The Third Man

In a world that prizes coming in first, being third isn’t always a compliment — but Jason Ritter doesn’t look at it that way. The 25-year-old actor is thrilled to be playing Woodson Bull III in Wendy Wasserstein’s provocative new drama Third at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater. And Jason is third-generation Hollywood royalty, grandson of the legendary singing cowboy Tex Ritter and son of the late, beloved actor John Ritter and his first wife, actress Nancy Morgan.

“Third,” as Woodson likes to be called, is an outsider at the prestigious college that he attends. He incurs the wrath of Professor Lori Jameson (played by two-time Oscar winner Dianne Wiest), who accuses him of plagiarism when he offers a different interpretation of Shakespeare’s King Lear than the one she espouses. “He’s this guy who has thrown himself into another universe and is trying to do his best to fit in, but he’s not used to being shut down because of his opinions,” says Jason. “When I first read the script, I thought he was someone trying to create conflict, but now I see that the conflict is already there in the writing. He’s not a victim; he’s someone who is going to stand up for himself, who is constantly trying to rise from the ashes.”

A born insider, Jason might seem an unconventional choice to play this role; but the likeable young actor knows what it’s like to be on the outside looking in. “Once or twice,” he says, “I’ve been on film sets where it’s clear that I’m with a group of people with whom I have nothing in common and we’re not going to be friends, so there’s going to be this awkward dance. And, when I was a kid, there was a camp in Colorado that I went to every summer where I made great friends — but one time, I went for the first half instead of the second, so I was with this whole group of guys who thought it was sacrilege that I didn’t know who was in the Super Bowl. Of course, I was angered by the fact the only Nirvana song they knew was ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.’ ”

If there’s a lesson in Third, says Jason, it’s that we all need to try harder to get along. “The play shows how it doesn’t work to just stand in your corner and be self-righteous and tell everyone who disagrees with you that they’re stupid,” he says. “There has to be some ground for compromise.” He feels that doing the show — his first in New York since the Atlantic Theater Company production of The Beginning of August in 2000, in which he appeared while a student at NYU — will be a great learning experience. Even in his first two days of rehearsal, director Daniel Sullivan, who was instrumental in getting him the role, taught him well. (“He gives you these notes that are so obvious, you wonder why you didn’t think of it — and then you want him to tell you how to do everything.”)

There’s the added benefit of working with Wiest and veteran actor Charles Durning, who plays her father. “Charlie and I actually play in the same poker game in Los Angeles,” says Jason. “I’ve known him for a couple of years now. He is such a cool guy, and so supportive of me. This is my first time working with Dianne; she creates an amazing atmosphere of having fun and giving you so much to work off.”

Being back on stage, and in New York, makes Jason very happy. This is not to say that he has any regrets about spending the past few years in Hollywood, where he starred for two seasons on the CBS series Joan of Arcadia and in such films as Happy Endings (he gave a superb performance as a confused gay teenager who briefly becomes involved with Maggie Gyllenhaal) and the upcoming Lenexa: 1 Mile (about a group of high school friends). But the Big Apple feels like home to him. In fact, some of his fondest memories are of the time when his dad was starring on Broadway in Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party: “It was the same time that I was doing The Beginning of August, and we would meet up after our shows and go to dinner. Of course, I couldn’t stay out quite as late, since I had school the next day. He had this great apartment near Central Park. It was a really special period in my life.”

Both of his parents were supportive of Jason’s career choice, which he didn’t really make until he auditioned at age 16 for the film Mumford (directed by Lawrence Kasdan) and got the role. “They did it the smart way,” he says of his folks, “by giving me books and classes, helping with auditions. It wasn’t just, ‘Okay, go out and do your best.'” As for advice, “My mom’s big thing was to talk to me about striving to be an actor rather than a celebrity, and about making the right artistic choices. My dad taught me from the way that he lived; his friends from high school and college were his best friends his whole life, and if he did go to one of those Hollywood parties, he left after 15 minutes.”

Will Jason next follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and show off his singing chops? “I could sing in a band, but I don’t think I have the kind of voice to do a serious musical,” he says. “Maybe I could do something like Little Shop of Horrors, where it’s more about having fun with the role than about the singing. I think if I tried to do a Sondheim musical, I’d probably blow out my vocal cords by the third performance.”