“I just don’t think he liked me”: does Tom Cruise hate Francis Ford Coppola?
There’s at least one generation of filmgoing audiences, possibly even two, that can’t even remember when Tom Cruise went out of his way to work with the industry’s most exciting directors.
These days, it’s a surprise if he makes anything that doesn’t have Christopher McQuarrie attached in some capacity or leans into his curated persona as cinema’s pre-eminent A-list daredevil. That wasn’t always the case, and it’s a shame that Cruise has shied away from collaborating with genuine auteurs.
Obviously, he’s got an enticing movie with Alejandro G Iñárritu scheduled for release in 2026, but that’s an outlier. To illustrate that point, it’ll be his first time sharing a set with an Academy Award-winning filmmaker in a picture that relies on drama more than action since Robert Redford’s 2007 effort Lions for Lambs, and also ends a nine-film consecutive streak where McQuarrie has been involved as either a writer, director, or producer.
Once upon a time, though, he was sniffing out Hollywood maestros like a pig hunting for truffles. Ridley and Tony Scott, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Barry Levinson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Cameron Crowe, John Woo, Sydney Pollack, and Francis Ford Coppola were among them, even if the latter doesn’t think Cruise liked him very much.
The studio didn’t really want to hire him for The Outsiders because he wasn’t a particularly known quantity, but as Coppola explained to Vulture, he fought for his involvement. “I personally championed Tom Cruise,” he said. “And I must say, Tom Cruise was all business. He would do anything to have his part be a little better.”
Apart from an on-set brawl with Rob Lowe, the production largely went off without a hitch. However, when he was offered the opportunity to reunite with Coppola on Rumble Fish, he turned it down to make Risky Business instead. It was a wise decision, career-wise, but it left the Godfather mastermind wondering if he’d rubbed the rising star the wrong way.
“I don’t think he cared for me very much because maybe he thought I was a jerk or something,” Coppola mused. “I did a lot of funny things on that picture.” Continuing to ponder, the five-time Oscar winner admitted that while Cruise never told him to his face that he didn’t like him, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d pissed him off somehow.
“He never said, ‘I don’t like you,'” Coppola clarified. “I just don’t think he liked me. Not everyone likes me.” Cruise is far too self-aware and protective of his image to go on record and say he hates somebody or doesn’t want to work with them again, even if his mid-2000s meltdown put a massive dent in his armour, but maybe it’s not a coincidence that he and Coppola have never crossed paths again.
