There’s been some controversy about Paramount Pictures and director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie’s decision to go with Tom Cruise for the role of Jack Reacher in the thriller One Shot, based on Lee Child’s novels. Cruise talks about the casting in the new issue of Empire magazine, which features Cruise and his Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol co-stars on the cover (see below).
“Firstly, I’m very sensitive to it,” Cruise explained from the Pittsburgh set. “This is Lee’s book and Lee’s character. Him giving me his blessing is what made me do it. If he hadn’t then I wouldn’t have done it.”
The biggest issue with fans has been the height difference between Reacher and Cruise. “Lee told me that the reason he wrote him that size (6’5″) is because that was just one element to his character, and that opened the door to me playing him.”
“Reacher is such a great character,” he added. “He doesn’t have a cell phone, he doesn’t have email. He’s off the grid. He pays for things in cash. People look at things through the prism of the colors of their life but Jack Reacher does things the way we want to sometimes. In that sense he’s sort of Dirty Harry, a James Bond, a Josey Wales.”
One Shot is scheduled for a February 8, 2013 release.
