After a season of legal twists and family strife, the relationship between Beau Bridges and Jason Ritter’s Matlock father and son characters is at a crossroads in the 2025 TV schedule. In real life, though, the collaborators are actually quite friendly. Part of the reason for that is because of a strange way that the late great John Ritter and Bridges would be included in a lot of the same conversations.
During a Paley Center event on behalf of Matlock’s early campaign for the upcoming 2025 Emmys, Ritter admitted that his paternal figure on CBS’ hit legal drama bore a striking resemblance to his actual father. Through a TikTok video clipped from this panel interview, Jason Ritter shared as much with this anecdote:
You know, there’s this strange thing, when Beau was cast, throughout my entire childhood in my life, my dad and Beau would get mistaken for each other all the time. And there is a bit of a physical similarity.
I can kind of see where the man behind Matlock’s treacherous yet tragic lawyer is coming from. Which is funny, because at first I was kind of resistant to the idea, as John Ritter and Beau Bridges both have their own trademark smiles.
But as if he was ready to fight off any challenges to that claim, Jason Ritter shared this next piece of the tale
…my dad, one time, got a fan letter from someone who had listed all of these things that he had done and the performances that they loved and said, ‘Could you please sign the enclosed picture?’ It was Beau Bridges on the beach. So I already had this weird feeling of connection to him.
Now if you pull up that very photo from decades earlier that Mr. Ritter mentioned, it shows the shaggy-haired smoke show that is Beau Bridges, smiling away on the beach. That particular mane of hair is what swayed me in the end, because between that and The Millers star’s high-wattage smile, Beau absolutely looks like our beloved Three’s Company icon.
And now that scene where Bridges’ Matlock character mourns his brother kind of hits harder for me, because John Ritter playing that role could have been spectacularly funny. (Which is, of course, no slight against Beau’s actual brother, the equally legendary Jeff Bridges.)
You watch all of Beau Bridges and Jason Ritter’s Season 1 antics on Paramount+. Don’t forget that CBS’ 2025-2026 fall TV lineup is still waiting to provide a date for Matlock Season 2 to kick off and bring Kathy Bates back to the TV fold in grand fashion.
