Reacher-worthy
Second time around, Lee Child’s character has real screen presence.
As Lee Child’s books never fail to remind readers, Jack Reacher is a big bloke. He’s 1.95m tall, weighs some 110kg – possibly more after yet another heroic diner breakfast – and has size12 feet. Yes, he has big brogues to fill, and Alan Ritchson is the second person to do it on screen after Tom Cruise.
Judging by early episodes of Reacher – and the all-American biceps that crowd the screen on a Zoom call to his place in Florida – Ritchson has the right dimensions to play the former military policeman turned itinerant justicedispenser. The right bearing, too, possibly something he got from growing up in a military family with a father who was a chief master sergeant in the United States Air Force.
Ritchson was cast as Reacher – with Child’s approval – after a stint as Hawk in the superhero television show Titans. He’s also been a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in the 2014 movie. Reacher has some similar traits to those comic-book creations, though he requires less time in the costuming department.
“Reacher is a superhero in a way.
He’s this impenetrable physical force.
It’s been a lot of fun to play, but to be able to do that in jeans and a jacket, every episode, is great. He’s a minimalist, thank goodness. I don’t need a team of people to get into the same pair of Levi’s every episode.”
Having a series based on a popular book character on his shoulders was one thing. Doing the physical requirements left Ritchson beat up – he carried on through a torn abdominal muscle, a broken shoulder joint and muscle spasms and cramps from the anti-inflammatories he was prescribed. He had shoulder surgery after the series wrapped.
Now he has to face Reacher’s fans. He’s prepared. “Yeah, I saw myself on a book cover the other day for a new Killing Floor release. Surreal doesn’t begin to capture what that feels like.
“I’m aware of how many international borders this franchise crosses, how many people are aware of who Reacher is. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some pressure to please all those people.
“I want to. But the way I can do that is by forgetting that for a moment and being true to the source material and being as authentic as possible with who he is.” a little online bookseller was starting up in Seattle calling itself Amazon. This book will have been among the very first it sold.”
As an author, he’s a happy content provider for the retail company turned multimedia giant. “The problem with thinking about Amazon is that we instinctively tend to reach for analogies – that it’s like this other thing that happened before. It absolutely isn’t. We’ve got to get out of that way of thinking. What we’re seeing now with Google, Tesla, Facebook … this has never happened before, there are no analogies.
“The way that Amazon, in particular, operates, depends on an explosion of ideas, constantly. Some of them are bad ideas, and I’m not hesitant in saying that, and it’s not hesitant in realising it either, because a lot of those ideas just die away. But the point is there is no roadmap, it’s inventing it as it goes along. Some of it will be great, and some of it not so great. Certainly, it seems to have found out how to do great streaming television.”
The binge-viewing era seems to suit shows that adapt the work of authors who know how to knock out a good page-turner, a proposition Child agrees with. But it’s not just a matter of filming the book.
“That’s the skill that I miss. How do you make somebody watch in the next minute rather than next week?”
He received final versions of the eight Reacher episodes a few days earlier, having already seen rough cuts. “And I binge-watched them through the night. They have nailed something that is hypnotic about it.”
He’s happy to be leaving Reacher behind, just as he gets his own show. He hasn’t really been his character for a few years now.
“If you’re in the position that a television series is going to be made, your character has already been taken away from you by the readers – ownership has migrated away from the author.
“It has been fascinating to observe as an author. In the early days, a reader would be aware that you, a human being, have written this thing.
“New Zealand is the world capital of Reacher madness, believe me.”
Then, as it becomes more of an institution, they treat you like any other reader, and they’ll discuss the books with me as if their opinions are as valid as mine, which they are.
“So, in a very genuine way, the character left me years ago, and if he now shows up on television, yeah, great. So he should.”
He’s aware Reacher has a sizeable fan base in this part of the world.
“New Zealand is the world capital of Reacher madness, believe me. It was the first place I had a No 1 and it was the first place the popularity got out of control.
“I think it is because Kiwis see a lot of themselves in Reacher. This taciturn, solid guy, self-reliant. He’ll do the right thing, no fuss, no drama. I wasn’t aiming at it but I think somehow, by chance, I hit a national characteristic there.”
Or maybe we just like punching each other a lot.
“That’s good, too.” ▮