Tom Cruise "feels lucky" his new film 'Jack Reacher: Never Go Back' features a strong female lead role.

Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise

The 54-year-old actor plays the all-action ex-military man Reacher in the movie sequel and is delighted Cobi Smulders - who stars as Army major Susan Turner - "embodies" a powerful woman character because they are sometimes lacking in Hollywood blockbusters.

Cruise - who was a producer on the title - told Yahoo Movies: "I feel really lucky that we have Cobi because Cobi is someone who really embodies it, you know she's got to play a major, she plays Jack reachers equal and also she was the Commander. And she just embodied that character beautifully, she's got incredible intelligence and power. And great physical ability that she really worked on in the movie."

Cobi rose to fame starring in comedy sitcom 'How I Met Your Mother' and went on to play a SHIELD agent Maria Hill in the Avengers franchise, and said the gap between the number of strong roles for men and women is closing.

She added: "With the Avengers franchise is doing good things with that, the Marvel world is doing good things with that. Yeah it's becoming more and more important."

The film is a sequel to 2012 blockbuster 'Jack Reacher' and in the sequel the character makes it his goal to prove that Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders) is innocent of espionage

But after crossing paths with the law, Reacher must uncover the truth behind a major government conspiracy that involves the deaths of US soldiers.

Talking about his return to the role and the similarities between him and his character, Cruise told BANG Showbiz: "He's a character that travels around a lot and I certainly travel around a lot... I'm always working - I work seven days a week - I'm usually shooting one film while I'm post-production on another and prepping the next one, so, maybe that.

He went on: "It's a pretty good genre that's able to connect with the audience that watched the first one to see that it's expanded. It's such a funny character you don't know what this guy is going to do next. It's just ... I love playing him."

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