How “Cheating” on His Reacher Audition Almost Lost Alan Ritchson the Role

Alan Ritchson explained to Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show how he almost blew his Reacher audition in a comical way.

SUMMARY

 Alan Ritchson almost lost the role of Jack Reacher due to cheating during a crucial screen test, but managed to secure it in the end.
 Reacher is Prime Video’s golden child, with Season 3 currently filming after impressive viewership numbers in Season 2.

Alan Ritchson seemed to land the role of Jack Reacher with ease, bringing Lee Child’s character to life in an almost perfectly physical representation of the 6’ 5” mercenary. However, clinching the role was never a certainty for the actor, and in fact, was the result of a “hard-fought” and nerve-wracking audition process that the actor says he almost fluffed thanks to him “cheating” during his screen test.

Reacher

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Release Date: February 4, 2022
Creator: Nick Santora
Cast: Alan Ritchson , Maria Sten , Malcolm Goodwin , Willa Fitzgerald

Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Ritchson recalled being asked to do a second screen test for Skydance and Amazon during the Covid pandemic, which allowed him to do it from his fully kitted out basement and that almost led to his downfall. He told Fallon:

“You had to audition, and they wanted the exact specifications. He’s 6′ 5″ and I’m 6′ 3”. I’m automatically out. But I fought for this. So before Season 1, usually there’s an audition process. You go do one or two lines. If you’re lucky, you screen test. But this was during Covid.

So they go, ‘We’re gonna read you one one more time. It was pretty good. Skydance or Amazon wants to see you.’ So I’m like, ‘Okay I’ll do it again.’ So, I show up ready. But I was cheating because I had this setup in my house. I had an amazing camera, like a film camera, lights. I was micing myself up. I was doing the whole thing.

So I get near the end. We’re screen-testing for this thing. This is like the most crucial step. And I mic myself up. We get in there and I do a scene. And it went really well. I made no mistakes. It was solid. And Don Granger of Skydance, [who has] been Tom Cruise’s partner for a long time.

The guy’s a legend. He goes, ‘Yeah, that was a little distracting. Did you guys hear the …it sounded like drums or something.’ And Nick Santora, the showrunner, was like, ‘Yeah it almost sounded like a heartbeat to me. It was all I could hear. Like we need to do it again.’

And I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ They go, ‘Are you wearing a microphone?’ I was that nervous. My heart was pounding so hard that it distracted the entire screen test. So I go ‘Pssh, no. I’m not wearing a…’ and I snuck off camera and I ripped the microphone off, and I went back in. And none the wiser, and I ended up with the part. So I got lucky, but I almost lost it.”

Reacher Is Currently Filming Season 3

Having landed record viewership for Season 2, Reacher is currently the golden child of Prime Video. Ritchson’s performance as the action hero has done just enough to bat away niggles over the scripting and dialogue of the second season, and set up a series that doesn’t appear to be heading to the chopping block any time soon.

Reacher Season 3 will once again be based on one of Lee Child’s novels, this time Persuder, the seventh novel to feature the character.

While the series kicked off with Killing Floor, the first Reacher novel published, the show has not taken a linear approach to adapting other books. Instead, the show is working through novels that help to define different aspects of the character, and as Reacher’s stories are mostly stand-alone, this seems to be working for the series.