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Alan Ritchson seems like he was born to play the man mountain that is Jack Reacher, so it’s odd to think that he had to fight for the role. The actor was almost passed over for the hugely popular “Reacher” due to a specific detail from Lee Child’s books, which are the source material for the Prime Video series.
Speaking to Michael Rosenbaum on his “Inside of You” podcast, Ritchson revealed that he almost missed out on the lead role — by about two inches. “I was passed on in the very beginning of the process, like everybody was,” he said, “and I think that was because I’m 6’3″. Reacher’s 6’5″. Everybody was trying to get a super-authentic version of Reacher on screen. So there’s always an asterisk in my mind when it comes to this role. I had to really fight for that.”
It might seem pedantic on the part of the producers to preclude Ritchson from playing Jack Reacher based on a difference of two inches. If it were any other show, that might be true, but “Reacher” followed two Tom Cruise-led movies based on Child’s books, which, though moderately successful, stoked the ire of Jack Reacher fans the world over. Why? Because Cruise is 5’7″, and fans weren’t having it.
In fairness, Child did write the character as a brute of a man on purpose, and even agreed with readers in the wake of 2016’s “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back,” telling Reader’s Digest, “I love Tom Cruise, I think he’s a great actor and he’s certainly a great guy […] but ultimately the readers felt he was not an accurate representation of Reacher, and I’ve got to defer to the readers.” As such, Ritchson was facing a tough set of criteria when he went into his “Reacher” audition.
Alan RItchson’s life changed after Reacher
Alan Ritchson has been acting since 2006, when he first appeared as Arthur Curry on The CW’s “Smallville.” But it took him almost 20 years to really break through, which he did by playing Jack Reacher. The actor went on to tell Michael Rosenbaum that his career had “exploded” in the wake of his popular Prime Video series’ premiere. “Beforehand, we were waiting,” he recalled. “The whole town was like, ‘Let’s see what happens when it airs.’ There was months of silence. Nobody was picking up the phone. There [were] no conversations about scripts.” But once “Reacher” debuted in 2022, everything changed. Ritchson continued, “Within 48 hours, I had 20 offers on my desk from the biggest producers and studios in town, and it hasn’t slowed up.”
Indeed, since “Reacher” has been streaming, Ritchson has landed some of his biggest movie roles yet, appearing as Agent Aimes in “Fast X” and Anders Lassen in “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” On the TV side, in addition to “Reacher,” he is set to make an appearance in the upcoming “Neagley” spin-off, focused on Maria Sten’s Frances Neagley, a longtime Jack Reacher ally. Along those lines, “Reacher” Season 4 is in the works and is based on the novel “Gone Tomorrow,” the 13th book in Lee Child’s popular series, which now comprises a full 29 novels.