Jason Ritter has said he fully supports his young daughter’s desire not to follow in her parents’ footsteps.
Ritter, 46, and his wife, fellow actor Melanie Lynskey, 48, share a seven-year-old daughter, whose name they have not publicly disclosed.
Asked on a recent appearance on Ted Danson’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast whether their daughter is aware her parents are Hollywood stars, the Gravity Falls actor said: “Yeah, she sort of has an idea.
“She’s a little bit like…there was one time where she said to us, ‘Guys, is it OK that I don’t want to be an actor?’” Ritter sweetly recalled. “And we’re like, ‘Yes! Of course! We’re not gonna force you into it.’ That would be so horrible.
“But yeah, she has some idea of it, but then she’ll also say things like, ‘I wish your character would die on Matlock,’” he laughed. “And I’m like, ‘No. You. Don’t. Please don’t say that.’”
Ritter currently stars on CBS’s Matlock reboot, which features Kathy Bates as a reimagined female version of the titular criminal defense lawyer.
The actor, who has been married to Lynskey since 2020, further described their daughter as “so funny and weird and strange and lovely and she’s the best and we feel very, very, very lucky.”
The couple first met in 2013 while filming the dramedy The Big Ask, and Ritter has since publicly credited the Yellowjackets star with helping him achieve sobriety.
Opening up about the early days of their relationship in the interview, the Parenthood alum revealed that after a year of being “on and off” together, Lynskey gave him an ultimatum.
“You can keep drinking, absolutely, but I can’t be around,” he remembered her saying. Ritter added that he had tried to get sober multiple times before that, but it never stuck.
“I didn’t really care much about myself at that point,” he admitted. “And so at the beginning of that time with Melanie, I knew that if I took another sip and I started that thing over that I would lose this forever and I just could never cross that line. And it was easier for me to not cross that line when it was for her than for me, which is weird in hindsight. And now I’m sober for myself.”
Ritter has been sober for over 12 years. In 2023, during a joint appearance with her husband on the Drew Barrymore Show, Lynskey praised him for having done “so much work on himself. I’m so proud of him.”
If you or someone you know is suffering from alcohol addiction, you can confidentially call the national alcohol helpline Drinkline on 0300 123 1110 or visit the NHS website here for information about the programmes available to you.
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