Tom Cruise

Cruise plays Cadet Captain David Shawn in this drama directe by Howard Becker, centered around students at a military school. When the highest ranked cadet, Cadet Major Brian Moreland, learns of plans to close the school and sell the land to developers, Moreland and  Shawn, his hotheaded enforcer, take over the school, leading to tragedy.  Co-starring Timothy Hutton, George C. Scott and Sean Penn.

A lot of that character was my childhood. I wasn’t intense like that, but the character is just fear. That’s what he does when he’s afraid—he fights.

Cruise plays Joel Goodson, a privileged suburban teen whose parents go out of town and leave him in charge of the house and his meeting with an interviewer from Princeton.  When he calls a prostitute, played by Rebecca DeMornay,  Joel get far more trouble than he bargained for, but also finds the self confidence to deal with the interview.

Oh my God.  Rebecca had already been cast. They wanted to see the two of us together. I tested, and to make a short story long, we didn’t test that well. Paul just believed in me. I told him exactly what I was going to do. We talked about it for a long time and he trusted me.

Cruise plays Lieutenant and fighter pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in this drama, directed by Jerry Bruckheimer, about a team of Navy pilots at the Miramar training facility. Maverick is continually battling for supremacy among the other Top Gun pilots and reprimanded for his recklessness. He also begins and affair with one of the instructors, played by Kelly McGillis. After an accident kills Goose, his co-pilot, Maverick has to reassess his attitudes.  Co-starring Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt, Val Kilmer and and Meg Ryan. Bruckheimer:

We sent him down to El Centro, and he jumped in the back of that jet and just had the ride of his life.  At the time, he had shoulder-length hair, and [the Navy pilots] said, ‘We’re going to take this hippie for a real ride,’ and they just blasted him through the air and did rolls and did all kinds of crazy stuff with him.  He got on the ground and walked over to a phone booth – we didn’t have cell phones in those days. He calls me up, he says, ‘I’m doing it.’ [Laughs] That was it.

Cruise plays Brian Flanagan in the romantic drama Cocktail, based on the book of the same name by Heywood Gould. Flanagan leaves the Army to move to New York. When he realizes he has no experience for his dream job, he pursues a business degree. For work, he picks up bartending. His boss Douglas Coughlin (Bryan Brown) teaches him the secrets of the bar trade such as performing bartending tricks, like spinning, twirling and juggling bottle, and they become the most famous bartenders in town, which leads him to travel to Jamaica and fall in love. Co-starring Elizabeth Shue. Bar Olympics champion John Bandy:

Tom was a regular guy and we got along really well. He’s ambidextrous, which made him a quick learner. I remember Tom and Bryan had a bet to see who would break more things as we practiced. But it was hard to score because one of them would drop something and it would bounce down the bar and smash a lot of stuff.

Cruise plays Vietnam vet, Ron Kovic, in this autobiographical drama by Oliver Stone. The film follows Ron from his decision to enter the Marines through the war until he is injured and paralyzed from the chest down. After a lengthy stay in the deplorable conditions of the VA hospital, he returns home to find that nothing is the same, or even as it seems to be.  He struggles with physical, emotional and mental changes for years before finally coming to grips with his life and the world around him.

For me I wanted Ron to be happy. I wanted to be sure that he felt good about it and also Oliver felt that way.

Cruise plays Irishman Joseph Donnelly in this turn of the century love story directed by Ron Howard, also starring his wife, Nicole Kidman, as his traveling companion Shannon Christie.  The plot takes viewers from the events in Ireland that lead up to the couple’s fateful trip to America. The two get to know and love each other as they face crime, poverty, jealousy and bad luck on their way to stake their claim in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1893. Kidman:

Finally when I got to work with him I learned that he works from this level of fun.  He’s always got people laughing.

Cruise plays Lt. Daniel Kaffee, a military lawyer defending two U.S. Marines charged with killing a fellow Marine at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Although Kaffee is known for seeking plea bargains, a fellow lawyer convinces him that the accused marines were most likely carrying out an order from a commanding officer. Kaffee takes a risk by calling Col. Nathan R. Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson, to the stand in an effort to uncover the conspiracy. Co-starring Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, James Marshall, J. T. Walsh and Kiefer Sutherland. Nicholson:

He will out-everything you. He will outwork you, outthink you, outstunt you and outnice you. If you’re an athletic, 25-year-old production assistant, he will outsprint you in front of the entire crew.

Cruise plays Lestat de Lioncourt, in the film adaptation of the Anne Rice novel. Lestat is an ancient vampire in a tale told to a modern day reporter Daniel Malloy by one of his “children,” Louis.  He tells Malloy of how it came to be that Lestat would change him.  Based in colonial Louisiana, the tale goes on to tell of a young plague victim named Claudia whom he also turns.  The trio travels to Europe to seek out more of their own kind and find far more than they bargained for.  Co-starring Brad Pitt as Louis, Kirsten Dunst as Claudia, Christian Slater as Daniel Malloy and Antonio Banderas as head-vampire Armand. Anne Rice comments on the casting of Pitt and Cruise.

…the worst crime in the name of casting since ‘Bonfire of the Vanities,’…   casting Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer…

Cruise plays Dr. Bill Hartford in this erotic thriller by Stanley Kubrick.  When Dr. Hartford discovers his wife’s sexual fantasies, he sets out on a quest to quench his own desires.  He finds himself skirting the edges of an elite secret society that wishes to remain that way. After many close calls, and disturbing situations he finally abandons his quest and confesses himself to his wife.  Co-starring Nicole Kidman as Alice Hartford and Sydney Pollack and LeeLee Sobieski

People thought that making the film was the beginning of the end of my marriage, but I don’t really think it was. Tom and I were close then, and it was very much the three of us. Onscreen, the husband and wife are at odds, and Stanley wanted to use our marriage as a supposed reality. That was Stanley: He used the movie as provocation, pretending it was our sex life — which we weren’t oblivious to, but obviously it wasn’t us. We both decided to dedicate ourselves to a great filmmaker and artist.

Cruise plays Ethan Hunt in this thriller, directed by John Woo. Hunt is an operative for the top-secret government agency IMF. Fellow agent Sean Ambrose steals a virus named Chimera that could rapidly wipe out the world’s population. Ambrose’s plan is to sell Chimera to the highest bidder in exchange for shares of stock in the winner’s company. Hunt is assigned to recruit the help of Ambrose’s former lover Nyah Nordoff-Hall, who left Ambrose broken-hearted. Once he meets and spends a night with Nyah, however, Ethan is smitten, and now must both capture Ambrose and keep Nyah alive. Co-stars Dougray Scott and Thandie Newton. Director John Woo on Cruise doing his own stunts:

To establish that he is a real person. He enjoy life, enjoy the nature, he has dreams, he has passion, just like any young man in the world. So, that’s why he Tom Cruise like to do every shot by himself.