aristocrat from World War II. One of the first Special Forces. To bring that character to life I dove into the history of the war. He was very different for me but that’s what I want to do, greater departures than what Reacher demands.”

“Reacher” S3 is in production.  “They have first position in my life with the demand I look like Reacher who’s mythologically large and in shape.

“So it’s hard to make complete departures from Reacher while that is a fixture in my life.”