Joe Manganiello and his team suspected that Tom Cruise interfered with his casting in Amazon’s Reacher series. The Magic Mike star went through a long audition process and impressed plenty of powerful people. Then the part went to someone else, and a Hollywood whodunit began to form in the background. The details, laid out in a new memoir, read like a thriller plot of their own.

While Hollywood loves a casting rumor, few arrive with a named suspect and a personal twist, and the memoir explains exactly why Manganiello suspected Cruise.

Joe Manganiello and his team suspected that Cruise quietly used his clout to block the Reacher role. Tom Cruise played Reacher in two films, while Manganiello matches the book hero at six feet five.

“An executive producer [on the show], could have potentially come in over the top and vetoed” his casting, Manganiello’s team speculated, according to his memoir Bloodlines, with Cruise as the producer they meant.

The team’s theory was that Cruise acted “on account of Sofía,” Manganiello’s then-wife Sofía Vergara, whom Cruise allegedly dated in 2005.

The memoir notes that Manganiello met Skydance executive Don Granger in January 2020 for an hour and a half, and Granger reportedly called him the closest match to Reacher he had ever met. Showrunner Nick Santora began writing the rest of the season around him. Amazon head Jen Salke felt excluded, and the part went to Alan Ritchson. Cruise, meanwhile, is not listed on IMDb as part of the production, and his reps did not reply.

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As Manganiello wondered about strings pulled, an older Cruise story shows a teenager making a bold move without asking anyone.

Tom Cruise recently revisited his early days with GQ’s Zach Baron in the magazine’s One More Question video series. He recalled that on the set of Taps, the 1981 military drama he made at 18, he shaved his head without telling the director. He arrived on set and removed his hat to reveal the change. Cruise explained that he took the instruction to create the character literally, so a new look felt like part of the work.

Taps was only his second film credit, and he played Cadet David Shawn in Harold Becker’s drama alongside Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn. Cruise said he believed he could outwork anyone and did not realize sets had unwritten barriers. The story now reads as an early preview of his habit of committing first and learning the rules later. The director asked for a character, and Cruise delivered one with a razor. Whether Cruise brought that same commit-first approach to the Reacher casting room is something only Joe Manganiello’s team is wondering.

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