John Krasinski chats about his new film and about playing the role of Tom Clancys Jack Ryan for Amazon.
We also spoke briefly about his recently-announced Amazon series based on Tom Clancys popular CIA analyst Jack Ryan.
Den of Geek: Ive known the films screenwriter Jim Strouse for some time.
John Krasinski:Yeah, he was absolutely supposed to be the director.
It was this organic thing where I knew Jim because I was a huge fan of his work.
I loved the movie and I immediately connected.
And yet, when I finished the script, I thought, Oh my God, its my family.
It all just sort of happened.
So it just sort of organically happened.
Luckily, he was hugely supportive of me doing it.
No, I mean he wrote a really near-perfect script, to be honest.
I did a little bit of a rewrite here and there.
I added a couple scenes, but for the most part, its what he had from the beginning.
One of the characters has two daughters, and I assumed Jim has two daughters…
I think he does actually.
Right, right, exactly.
He understands that, and he makes everything feel not manipulative.
We can be honest that weve seen a whole lot of family movies.
The script didnt change.
I mean, you nailed it on the head.
I think this is such an intimate thing.
and have to redo the scene over and over and over.
What I did is that I didnt call Cut!
It felt almost like we were doing a play.
Ive spoken to a number of actors over the years who direct their own films.
Theres the camp of those who when theyre directing dont want to act in it and focus on directing.
I assume youre more in that camp?
I really bonded to the script.
I love just trying to stretch myself to do more challenging stuff.
Do you feel at this point youre ready to venture to direct one of those bigger movies?
Right, more control to make the movie you set out to make originally.
Yeah, Id be ready to direct a bigger movie now.
Thats always what I venture to do.
I only want to direct if Im the person who has a good strong take on it.
Thats what we were going for.
We were trying to find a place that represented everybodys hometown.
Thats why it never mentions where we are.
I wanted people to feel like that was their hometown, too.
You spoke about tone earlier and music obviously plays a large part in that.
You have Josh Ritter doing the music, and I guess the songs were his as well?
Going very specifically with songs like The Graduatewas that an influence on this?
I think Jims done that in some of his movies as well.
Puts songs in it.
It was a latex wig so it was hugely expensive, and we had this artist genius.
It took him about two and a half months to make ithe threaded every single hair by hand.
You actually shaved the wig?
It was really well done as was Margo sporting a bald head.
It was, wasnt it?
But she didnt want to do it?
I think because she was on a television show at the time.
I think she was onThe Millers.
She probably was on three television shows.
It looked real enough that I wasnt sure.
I hope she gets acknowledgement or some chatter because she so deserves it.
Shes as good as it gets, but in this movie in particular, she crushes it.
Im really excited about it.
Im also really nervous.
I would love to, if theyll have me.
I mean, Bay is singular.
And he has one of the best stunt teams in the world.
Is there going to be any tie-in to the books or other films?
I dont think so.
I think were starting it over.
I think the truth is youve never seen Jack Ryan start as an analyst.
In the books, he starts behind the desk so thats where were starting.
So youre setting this up so it can possibly be a four or five season thing.
Yeah, exactly, yup.
