Five classic movie roles Tom Cruise rejected
So often throughout their careers in Hollywood, the most prominent stars must make crucial decisions that impact the rest of their working lives. Given his position at the head of the Hollywood table, it’s fair to say that Tom Cruise has needed to make countless choices of this nature. What sets him apart is that he’s perhaps made mostly the right ones along the way.
Naturally, we’ve seen Cruise in some of the best movies of the past four decades, including Top Gun, Magnolia, Minority Report and Eyes Wide Shut. But while Cruise is indeed known for such acclaimed performances mixed with a variety of box office-breaking blockbusters, he’s equally notorious for the roles that he has turned down.
One of the first arrived in 1984 when Cruise was offered the chance to prove his skills on the dance floor with Footloose, directed by Herbert Ross. However, Cruise decided to pass on the job, and Kevin Bacon was eventually chosen to play Ren McCormack in a career-defining performance. Evidently, Cruise was rather selective in his early days as an actor.
That selective approach continued, though, as Cruise also decided to turn down the lead role in the erotic drama film Indecent Proposal, directed by Adrian Lyne. The tale of love, wealth and moral choices was not enough to tempt Cruise into taking on the job, and eventually, the role went to Woody Harrelson. Cruise would, of course, perform in an erotic movie of his own, Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.
Russell Crowe won the Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’ for his effort in Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind, the biopic of the brilliant yet troubled mathematician John Nash. However, the position might have gone to Cruise had he not rejected it, choosing instead to seek out movies that resonated with him personally, continuing his wide-ranging career on screen.
A few years prior, Cruise had again turned down a high-profile production, that time Mike Newell’s Donnie Brasco, with the role of undercover FBI agent Joseph D. Pistone eventually going to Johnny Depp (who’d famously taken the Edward Scissorhands job from Cruise in the past). Cruise essentially allowed his contemporary Depp to shine, and he further sought versatility in the acting field.
While Edward Scissorhands catapulted Depp into stardom, the same could be said in a roundabout way with Robert Downey Jr and Iron Man; although it served as his reemergence into the limelight, having already enjoyed a positive (though addiction-marred) career in the 1990s. Cruise very nearly took the Iron Man lead, too, but again chose to turn down the iconic superhero in favour of projects that more suited his desires.
Five classic roles Tom Cruise rejected:
- Footloose (Herbert Ross, 1984)
- Indecent Proposal (Adrian Lyne, 1993)
- A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard, 2001)
- Donnie Brasco (Mike Newell, 1997)
- Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008)
