Alan Ritchson’s height is more in line with the Jack Reacher in Lee Child’s books.

For years, plenty of conversations have been had about Jack Reacher and his height. The character, created by author Lee Child, is said to be pretty tall and jacked in the books.

Tom Cruise — as legendary an actor as he is — was just not quite the right height for portraying the Reacher in the 2012 movie Jack Reacher and its 2016 sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. With the Prime Video show Reacher, however, it seems that fans have a lead star, Alan Ritchson, they approve of, build-wise.

But how tall is Ritchson? In a February 2022 interview with kinowetter, Ritchson plainly put his height out there to satisfy curious Reacher fans. The actor, who is now age 41, is 6 feet, 3 inches tall. He also notes that, in costume, he is 6 feet, 5 inches tall, thanks to the “giant” boots he wears in scenes.

“There was a lot of effort put into finding a Reacher that fit the description,” Ritchson said. “And a lot of that is out of my control. The stars just happened to align for me. I happened to be the right size and come available at the right time, and it just all worked out. So I come at this with a lot of gratitude.”

While he’s naturally tall, Ritchson has worked hard to maintain his physique for the role. He recently opened up about the process to GQ, and it was a tough time. In fact, he claims he “wrecked” his body to achieve the look.

“I want to clarify one thing because in every interview someone says ’30 pounds of muscle’. I put on 30 pounds! I don’t know how much of that was lean muscle,” Ritchson said. “I went from 205lb to 235lb in eight months, I was eating a tonne. I don’t think all of that was muscle.

A good chunk was – a little more than half, maybe. But I didn’t take steroids, I didn’t take testosterone. There was only one way to get where I needed to be and that was hard work.

I f—ing wrecked my body, dude. It was too much. I didn’t have time to heal. I would strain something and I was like, ‘I don’t care! I’m working through it'” I suffered the consequences.

“When I finished [Season 1], I needed surgery. I couldn’t breathe well. I got a blood panel done and found out I had no testosterone left [because of overtraining].

My doctor was like, ‘You need to be on testosterone.’ [Testosterone therapy] was a real gift because now I’m able to easily maintain that size. My workouts are short and sweet – maybe 30 minutes a day.

There’s no doubt that people place a big emphasis on his size, but to me, the character is much more than that. The heart of the character really lies in his sardonic sense of humour, which is incredibly fun to play. He’s a smart guy, and isn’t afraid to be a smart-ass. That underlying humour is what brings depth to him as a character, and also keeps audiences entertained.”