These days, Alan Ritchson is synonymous with Jack Reacher. He’s been playing the character in Prime Video’s book-to-screen adaptation for four seasons, and he’ll continue to do so for at least two more, as Season 5 is in production and the series got an early renewal for Season 6. However, before he was cast, Joe Manganiello was up for the part, and he is alleging that he might not have gotten it because of Tom Cruise and their mutual connection to Sofía Vergara.
Manganiello claimed he was a frontrunner to play Jack Reacher in Reacher in his memoir Bloodlines (via Page Six). Apparently, he met with Don Granger, a Skydance Media exec, in 2020 about the part. They spoke about the role, including Tom Cruise not fitting the physical description of Jack Reacher. Along with this, the exec reportedly told the Magic Mike actor that he was “the closest thing to Jack Reacher that I’ve ever met in my entire life.” However, ultimately, he didn’t get the part. Why?
Well, Manganiello thinks Cruise might have had something to do with it, as he wrote his team had hedged at the time Cruise may have been involved, though the actor wasn't listed specifically.
An executive producer [on the show], could have potentially come in over the top and vetoed my being cast on account of Sofía.
It’s worth noting that Tom Cruise is not listed as an executive producer on the show Reacher, per IMDb. He did produce his own Jack Reacher movies; however, he has no credited involvement with the Amazon series that features Alan Ritchson as the titular character.
However, Cruise reportedly dated Vergara for a short time in 2005. Then, the Modern Family actress was with Manganiello for nearly a decade. The pair got married in 2015, and then their divorce was announced in 2023. So, at the time of Reacher’s development, he was still with Vergara.
Again, it’s not known what exactly played into the final choice; Manganiello stated what he and his team thought happened in his book. However, he also noted in his memoir that Jennifer Salke, who was the head of Amazon MGM Studios from 2018 to 2025, was not happy about potentially casting him as Reacher.
The actor wrote that showrunner Nick Santora, Skydance owner David Ellison and Lee Child, the author of the Jack Reacher books, were supposedly wanting to hire him, but she was allegedly upset because she was not a big part of the decision-making process. The actor wrote:
[Salke] felt that she was being railroaded into a final decision made by a group of primarily male producers that she didn’t feel part of.
So that could have come into play when Ritchson got signed on, as well. Regardless, it's definitely some very juicy behind-the-scenes info either way.
Ultimately, it was Alan Ritchson who earned the role of Reacher. During a conversation with Empire, he said that the audition process was “very competitive and took over a year," so it doesn't sound like it was a cake walk for him or Joe Manganiello.
In fact, the first time he tried out for the part, “they passed on [him] and everybody else that auditioned.” Eight months later, the Fast X actor got called in again to audition in front of a new casting director with a new script, and then he was officially offered the part.
At the end of the day, Alan Ritchson is Jack Reacher now. So, if you’d like to see him in Reacher, you can stream it with an Amazon Prime subscription. If you want to see what Joe Manganiello is up to, you can stream Season 2 of One Piece with a Netflix subscription and read his new book, Bloodlines, now.
