Tom Cruise Talks Jack Reacher in One Shot

One Shot is currently shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with Tom Cruise starring as Jack Reacher from Lee Child‘s novel series. The actor appears on the cover of the upcoming issue of Empire Magazine, with his Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol co-stars. Take a look at the magazine cover below, and read on below for his comments about playing Jack Reacher in One Shot.

Tom Cruise‘s casting in One Shot was somewhat controversial, since the actor doesn’t exactly match up with the 6’5″ character written in the novel. Tom Cruise revealed that author Lee Child was present at his early readings for the part, and gave his blessing for Tom Cruise to play Jack Reacher. Here’s what Tom Cruise had to say below.

“Firstly, I’m very sensitive to it. 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. 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.”

Tom Cruise also compared Jack Reacher to some iconic movie characters from the past.

“Reacher is such a great character. 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 colours of their life, but Jack Reacher does things the way we want to sometimes. In that sense he’s sort of a Dirty Harry, a James Bond, a Josey Wales.”

One Shot comes to theaters February 8th, 2013 and stars Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo, Werner Herzog, Michael Raymond-James, Richard Jenkins, Alexia Fast, Robert Duvall. The film is directed by Christopher McQuarrie.

Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol comes to theaters December 21st, 2011 and stars Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Jeremy Renner, Josh Holloway, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Vladimir Mashkov, Michael Nyqvist. The film is directed by Brad Bird.