Reacher Star Alan Ritchson Has Two Major Problems With James Bond
"Reacher" star Alan Ritchson doesn't appear to be in the running to play James Bond — and what's more, he doesn't care.
Ritchson, who plays Jack Reacher — a retired police major in the U.S. Army who slowly gets involved with local small town cops to help bring in shady characters — spoke to Entertainment Weekly and explained how he really feels about the famous British character. Apparently, he's not wild about the way Bond treats women ... and he also thinks the entire franchise could stand to try a few different things.
After telling the outlet that he loves playing Jack Reacher and that Jack already feels like an American take on James Bond, Ritchson continued, "I love those larger-than-life, over-the-top action thrillers and spy movies and the heists that are smart and ahead of the audience. That's really great, but I feel like Bond, to me personally — people are going to hate me for saying this — I love Bond, but I feel like it's all a little misogynistic and predictable at this point."
In fact, Ritchson thinks that Jack Reacher is what James Bond could be if the character had evolved ... and thinks that his series may just be a new frontier for spy thrillers.
Alan Ritchson thinks that Jack Reacher is sort of uncool — which makes him cooler
To be fair, Alan Ritchson still had some praise for the character of James Bond, saying that he loves the way the classic pop culture figure can "play 4D chess and stay ahead of us and save the world." Still, he thinks Jack Reacher is a little more human and fleshed out than the cool, collected James Bond — in that Jack isn't as cool as Bond, and that's what really makes the character work.
"Reacher, to me, is like the American Bond, and I think it's a cool way to go about doing it where it's a little less purposefully cool," Ritchson told the outlet. "He's not in on how slick he is. I don't feel like we can have characters these days that are in on the joke."
As Ritchson put it, Jack's lack of self-awareness is what makes him such a great character: "Either they know that they're funny, they know that they're smart, they know that they're very cool or capable or invincible — I feel like it reduces the stakes of stories, and we've seen too many movies, we're too savvy as an audience to be entertained by that."