John Krasinski Says ‘Jack Ryan’ Helped Him Prepare for Marvel Role
Since 2018, John Krasinski has portrayed Jack Ryan, the analyst-turned-field agent, on Amazon Prime’s Jack Ryan. The Office alum has come a long way since his days as a sales representative in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to get the coveted part of Ryan. The actor, who has been in the role for three seasons, says his time as Jack Ryan helped him prepare for his role in Marvel’s Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
John Krasinski is the fifth actor to portray Jack Ryan
First introduced in Tom Clancy’s 1984 novel The Hunt for Red October, Jack Ryan is a former marine turned CIA analyst and field agent. Clancy’s world-traveling special operations whiz has been silently protecting American interests abroad for 40 years across five incarnations, all the while engaging in covert games and lurking in the shadows of geopolitical intelligence and espionage.
Playing Jack Ryan—the American version of James Bond—is a career highlight reserved for A-list actors. After Chris Pine, Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, and Ben Affleck, John Krasinski is the fifth actor to play the lead role in the franchise. The five actors considered for the part all offered unique qualities to the role. Harrison Ford’s performances in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger are thought to have inspired Krasinski’s version of the character.
John Krasinski says ‘Jack Ryan’ helped him prepare for his Marvel role
John Krasinski has played Jack Ryan since the 2018 launch of the Prime Video series. Still, he also had the opportunity to play a superhero in the 2022 film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, produced by Marvel Studios.
According to BroBible, Krasinski had trainer Simon Waterson create a specific exercise plan for him to follow to get into character as Jack Ryan. Five days a week were devoted to physical conditioning, with the weekends reserved for active recovery activities like yoga or physiotherapy.
In an interview with Parade, Krasinski revealed that his workout routine for Jack Ryan helped him land the Reed Richards cameo in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness because he was already in superhero shape.
When filming for Season 3 of Jack Ryan was ending up, the actor got the call asking if he wanted to jump in and play in that sandbox for a day. Krasinski recalled, “So I flew from Budapest all the way to L.A. just to play with them for a day, and it was a really fun day.”
‘Jack Ryan’ Season 4 has already completed filming
If you’ve just finished Season 3 of Jack Ryan, you may rest easy knowing that the next season won’t be too far behind. Season 4, which will be John Krasinski’s last, will hopefully be released sometime this year. In an interview with The Wrap, Krasinski revealed that Jack Ryan Season 3 and Season 4 were shot simultaneously to avoid making viewers wait, as there had been a long gap between Season 2 and Season 3.
He said, “We already finished Season 4. We actually shot three and four back-to-back. So that was the whole idea, knowing that the fans would go so long in between two and three, we decided to do three and four back to back so that they wouldn’t have to wait that long again.” Indeed, Season 2 of the Tom Clancy series on Amazon Prime Video arrived only a year after the first season debuted, but Season 3 was delayed by three years because of the pandemic.
As for what fans can expect from Krasinski’s last season of Jack Ryan, the actor said it would be a celebration of how the show works as an ensemble.
