John Krasinski tackles terror, career shift in ‘Jack Ryan’
LOS ANGELES (AP) — John Krasinski comes across in conversation as a disarming match to his screen image, the sort of easy-going, decent guy he played on TV’s “The Office” and in the romantic comedy “Away We Go.”
Make that his former image. In a burst of creative versatility, he’s fashioned himself into an acclaimed film director with “A Quiet Place” (in which he plays opposite wife Emily Blunt) and muscular heroes in the movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” and the new Amazon series “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” debuting Friday.
In low-key style, Krasinski is proving that expectations are to be ignored. Who could have predicted that gangly, deskbound Jim of “The Office” would be hunting Middle Eastern terrorists as fledgling CIA analyst Ryan, or that the latest iteration of Clancy’s big-canvas work would arrive — cinematically intact — on the small screen?
Such boundary-busting can be traced back to Krasinski’s 2005-13 “Office” days, in the sitcom that he considered “the best thing out there, movie or television.”
“I felt so proud to be a part of it, and so my definition of television and film was always blended. I never saw it as film or television, but rather just the best project going, the best character I can play,” he said, something that’s easier than ever to find on TV with the explosion of “really great shows.”
The specific attraction of “Jack Ryan,” his first series since “The Office,” was both its form and content.