“I don’t think he puts any limits on himself”: The actor Ron Howard “marvelled at from the beginning”
It presumably takes a lot to impress Ron Howard, looking at the exhaustive list of legends and icons he’s worked with and taken advice from over the years, but even he was blown away by an actor who quickly evolved into a superstar.
The former child actor-turned-director got his start in filmmaking under Roger Corman, soaked up words of wisdom from Henry Fonda, John Wayne, and Jimmy Stewart at a young age, became a regular collaborator of George Lucas, and has helmed features starring Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Jim Carrey, Robert Duvall, Christopher Plummer, Tommy Lee Jones, and Ian McKellen to name just a few.
Every single one of them is either a long-tenured A-lister, an Academy Award winner, or an influential figure in cinema history, but there was one soon-to-be stratospheric name that Howard knew from the second they first met was destined for greatness.
They’d first encountered each other almost a decade prior when he was still a relative unknown, but by the time they finally worked together on 1992’s romantic drama Far and Away, Tom Cruise was already a bankable leading man and proven box office draw. Top Gun may have put him there in the first place, but the filmmaker revealed that the actor never planned on making it anywhere other than the very top.
“The thing I marvelled at from the beginning was his attitude about where he was in the business, where he wanted go, and the way he wanted to get there,” Howard told The Telegraph. “It’s not a cold, calculated lust for power, it’s a journey of self-actualisation and fulfilment of his potential, and I don’t think he puts any limits on himself.”
There are definitely some folks out there who’d disagree with Howard over Cruise’s career not being a “cold, calculated lust for power,” but it’s also impossible to disagree that he’s entirely right in saying he’s never put any limits on himself. After all, he’s been one of the biggest names in the business for going on 40 years, and beyond the couch-jumping incident, his star power hasn’t wavered even once.
One thing he definitely wasn’t able to do was master an Irish accent, though, with Howard’s Far and Away making it abundantly clear that regardless of how many strings there are to Cruise’s bow as an actor, producer, daredevil, and action hero, convincingly presenting himself as a character born on the ‘Emerald Isle’ was a bridge too far.
Cruise and accents other than his own may not mix, but Howard knew even in those pre-Top Gun years that his determination and dedication were going to make it happen one way or another. It’s been more than three decades since Far and Away was released, and the Oscar winner’s initial assessment of Cruise remains as valid as ever.
