‘Jack Reacher’ author says casting Tom Cruise was “mistake” because he didn’t have the “physicality”

Jack Reacher author Lee Child has said casting Tom Cruise in the film adaptation was a “mistake” due to his lack of “physicality”.

Cruise played the vigilante former US Army military policeman in the 2012 film version of Child’s novels, and its 2016 sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.

The casting proved controversial at the time, due to the original character being described as being “extremely broad”, “blond” and “standing at 6’5””. Cruise is 5’7” and was considered by many fans of the books not to be an appropriate choice for the role.

In a new interview with Metro, Child spoke about Cruise’s involvement in the films while promoting the third season of the Amazon Prime Video series Reacher. “In one of the Tom Cruise movies, there’s a line where the detective goes to the motel and says, ‘I’m looking for a guy who could kill someone with one punch,’ and they point to Tom Cruise, which is not really all that plausible,” he said.

Comparing him to Alan Ritchson, who plays the character in Reacher, he continued: “Finally, we’ve incorporated the physicality in a way that really matches the character. The show is Reacher. He carries the whole thing. It has to be right. And especially after the pushback we got from Cruise, I thought, ‘This is totally crucial now. We can’t make two mistakes. It was absolutely important and Alan was just right.”

Child was quick to clarify that working with Cruise was a “pleasure and privilege”, adding: “I love Tom. He’s a super guy, a smart person, and we were good friends. We worked together very well.’

The writer also spoke about the controversy in 2022, when he explained that he thought “the size thing is important to certain parts of the narrative”.

The third season of Reacher launched on Prime Video on Thursday (February 20), with episodes premiering every week up until the final instalment on March 27.

Elsewhere, footage from Cruise’s upcoming film Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning premiered during the 2025 Super Bowl. It showed Cruise’s Ethan Hunt performing several death-defying stunts and a number of throwbacks to scenes from previous entries in the franchise.

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