Richie Ryan (Highlander) - Character Development

Character Development

Ryan was not designed to be an immortal character from the beginning. According to Executive Producer Bill Panzer talking about "The Gathering", "we weren't sure ourselves that he was gonna become an Immortal." Panzer adds, "we'd laid some pipe for that in the first episode of season one. But we hadn't really decided whether we were gonna make him an Immortal or not make him an Immortal." Panzer goes on, "When we cast Stan, we were just looking for a good actor and we found one, likeable, charming, and building a very nice fanbase. We had not anticipated, when we cast him, that the option might exist for him to become an Immortal. But we laid at that into the very first episode, "The Gathering", and we decided that we were gonna exercise that option as a fact now. Certainly, he had to go from being MacLeod's sort of, sidekick, and, you know, younger brother character, to taking his place in the world of Immortals. And the first thing you have to learn as an Immortal is how to take care of yourself. So, Stan had to, in addition to (...) beginning to change the way his relationship worked with his character and MacLeod's character, he also had to learn how to do this stuff and we had to see (...) a growth pattern coming from him." Panzer explains that a specific location was chosen for Richie's first fight, because both Stan Kirsch and Sheena Easton were doing their first swordfight ever: "To make everything a little easier for them, we set it in an almost impossible location-- the steps leading up to the lighthouse (...) And for two people who really had never done it before, between some clever directing and some clever editing, I think it looks like they're going at it." Panzer thinks "Under Color of Authority" was Ryan's coming of age because it was his first Quickening. Panzer says, "This is the time for Richie to leave and kind of find himself, sort of see what it's like, surviving on the outside," and it is also a hard time for MacLeod; is he crying, is he sad to see him go, is he a little afraid for him, you know it's like any time you turn a youngster loose in the world, even today's world, it's a pretty scary moment for the parent."

Creative Consultant David Abramovitz says, "You can't keep a character a street punk for years. The character has to grow and grow on his own. This show is not called The Highlander and Richie. For Richie's growth, he really could no longer be the spear-carrier. The show was not inherently about him. And this is not because of the actor. (...) The character of Amanda gives you things that the young sidekick doesn't, and there are only a certain number of stories that you can play." Executive Script Consultant David Tynan thinks that Richie "started off as the wisecracking sidekick. Once he had become Immortal, he had to change and become more serious. For the character, he was going through a learning process and an evolution in terms of his spirit, his soul, and his relationship with MacLeod. He became in many ways less fun to write, I think, because he simply wasn't the smart-ass, wisecracking young street kid. He couldn't be, and that's the direction the character had to go in. There was really no other option."

Associate Creative Consultant Gillian Horvath says about the relationship between Richie and Duncan MacLeod, "Here is this new kid on the block, just learning the ropes and having the best mentor in the world. This person who you feel can make anything right, and you're proud to be their sidekick. If you look at "Avatar", the inscription on the headstone reads 'Friend'. There used to be a line in "Archangel", but it was too on the nose, where Richie basically said something along the lines of 'I'm your friend; I'm proud to be that'. But the idea is that there are worse things to be, there are worse things to be remembered as, than Duncan MacLeod's best friend. Richie was never the hero of his own show, but he was the support of the hero. The first season Richie was the same guy for twenty-two weeks. And then certain landmarks start defining your characters and start creating arcs. Richie's going in and out in the second season, I think, helped define his character. I know it was frustrating for Stan - he liked being in every show - but I think it helped define the character because it meant you kept seeing landmark events in his life that kept changing him. He becomes Immortal, gets trained, then when he goes away, he comes back in "Prodigal Son". (...) If he had been around every week, he would have just had the 'What's up, Mac?' scene. The fact that he's in fewer episodes means that when he is in an episode, he has something to do. (...) In some early versions of "They Also Serve", and in my preferred version of the story, he raced to the rescue of MacLeod at the end. Not that he came and took the head of Michael Christian, but Mac was in trouble until Richie got there and threw him his sword. And Mac wins because he's got his sword. It's a moment when, if Richie hadn't been there, Mac could have died. The way they filmed it was Mac was already winning when Richie gets there and he doesn't need Richie at all. And I was a little disappointed in that. an echo of this in "The Messenger", and it was conscious on our parts; when Mac rushes to the rescue and throws Richie his sword, this is an echo of this scene that never happened on-screen, but in my mind it did."