Tom Cruise turned 60 on July 3rd. Forty of them he comes across in the movies. During this time he worked with Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg and Michael Mann. But he also became famous as a first-class action star, a workaholic producer and a born daredevil who comes up with more and more dangerous tricks for each new film. And then them without the help of understudies! We recall the most significant scene from his films.
One of the first roles that required serious preparation, the actor played in a hit melodrama about a demobilized person who is not hired to work on Wall Street, but is hired in a bar. There, he discovers a talent for flaring - the spectacular preparation of cocktails using juggling elements.
Prior to filming, Cruz interviewed 35 bartenders and trained with famed virtuoso mixologist John Bandy. On the court, the actor broke five bottles, losing a bet to his partner Brian Brown, who broke only four. They say that during the filming of the "dangerous" scenes, the extras who played the bar visitors were most worried: they were afraid that the fragments would fly in their faces.
Cocktail was a hit at the box office, but earned a Golden Raspberry as the worst film of the year. Cruise himself admits that the picture was not "the crowning achievement of his career." But the scene still looks impressive!
Among the tricks of the early "Missions" I want to highlight the fight between Cruise and Dougray Scott in the sequel's finale. Hong Kong action master John Woo wanted the combat to look realistic and dangerous. At some point, the villain almost manages to drive the knife into Ethan Hunt's eye, but he stops the blade a few millimeters from the target. The knife was attached to a special cable, which, according to calculations, should have ended six millimeters from Cruz's cornea. One wrong move could cost an actor his eyesight, but everything was carefully rehearsed.
In the opening scene of the second "Mission", Cruz climbs a 600-meter sheer cliff in Utah to the song "Iko Iko" by Zap Mama. In those days, the actor still used the services of understudies and, of course, was tied to a safety cable. The trick, when Ethan Hunt, enjoying his vacation, makes an unsuccessful five-meter jump from one ledge to another, slides down and grabs a gap in the rock at the last moment, was performed by professionals. Otherwise, however, Hunt's ascent and his famous Christ Pose are Cruise's own craftsmanship.
For the filming of The Phantom Protocol, the fourth film in the spy series, Cruise conquered the 828-meter Dubai skyscraper Burj Khalifa - the tallest building in the world! For eight days, the actor, tied up with ropes, climbed, slid and ran along the glass walls of the high-rise. True, he did not have to climb to the very top - the action of the scene unfolded at an altitude of 500 meters. Perhaps it was this scene that helped revive the audience's interest in the spy franchise, which faded after the release of the unsuccessful triquel by JJ Abrams.
An unexpected (and only!) musical in Cruise's filmography, in which he played Stacy Jaxx, a fictional heavy metal star of the 1980s. The shooting did not pose a threat to the life of the actor, but he still carefully prepared for the role, because he was not sure of his singing talent. Cruise rehearsed for five hours a day, according to director Adam Shankman, to combine musicians Axl Rose, Keith Richards and Jim Morrison in his hero. In the film, Cruz-Jexx sings Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses, Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Poison, Scorpions and Journey songs. This is not for you to run around skyscrapers! Alas, the sharp change in image was appreciated by critics, but not by the audience: the musical failed at the box office, forcing Tom Cruise to stop genre experiments.
In the first Top Gun, 23-year-old Cruz looked impressive in the cockpit, but he himself did not pilot fighters and did not rise into the sky. However, the 36 years between the original and the sequel did not go to waste: on the set of the sequel, the actor really was in the sky in F / A-18 bombers. Therefore, all the overloads that are visible on the faces of the heroes are not a game, but the real state of affairs. Cruise sent all of his co-stars to flight school. Who gave him permission? The fact is that the shooting took place with the assistance of the US Navy and the TOPGUN fighter weapons school.
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