The awful movie that taught Tom Cruise what types of film to avoid: “I felt uncomfortable”
One word actors very rarely say during the beginning of their careers is ‘no’ when there are so many aspiring stars competing for a limited number of spots. Tom Cruise gained control of his destiny quicker than most, but even then, he wasn’t calling the shots from the second he burst onto the scene.
Cruise could write his own ticket from the second Top Gun took flight at the box office, with Tony Scott’s classic airborne actioner still only his seventh feature, which was released in cinemas less than five years after his debut. Risky Business made him famous, but it was Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell who put him on the A-list.
He still wanted to seek out the best directors and material, though, which is why Cruise fought so hard to gain a role in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders and agreed to headline Ridley Scott’s Legend. At the time, he wouldn’t have known the latter would be such a terrible experience that neither star nor director would ever return to the fantasy genre again, but at least he got to work with the guy behind Alien and Blade Runner.
After first gaining attention in the militarised dramatic thriller Taps – his second-ever screen credit – Cruise’s representation sought to capitalise on the first real awareness he’d received. Deciding a bawdy sex comedy was the right way to go; the actor admitted that he was essentially strong-armed into Losin’ It.
“I did Taps, which was a good experience, and then my agents at the time wanted me to do Losin’ It, which was a teenage sex film,” he told Roger Ebert. “I felt uncomfortable with the subject matter, but the agents said, ‘Do it, do it, it’s good for your career’. As it turned out, it was because I learned a lot of things, including what kinds of movies to avoid.”
Losin’ It starred Cruise in the lead role as one of four teenagers on a road trip to Mexico with the intent of losing their virginities. They pick up Cheers favourite Shelley Long’s Kathy along the way, who wants to head south of the border in order to secure a quick divorce from her husband. It flopped at the box office and was panned by critics, but taught Cruise a valuable lesson.
On the plus side, Risky Business arrived less than four months later to quickly banish Losin’ It to the realms of irrelevancy, but the film’s failure was an important one. From that point on, Cruise wouldn’t let the people around him try to dictate his direction, with his number one driving force behind every role a simple question of whether or not it was something he actually wanted to do.
