It’s hard to imagine a 6′ 3 man such as Alan Ritchson as a scrawny teen pirouetting across the dance floor, but we all start somewhere. Ritchson might be the brawny Jack Reacher on Amazon’s wildly successful series Reacher, but when he was young he was just like every other teenage boy: dreading going to dance class!

Ritchson told Men’s Health that he met his wife, Catherine, as a teenager in a ballet class. But he surely didn’t have the confidence of Jack Reacher (who does?) so it took months for him to talk to her. He explained, “After the millionth time of us sitting next to each other, inches away, tying our shoes—so now it’s super awkward—I was like, ‘So I heard you ice-skate.'” The rest was history, and the duo got married in 2006.