Joe Manganiello says Tom Cruise blocked his Reacher role over Sofía Vergara
Joe Manganiello is reaching for Tom Cruise when it comes to the blame for a casting mix-up. In his new memoir Bloodlines, out Oct. 13, the Magic Mike star writes that his team suspected the Top Gun actor quietly vetoed his shot at the lead in Prime Video's Reacher — on account of Manganiello's then-wife, Sofía Vergara.
“Maybe Tom Cruise, who was listed as executive producer because he had starred in the previous film adaptations, could have come over the top,” Manganiello writes, “and vetoed my being cast.”
The Spider-Man actor explains the theory: Cruise had been linked to Vergara more than a decade earlier, and Manganiello believes the Scientology connection was the sticking point. “She said she had broken up with him years before after refusing to take the E-Meter test at the L. Ron Hubbard Celebrity Centre for Scientology,” he writes, “so maybe he wouldn't want to have to deal with the association with me in perpetuity.”
A role he thought was locked
Manganiello had been confident he had the part — but it went to Alan Ritchson, who has played Jack Reacher across the series since 2022. “No one would tell me what the hell happened,” he admits.
The 49-year-old is careful, though, to keep the accusation soft. Cruise played Reacher in two feature films but has not been listed among the TV show's producers, and Manganiello stresses, “It was all just speculation.” E! News has reached out to Cruise's reps and has not yet heard back.
Neither Vergara nor Cruise has ever confirmed a romance, but an unauthorized Cruise biography by Andrew Morton claimed they had a brief mid-aughts fling after meeting through Will Smith. In that telling, Vergara was “dazzled” by Cruise but unwilling to drop her Catholic faith for Scientology.
Vergara, for her part, has been much more direct about why her seven-year marriage to Manganiello ended in 2023. “My marriage broke up because my husband was younger; he wanted to have kids and I didn't want to be an old mom,” she told El País in 2024.