Jack Ryan's John Krasinski on his insane body transformation: 'Vanity'

John Krasinski has always been a fan favourite star following his eight-year stint as resident nice guy Jim Halpert on The Office, but in the last six years, the star has rebranded himself as an action star following roles in 13 Hours and Jack Ryan. With the star and his wife Emily Blunt currently living in Sydney while the actress shoots The Fall Guy alongside Ryan Gosling, Yahoo Lifestyle got the chance to sit down with John and his co-star Michael Kelly as they prepare for the release of Jack Ryan season three later this month.

John shared that he's been loving living in Australia for the last few weeks, saying it's been 'amazing' so far. "It's one of the places I've been wanting to come to since I was a kid!" he told us. "I remember in school, I think I was like 14 or 15, they said, 'Where in the world do you want to go?' And I was like, 'Australia!' And I've never been here, until now, so this is amazing!"

"My first time as well, and it's incredible!" Michael added.

When sharing our disbelief that they'd both never been to Australia before, John joked, "I know right, you'd think that maybe I would have been here for something, guess I'm not popular enough, but now Jack Ryan season three! Only my 22nd year in this business and whoop, they're in!"

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The show features incredible backdrops of different cities and countries around the world, but has never shot in Australia, and when asked if they'd ever consider shooting Down Under, John said, "Don't tempt him," pointing at Michael.

"I'm like, 'Let's go, cool!'" Michael adds.

John revealed season four of the show has already been shot, meaning any chance of Australia featuring would have to wait for a later season.

After we suggested it as a season five location, John agreed, "Here, in Australia, done!"

John on his transformation into an action hero

When asked if John had always been interested in making the switch to action hero roles, or if it was something he was trying to do to keep up with Emily's action films, he joked, "You know what, that's true, it just came down to the competition in the relationship, that's all it was about.

"No, it's one of those things, where I try to keep everything open as to what's going to happen, because you never know what's going to happen in this career, we're just so lucky to be doing it."

He continued, "I owe a lot to Michael Bay, who gave me the role in 13 Hours, and when he saw that I could do something like that, I guess I had to believe that I could do something like that. So, the whole body transformation and all that stuff, is really just getting in shape so when you're on camera and you have to take your shirt off you don't weep for days."

"It's vanity that drives us," Michael joked, with John adding, "Exactly! He said it best, that's a more articulate way to say it."

Speaking about the difference between working on a comedy and working on a drama, John shared that he believes they're actually more similar than you'd expect, "Usually, it's timing, I remember on A Quiet Place, people were like, 'How did you know how to do scares?' And I said, 'It's the same thing as comedy, if you know that beat of how to make people laugh, that's also how you make people cry, how you make people scared,' but I could be totally wrong and that just sounds so pretentious!"

He adds that even though it's a drama onscreen, off camera, he, Michael and the rest of the cast and crew are having so much fun, "Weirdly, comedy is driving even this show behind each of the scenes."

Michael also shares that he "learned so much" from working with John when it came to comedic timing, "He would writing a killer one liner for me and I would do it wrong a bunch of times, and he would be like, 'So if you just wait one beat...'"

They joked that on set John would read the line to Michael so he could just copy John's delivery, with Michael adding, "And then I would get it and be like, 'Look at me I'm funny now!'"

John and Michael on the best part of shooting Jack Ryan

When asked what the best part of working on season three of Jack Ryan was, the pair shared that the travel has always been amazing, especially during a time when not many productions were able to shoot due to Covid-19.

"For me, it's really travelling around the world, especially, we were shooting in the middle of Covid, we were, I think the second – it might have just been Mission Impossible and us for a while there out shooting," John said. "So to be out in the world going to all these countries and getting to see places in the world that you've never even dreamt of being able to go to and then also have it be during a pandemic, it was all pretty surreal.

"That was a really exciting, nerve-wracking time, but we felt this sort of responsibility to get out there and hopefully if our show worked and people were out there working, then other shows would jump in too. So there was a whole different thing going on this season, but I've got to say, it's definitely my favourite season, this was my most fun to shoot, doing anything with [Michael] is fun and so the fact there were cameras there was a bonus."

"We do really have that much fun, like it's hard work and he works a lot harder than I do," Michael added.

Jack Ryan season three drops on Amazon Prime Video on Wednesday, December 21.

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