Declared a traitor, titular hero Jack Ryan is out in the cold and on the run in the third season of the spy-thriller TV series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. The analyst-turned-CIA agent uncovered evidence that the Sokol Project, a 50-year-old program designed to resurrect the Soviet Empire back to its glory days, is no longer dormant. As Jack digs for intel, things go horribly wrong, and he becomes entangled in a larger conspiracy.
With a Red Notice issued for his arrest, Jack embarks on a global mission to clear his name and find the truth. Time, however, is running out. Not only are old friends and new enemies hunting him down, but forces are manipulating the Americans and Russians into igniting World War III. Showrunner Vaun Wilmott recently spoke with CBR about Jack Ryan going rogue, defying expectations, explosive action sequences, and gearing up for Season 4.
CBR: Audiences have been waiting a long time for Jack Ryan's third season. There's been a delay in production due to Covid. When did you come on board? How did that come about?
Vaun Wilmott: I came on in October 2019. We started building the season then. By January, we were writing scripts. We were in the room in October, so we had a room in Santa Monica. We were writing, and then March 2020 hit, and then everything shut down. We did both seasons, Season 3 and Season 4. We did a pretty much two-year straight rub of work.
In broad strokes, when you were cracking Season 3, in what ways did you want to switch things up so that it was different than previous years?
Each season of Jack Ryan is self-contained. It is its own thing... It has a beginning, middle, and end. Even though you have Wendell Pierce and Mike Kelly and people coming from previous seasons, it is still its own thing. It's an opportunity to create new characters like Elizabeth Wright and President Kovac.
The intention of this season was to give it almost a Bond, global feel. It wasn't that Season 1 and Season 2 didn't have an international flair. This season felt really big and massively global. I think we did nine countries when we filmed. When you are in those places, you are in those places. That was the intention. Once we landed on the idea of Jack going rogue and having to become a fugitive to be able to do what he does outside the CIA, that unlocked it.
Let's elaborate. What did Jack on the run allow you to explore with the character?
We thought a lot about that in the writer's room. When you are used to seeing a man or a woman in an institutional setting like the CIA, where they are bound by the rules of the organization or whatever government body oversees them, that is one character. That is the character we saw in Season 1. In the second, Jack was probably starting to shade a little bit in terms of being a man, or a protagonist, that sometimes does things outside of the organization to basically accomplish positive outcomes or do the right thing.
This season allowed us to explore if Jack had none of that. Not only does he have none of that, he has the organization that he loves and works for come after him. It allowed us to explore his edgy, more survivalist mode as a hero. He is very much still the hero throughout the season, but I think it did allow us to explore what does that do to him? What does that do to a man who is used to being one thing, and now that one thing that he loves has turned against him erroneously because they got it wrong? That was it. He leans towards a Fugitive story. If you think about the Harrison Ford character, there is something interesting you can do with a character because they are outside of the system.
Speaking of the CIA, his boss, Elizabeth, seemed poised to stick it to Jack Ryan the whole season. How important was it to circumvent those expectations and give him a much-needed ally on the inside?
It is funny that you asked that. We had that conversation in the writer's room. The trope would be a powerful person... a powerful woman, a powerful man, who is his boss... who is literally going to go at him all season. At the end, there is kind of the coming of understanding. I wanted to show a really intelligent, powerful woman who was more complex in that she could access the information she was getting. Elizabeth could adjust her actions according to what she was seeing and learning. I thought it made her a much more interesting character. Also, the arc of the season for them is they start out in a rough way -- in terms, they are at odds. In the end, she believes in him fully and is willing to bet on him in a major way.
Leading man John Krasinski is also an executive producer on the show. He knows Jack Ryan inside and out. What were some of the elements he was vocal about this season? Did he want to push Jack Ryan more or make sure he didn't cross a certain moral line?
John is an EP. He and I worked really closely together to make sure that the Jack Ryan character that we were representing this season was one that he was excited about playing, that he believed in. He is very aware of what he believes Jack will do and what Jack won't do. He has a Spidey-sense of who that man is and how to play him and what John brings to that character. We had a lot of those discussions and always made sure that he was in that zone. Sometimes, I pushed something, and we would go down that route of discussion. Sometimes, he would push something, and we would go down that route, and that's what we would do. It was a nice balance of vision and focus on that character.
