Alan Ritchson On Being Passed Up For The Role of JACK REACHER Before Being Given Another Shot

Fans were pretty upset and confused when the movie adaptation of Jack Reacher was being developed and the studio cast Tom Cruise in the title role. While Cruise is a big star who always goes above and beyond in the action roles he stars in, Jack Reacher is based on the books by Lee Child, who describes the character as 6 feet 5 inches and 250 pounds. While Cruise is a good actor, there’s just no way for him to even attempt to look that big! So when the Amazon series Reacher got picked up, the creators knew all eyes were on them to pick the right guy for the job. The colossal actor Alan Ritchson ended up with the part, and fans have been happy with him in the role, but he actually was passed up once before he got the part.

In a recent interview with Collider, Ritchson detailed the audition process, saying:

"It's funny, I actually didn't get the role at first. I'm not exactly six foot five and I'm not exactly 250, and I had heard that they were being very specific with their physical demands. After working with Tom Cruise and a lot of fans being upset that he didn't really have the physicality, as great as he was in the role, they really wanted to get that right. I was like, 'Well, they wanna read me, but I know they're gonna find someone like Dwayne Johnson, who's a huge dude.' I auditioned for the part and it was good, it was just that my take on it was a little different than what they had in mind, at the time."

He went on to explain how he was able to get the role he though he’d lost, saying:

"There was a shake-up with who was casting, so they started again from scratch, and I'd already been passed on, as had everybody who did an audition. But when they came back around, they picked a few tapes that they'd seen already, and I was one of them, so they wanted me to come back and try again, and it worked out."

Ritchson did go on to get the role, and he even gained 30 pounds after working out for five days a week over eight months by the time Reacher Season 1 was ready to start shooting, making the actor that much closer to embodying the gigantic character. It’s a good thing that things got shaken up behind the scenes, as Ritchson does a great job as Jack Reacher.

We don’t know when the show is set to return to Amazon, but we do know that the second season is based on the 11th book in Lee Child’s bestselling series, Bad Luck and Trouble, which begins “when the members of Reacher’s old military unit start turning up dead. Reacher has just one thing on his mind—revenge.”

Are you enjoying Ritchson as Reacher? Season 1 is available on Amazon.