Jason Ritter Says Melanie Lynskey Is ‘Excited’ About ‘Matlock’ Role, Watches ‘All My Auditions’

Jason Ritter and Melanie Lynskey are one another’s biggest fans.

“She was so excited about Matlock . You know, she sees all my auditions,” Ritter, 44, exclusively told Us Weekly at CBS’ Summer TCA 2024 in Pasadena, California on Saturday, July 13. “She's my scene partner, the best scene partner you could ever possibly imagine. When she read this [script], she was excited immediately.”

Ritter plays Julian on Matlock , the rebooted legal procedural also starring Kathy Bates and Beau Bridges .

“[Melanie] was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so good,’” Ritter recalled on Saturday of the first time Lynskey, 47, helped him with his audition. “And then when she saw the pilot episode, she was sold. She's already a fan of the show, which is exciting. Now she won't run lines with me because she doesn't want to know what's coming. She wants to be surprised.”

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Ritter and Lynskey first met in 2013 on the set of The Big Ask . They got engaged four years later and welcomed their first child in December 2018. The private couple, who have not publicly shared the name of their daughter, secretly wed in 2020.

When Ritter booked Matlock , he was excited to work with Bates, 76, for the first time. Lynskey already knew the legendary actress personally.

“It's so amazing to be, you know, on the same set with Kathy. I had never met her before,” Ritter recalled to reporters on Saturday. “I knew Melanie and Kathy had known each other for a while as they had the same manager when Melanie first moved here and Kathy obviously is, like, the golden standard for the kind of career that Melanie wanted.”

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According to Ritter, Bates is “this woman who could do everything in anything and play all these different parts,” which the Yellowjackets star hopes to emulate in her own acting career.

“They had this sweet relationship and then it was very exciting when I got to work with her,” Ritter said, adding he was “so nervous” to act alongside Bates. “You build up an idea of someone in your head and then, you know, you get nervous because when you've created such a status in your mind about someone. If they're mean to you, what do you do? It's harder to think about like, ‘Well, if she said [this], I'd say this.’ You're like, ‘I guess I just sit back and go, I'm so sorry. This must be my fault somehow.’”

Matlock will premiere on CBS this fall.

With reporting by Mariel Turner