Analyse This

JOHN KRASINSKI IS JACKRYAN IN A NEW REBOOT FOR THE CIA HERO…

- Matt Maytum

Having previously been played on film by the likes of Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine, Jack Ryan is a daunting mantle for an actor to take on. “It was definitely intimidating,” says John Krasinski, the latest to step into the shoes of Tom Clancy’s most famous character, when Small Screen meets him in a London hotel. “Those aren’t just any actors, too: those are huge movie stars. Maybe this was just my coping mechanism, but it was a bit of a free pass because we were changing the format so dramatically.”

That change is taking the character from big screen to small: Jack Ryan will stream on Amazon Prime Video, in binge-friendly format. “I think that’s one of the key reasons why I decided to do the part, because of this idea that maybe a movie isn’t the best format for Jack Ryan, because it’s only two hours,” Krasinski adds. “If you’ve ever seen a Clancy book, they’re very thick and very rich and dense with detail. So we’re able to explore all of that in a way that those actors couldn’t.”