Fans have been loving Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher, but it almost wasn't so.
The Ordinary Angels actor has been starring as the beloved ex-Army investigator since 2022, and is gearing up to come back for a fourth season of the Amazon Prime Video hit in the coming year.
However, his enthusiasm when first auditioning for the role — which was previously helmed by Tom Cruise in two movies — almost left him with a botched audition.
Last year, during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Alan looked back on his own audition for Reacher — which was during the COVID-19 pandemic — specifically one of his last virtual meetings for it, filming from his house.
Recalling a final screen-test, he said he "made no mistakes," however at the end, Don Granger, a producer for Skydance, said there was something "distracting" going on in the background, like the sound of drums.
Alan eventually came to realize it was the microphone attached to his chest emitting his fast-paced heartbeats, which he had set up in an effort to have as professional of an audition as possible.
"Oh my god, I was that nervous! My heart was pounding so hard that it distracted the entire screen test," he said with a laugh.
Reacher started production for season four last month, and it will run through October, however an exact release date for 2026 has yet to be announced.
Based on the British novel series by author Jim Grant (under the pen name Lee Child), which now includes 29 books, the Jack Reacher story first came to life on screen in 2012 when Tom took up the role.
Also in the movie was Jai Courtney — who is Alan's co-star in the upcoming Netflix film War Machine — who recently opened up about missing out on the role. "I've seen the show, and I remember when that was casting, I was like, 'Wait, I'm big enough to play Jack Reacher,' and they were like, 'No, that's too close to home,' which was a bummer at the time," he told Forbes adding: "I never got to look in."
Still, he has nothing but praise for the man who did get the role. "Alan's great in that, and he's great in War Machine," he said, and maintained: "I admire that dude and what he's doing."
"It's weirdly cool to see big, burly blokes getting roles because there was such a fear for a while. I know we've always had iconic action stars with certain physiques, but as someone who's not small, it's nice to see dudes in dramatic roles who aren't getting pigeonholed so much," he then noted, adding that "he's getting a chance to do that with a lot of the work he's setting up, so props to him" and that he "can't wait to see how [War Machine] does."