Catching Fire Hunk Talks Underwear-Model Past—See an Eye-Popping Pic—and How It Helped Him Be Half-Naked on Set

Before squeezing into a wetsuit as District One champ Gloss in The Hunger Games sequel, Alan Ritchson squeezed into a lot of boxer-briefs

By Marc Malkin, Natalie Finn Nov 19, 2013 10:12 PMTags
E! Placeholder Image

Most entertainers have a few skeletons in their closet. Or a few bulges in their boudoir.

Catching Fire actor Alan Ritchson used to make ends meet as an underwear model, packing his package into a number of brands for International Jock—so he was pretty unfazed by the whole wetsuit-over-practically-nothing portion of playing District One tribute Gloss.

"For me, I'd walk out in a thong thinking, 'I'm in costume,'" Ritchson—who, for the record, still looks like he could sell the pants off of a pair of boxer-briefs—joked to E! News at the film's Los Angeles premiere about what it would've been like if that had been required.

"It's like, 'Hey, I'm ready for the death scene,' and they'd be like, 'Uh, we can see part of your crotch.'"

internationaljock.com

But while Josh Hutcherson had told E! News last week during a press junket in Beverly Hills that the wetsuits ultimately turned out to be "pretty comfortable" once he realized you could pee right through it (in the ocean, that is), Ritchson found no such relief. 

"It was awful," the 28-year-old said. "You know what it's like going home and wanting to eat some good soul food in Atlanta and having to squeeze my greasy, fried-chicken self into that thing every morning? It was terrible. It was a pretty nuts costume.

"Everybody's in it though so you don't feel too bad. But everybody was like, 'Do I look fat in this?'"

Or something like that.

"I was surprised at how little camel toe problem there was. I was expecting a lot more," Lawerence, who skipped the afterparty last night because she was under the weather, also told us at last week's junket.

Sam Claflin, who wields the trident as Finnick in the Hunger Games sequel, said that they were initially asked to wear thongs to avoid VPL but they ultimately settled on cycling shorts.

"We walked out there in boxer-briefs," Ritchson told us, "but they were like, 'You can see everything underneath that. You need to put on this thong, dance-belt kind of thing.'" 

The odds may not have been in Gloss' favor, but we'll certainly enjoy him while he lasts.