Jack Ryan S3: John Krasinski Finds The Show's All-Too-Real Story 'Heartbreaking'

Real life may often be stranger than fiction, but sometimes can unintentionally mirror the real world in ways that no one really intends for it to. According to "Jack Ryan" star John Krasinski, that was the case for Season 3 of his hit Amazon Prime action series. During an interview with Collider in December of 2022, Krasinski spoke at length about how the plot of the season mirrors the real-world and ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.

"Yeah, I mean, I think it's unequivocally heartbreaking," Krasinski said. "I think it's something that we certainly didn't intend. We wrote the idea for the show about three years ago." In fact, the actor believed they were writing and crafting a "Jack Ryan" season that was so far beyond reality that it would simply translate into nothing more than entertaining action fare for viewers to relax to. But that didn't exactly happen. "And then to see in real life, not only is it not beyond the imagination, but it's horrific tenfold. I think what's going on in real life is worse than anything we could have put in the show, and we take that all very seriously."

While it's definitely unfortunate that Season 3 of "Jack Ryan" ended up being all too similar to real-world events, the actor also revealed that they did draw from some of the source material as well: Tom Clancy's books.

During the interview with Collider, John Krasinski disclosed that, while it was certainly incredibly unfortunate that their Season 3 storyline for "Jack Ryan" ended up being eerily similar to the Ukraine and Russia war, they actually looked at Tom Clancy's "Hunt for Red October" novel for inspiration. Of course, they changed key details to modernize it a bit, but the intent was the same.

"I like to put a small homage to all of Tom Clancy's books or movies in the series," Krasinski said. "And this season, we had decided to make it Hunt for Red October. So that's how we settled on Russia. Instead of a nuclear submarine, we thought, 'What would it be like to have the main threat be intel from a man? So you're looking for one man, not a submarine?'"

Of course, there's nothing inherently wrong with fiction pulling from reality in order to tell made-up stories. Still, the timing of Season 3 was so in sync with the war that it wouldn't have been surprising if some fans found the parallels a little insensitive on the show's part. Having Krasinski add some much-needed context like this certainly serves to alleviate those kinds of worries, even if the timing still seems eerily prescient.