by Gill Pringle
Ardent fans of Lee Child’s best-selling Jack Reacher thrillers – collectively known as Reacher Creatures – surely made their disappointment known when 5’7” Tom Cruise took on the role of the 6’5” loner ex-military investigator in 2012 film, Jack Reacher, and its sequel.
But today, Amazon Prime Video is betting on those fans taking kindly to Alan Ritchson’s fresh spin on the drifter tough guy in a new eight-part mini-series.
For starters, Ritchson’s 6’2” height is a lot closer to Reacher’s; a huge, imposing figure whom Child vividly describes as having “fists like Thanksgiving turkeys.”
Even Child admits that Cruise may have been too short for the character, saying, “Ultimately the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important, and it’s a big component of who he is.”
Showrunner Nick Santoro certainly believes that he’s found his man in rugged Ritchson, a former American Idol contestant who found success in TV shows Titans and Blood Drive.
“At the beginning of this process, we decided that we literally wanted Jack Reacher to be larger than life because he is figuratively larger than life but, because of that, we had to find an actor who can fill those shoes – very big shoes.
“How did we find Alan Ritchson? We just looked out our windows and saw him – because he’s so gigantic, you can see him from anywhere!” Santoro quips.
“We ran everything by Lee first and made sure he agreed with it, and if Lee felt it was true to Jack Reacher, we tried it. But Alan is so talented, he kept just hitting the ball out of the park,” says Santoro who has previously worked on The Sopranos, Law & Order and Prison Break.
If the Jack Reacher of the novels is a graduate from prestigious U.S. military academy, West Point, then Ritchson’s own father was a U.S. Air Force chief master sergeant.
“Growing up and being around soldiers and enlisted men, there’s a formality to the way they greet each other, the way they stand, the salute and the handshake, and I really wanted to honour that,” says Ritchson, 39, one of three boys, himself father to three sons.
He almost envies Reacher’s directness and brevity of speech.
“Reacher’s blunt, direct quality is one of my favourite things about him and I think too many of us sugar-coat everything to the point of sometimes suffering at the hands of somebody else when really, we want to say what needs to be said but we don’t, so we walk away with a little regret. I don’t think Reacher has ever been accused of that, but it makes for great TV and a fun read, and I think we love him for it; the fact that he says what we want to say.
“But I think that’s just one of the qualities he has that resonates with all of us on a deep level. I wish I was like Reacher in that sense – there’s a lot of times I wish that I had said something but didn’t. But also, we have to be a society; we have to find a way to get along and compromise with each other in the middle, so we can’t all be Reacher. And I love that about him, and I think that’s where a lot of the levity and the fun in the show comes from,” he tells us.
Chatting with Ritchson in Los Angeles, his enormous muscles bulge from a pale blue sweatshirt, and you can’t help but think that he might even give Chris Hemsworth a run for his money.
He’s keenly aware that this is his big shot at fame, having previously only appeared in minor roles in Beowulf and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other largely forgettable fare. To this end, he reflects fondly on working with a young Jennifer Lawrence on The Hunger Games: Catching Fire as an example of how to handle fame.
“I can date our time together because she held our first-born son as an infant and I remember her rocking him and coo-ing and going, ‘Oh he’s so cute’ and he was dressed as a green bean. She was so sweet to him, and my goal has been to work with her again ten or 20 years later and for her to hold him again. He’s about 100lbs heavier but I think she’s got it; I believe in her,” laughs Ritchson who portrayed the tribute Gloss in the blockbuster franchise.
“Working with Jennifer was a lot of fun. I was a little greener then and you come in with a wide-eyed reverence for a film that size; it was already a global phenomena. And you’re watching all these amazing actors like Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci and Jennifer and Josh and Sam Clafin, spanning generations, so there was a lot to learn from those people. And unanimously, across the board, there was a professionalism and just a sense of joy in the process. Nobody took it too seriously, you never felt like, ‘Guys, we’re not curing cancer here’, everybody just had a good time.
“Jennifer walks around with a gallon-size Ziploc bag full of all the candies – like Willy Wonka dumped it all in her bag – she’s eating it and throwing it at you, and then they steal it from her and they’re like, ‘You’ve gotta shoot the arrow. Action!’ And then she shoots it and she’s all powerful and she’s Jennifer Lawrence and then she gets her candy back and she’s back to being like a four-year-old.
“It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from that. We don’t have to take ourselves too seriously. We are doing this to either share some important seed of an idea that we, as a society, should reflect on, or we’re doing it to help people escape from their life for a moment and give some reprieve from what we all deal with. And, regardless of the reason we’re doing this, I think we can do it with some joy. Jennifer exemplified that well,” he says.
With this debut season of Reacher, the writers have adapted Child’s first book, The Killing Floor, although with a further 27 books in the Reacher series, the show could potentially go on forever.
Updating the character along the lines of Jack Ryan in Prime Video’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series and Det. Harry Bosch in Bosch, is clearly something Amazon excels at.
Ritchson understands that his performance will be compared to that of Tom Cruise, and he’s not about to throw the guy under the figurative bus.
“What seems unfair is that I would be mentioned in the same sentence as Mr Cruise. His legacy looms so much larger than mine. I’m the small one when we’re mentioned in the same sentence. He’s a legend. I grew up watching everything he’s ever done, and I wanted to be like him, and just wished for the same fire and passion that he brings to his characters, in my own career, so I don’t think I can ever compare to him. He’s an icon who will always be on a pedestal in my mind,” he says diplomatically.
“That said, we have an opportunity to, not to reinvent anything, but just to go back to the books and be as authentic as possible and everybody wanted to start fresh and see if they can honour what’s on the page and I’m lucky to be thought of as Reacher. I’m glad they gave me a shot. I think fans of the books will love it, but it’s also just great TV so, if you’ve never read the books, I think you will enjoy it just as much. It’s a fun ride.”
Reacher premieres on Amazon Prime Video on February 4, 2022