Prime Video's Reacher finally debuts on Prime Video tomorrow, and ahead of its hotly-awaited premiere, we were granted an exclusive opportunity to sit down with the man of the hour, Alan Ritchson (Smallville; Blue Mountain State; Titans), to talk all things Jack Reacher.
With Ritchson being the second actor to portray the iconic character following the legendary Tom Cruise, who played him in Christopher McQuarrie's Jack Reacher and Edward Zwick's Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, we were naturally curious whether Ritchson revisited Cruise's two Reacher movies before bringing his version to life.
While he admits he's a huge fan of Cruise, he explains that he wanted to deliver a fresh take on the character, drawing inspiration solely from Lee Child's novels and the scripts.
"Yeah, I grew up watching Tom Cruise, he’s a film icon, he’s a legend and I can’t believe that I share - that there’s just one degree of separation between us with this role. It’s surreal and I’m grateful for everything he brought to this, but I wanted to make sure that I absorbed only what I found in the books and in the scripts.
I feel like that’s where I can honor this character best, I’m a bit of a behaviorist, I will naturally pick up on traits that other people have and I just wanted to avoid that, to be as true to this amazing twenty-four books, at the time, as I could possibly be and I feel like if I did that, then I’m doing my job and if I’m doing my job, I think we can create something that fans will enjoy and those that haven’t read the books, they’ll still get great TV that they can enjoy as well. I just wanted to stick to what was in the books and on the page."
Check out the video interview below!
Reacher starts streaming, exclusively on Prime Video, on February 4!