How challenging was it to film in those nine various countries during a pandemic?
I haven't had an opportunity to say this yet. All the people that made up that production, for me, are incredibly brave people. It was the heat of Covid. We didn't know how bad it was. Was it going to keep snowballing and getting worse? People were getting it, and there was no vaccine. People were getting it and dying quickly. It was really scary, and yet the entire crew turned up every day. They followed all the protocols. The Covid protocols were really strict to make sure that people were safe and didn't get sick. But there were really heroic and brave efforts [from] them. Shooting in all those countries during a normal situation, where there is no pandemic and there is no Covid, would be a monumental feat. With Covid... I was so astonished by it every day. I think they did a wonderful job, and frankly, they were really brave. There were a lot of people who wouldn't do that.
One of the most impressive sequences involved a convoy and a nuclear warhead on the move that unfolded in a tunnel. Walk us through that chain of events. Where did you shoot, and what were the logistics of capturing that explosive Hail Mary?
The difficulty for that scene was you had to find tunnels that we could close, that we could control. How hard was that? We scouted all the countries around Budapest, which was our center. Slovakia was the one that ended up having a tunnel that we could actually control. It wasn't just the tunnel sequence. It was also the trucks driving towards it. The aerials, the helicopters... That is all practical.
The tricky thing with nukes is we have been watching nuke stories since the '70s and '80s. They have always been the big bad in terms of the worst thing that could still happen. It still is today with Ukraine and Russia. The scary thing is if any nukes are used. When you introduce a nuke into a story, it takes up all the oxygen. So, when Jack is after that nuke that may be loose and that could be used as a trigger to do the bad guy's plan, the problem is you create a situation where you can't do anything else. It sucks up all the oxygen. What we decided to do was, "Wow, why don't we surprise the audience and detonate it in Episode 6? They will not be expecting that. They think this is the story, that this is going to go all the way to the end." When we came up with that, it was subverting the way nukes are usually handled in stories.
The mountain was an idea that would allow Jack to be really smart. "OK, this thing is going to detonate, but if we are going to detonate it, how can we do it in such a way that will save lives and not recreate a massive dead zone?'' Once we had that, we were able to build the tension even more. In the caravan scenes, you realize there's no stopping this going on. So, now what is going to happen? It was a fun sequence to design. We call it our Speed sequence. Early on, that is what we called it, but the mountain and detonating it under the mountain so that the mountain collapses on it... Then, we had the big sequence, and that was exciting, but we wanted to focus on the hero. What's the emotional [impact]? That's Jack driving back in. That scene of them driving out, and you see Jack looking in the mirror because he knows what is about to follow them out -- when I saw the dailies, I thought, ''That's just great.''
Jack and Greer end in a better place than they began this season. What was the thought process behind giving them that recognition and respect?
I have been a fan of Jack Ryan since I was young. I remember buying The Hunt for Red October in Barnes & Noble. I remember going in and seeing the stacks of that red book. I have loved the character and the world for years and years. That Greer/Jack relationship, for me, is a fundamental relationship. Then, you have John and Wendell [Pierce]. You have Wendell, who is an unbelievable actor. John is an amazing actor, and their chemistry is fantastic. Any time that I could put them together, where I could have a moment, I could have a connection... That's what we did. There are interesting thematics to it. There's father/son. There's this buddy cop vibe. There is a real love there between the two men, but it's a little hidden. They don't really show it. That dynamic is just gold. Again, when you have two actors like them, it's a wealth of riches.
How about in terms of the bigger picture? Going into Season 3, Jack wasn't on solid ground with the CIA, and now he's almost become their Golden Boy again.
The end of Season 3 is a launch into Season 4, insomuch as Jack is in a good place with the CIA. Without giving you any spoilers, he takes a different role in Season 4 that we haven't seen before, [one] that allows us to explore another aspect of Jack Ryan. Season 4 is another exciting ride -- very international, different characters, new villains, and it allows us to play with Jack, Greer, Mike, and everybody in it, in new exciting ways.
Season 3 of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan is now streaming on Prime video.