Why Zachary Beck From Reacher Season 3 Looks So Familiar

This article contains spoilers for "Reacher" Season 3.

One of the recurring aspects of "Reacher," apart from bad guys with short lifespans, is middlemen who get involved with the wrong people. In Season 3, this position is filled by Bizarre Bazaar CEO Zachary Beck, who has already seen his family suffer at the hands of his "business partner," Julius McCabe, formerly known as Xavier Quinn (Brian Tee). To make matters worse, all this corruption and illegal activity has caught the attention of DEA agent Susan Duffy (Sonya Cassidy), who, following a botched undercover operation, sends in our boy Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) to keep tabs on what's happening. After Reacher poses as potential muscle for the businessman, Beck's world soon gets turned upside down as traitorous activity begins to reveal itself, deals go south, and the bad guys closest to him end up very, very dead.

Understandably, it's a stressful situation to be in, but it's something that the man bringing Beck to life should be accustomed to by now. Longtime actor Anthony Michael Hall has faced all sorts of bad guys on screen, from legendary supervillains and homicidal killers to lowly school bullies. The silver lining, however, is that by becoming entangled with all these antagonists, he's also found himself starring in some of the most iconic films ever made.

In 1983, Hall took on a role that would see various changes over the years when he starred as Rusty Griswold in "National Lampoon's Vacation." Hall was the first to play the Griswolds' only son when he, along with the rest of his family, hopped into that famous Ford Taurus for what many consider one of the funniest comedy movies of all time. Speaking to Yahoo UK on the film's 40th anniversary in 2023, Hall revealed how taken aback he was over the whole event, which saw him working with comedy legends Chevy Chase, John Candy, writer John Hughes, director Harold Ramis, and producer Matty Simmons:

"I was always a fan of film and comedy and even at a young age, I knew who these guys were. Matty had published the 'National Lampoon' and Harold had this wonderful affability to him. He was very similar to John Hughes, who I ended up working with afterwards."

Four actor would take on the role of Rusty over the years, including Ed Helms as a grown-up version in the 2015 film, "Vacation." For Hall, though, that first big break in the movies was an experience he wouldn't forget. "I was really excited just to be in the room with these guys," he recalled to Yahoo. It also became the first of many big gigs he'd get in the '80s, turning him into a familiar face in even more essential films to come.

Only a year after taking a ride with the Griswolds, Hall reunited with Hughes for the latter's directorial debut with 1984's "Sixteen Candles." The film sees Hall playing Farmer Ted, the geek who is keen on the affections of Sam Baker (Molly Ringwald), who herself only has eyes for the hunky Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling). Hall would then go on to star in Hughes' films "The Breakfast Club" and "Weird Science," both of which hit theaters in 1985 and, much like "Sixteen Candles," have undergone plenty of critical analysis and re-examining in the decades since then.

While Hall hasn't commented on how these films have been viewed through a modern lens, all three movies certainly have issues. While Ted might be "nice" in "Sixteen Candles," the scene in the film where characters converse about and allude to a girl being date-raped certainly isn't. That's to say nothing of "Weird Science," a movie in which two horny teens use their programming know-how to create a woman so they can essentially enslave her. (There's a reason more recent teen comedies have paid homage to Hughes' work while fixing its worst parts.)

As for "The Breakfast Club," the whole film is about its characters being more than the stereotypes they're associated with (a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal). Be that as it may, the fact that one of them ends up getting a makeover that supposedly improves them undercuts a lot of what the movie is going for and proves these kids didn't learn anything useful in detention (except how to dance in a library). As for those who disagree, /Film's BJ Colangelo has the hot take you've been searching for.

Few people get caught on the receiving end of The Joker's schemes and make it out alive. Clearly, though, the cards were in favor of Hall when he appeared as Gotham Tonight news anchor Mike Engel in "The Dark Knight." Monitoring the crimewave brought about by Heath Ledger's Clown Prince of Crime in Christopher Nolan's 2008 masterpiece, Hall got an up close and personal experience with the best depiction of the Joker ever.

In a 2023 interview with /Film, Hall expressed his love of being a part of what many consider one of the greatest movies of all time. He also felt the cast was a big part of that. As he put it:

"It goes back to that human level, just working with such cool people. They really were down to earth. There really was great synergy. I got to shoot in London and Chicago, and I got to meet actors that I admired growing up, like Gary Oldman, and I've always respected Christian Bale a great deal. He's a very talented guy. Heath was just in the zone. He was phenomenal, as we all know. He was great at that part. So another great experience."

A few years later, Hall would face another absolutely sadistic villain on the screen — one who's become synonymous with the mask they wear.

Hall went from dealing with a Dark Knight to facing an ominous-looking Shape in another franchise when he starred in 2021's "Halloween Kills." The second chapter in David Gordon Green's "Halloween" trilogy sees Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle) continuing his reign of terror 40 years after his initial attack on a then-teenaged Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends on Halloween Night in 1978. Much like Hall was replaced as Rusty in the "Vacation" sequels, Hall himself became the latest actor to play Tommy Doyle in "Halloween Kills," following in the footsteps of three other actors (Paul Rudd among them).

Hall's iteration of Tommy is a tougher take — one who's so traumatized by Myers' original Halloween night rampage that he sets out to slay the Shape for good in "Halloween Kills." Of course, he fails terribly and ends up getting bludgeoned to death for his efforts. But while Hall's version of Tommy wound up being little more than another pile of meat on the chopping block for Michael, the character's declaration that "Evil dies tonight!" has gained notoriety far and wide online. 

Speaking to Inverse in 2024, Hall admitted, "Let me just go on record and say that [the 'Evil dies tonight!' memes] cracked me up. I thought we could have done with a few hundred less of those in the film, but those memes cracked me up: 'Santa flies tonight! Pumpkin pies tonight!' Dude, I loved all of them. So whoever started those memes, I love you, and I dug it." Poor Tommy; at least he went out swinging. It's just a shame that Michael swung harder.

New episodes of "Reacher" drop Thursdays on Prime Video.