Gina Gershon reveals she almost broke Tom Cruise’s nose while filming a sex scene
Nobody wants to be known as the person who shattered one of the most marketable faces in Hollywood, and Gina Gershon was left breathing a sigh of relief after she came perilously close to breaking Tom Cruise‘s nose when they were filming a sex scene together.
The pair shared the screen in 1988’s Cocktail, with Cruise flying high after his previous two features, Tony Scott’s Top Gun and Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money, had launched him right to the top end of the industry’s A-list.
In Cocktail, Cruise played a former military recruit working as a bartender to make ends meet while attending business school. However, it all changes following a fallout with his mentor for peacocking his way through the world of mixology causes him to head off to Jamaica in the hopes of scraping together enough cash to open his own bar.
The catalyst for Cruise’s Brian Flanagan and Bryan Brown’s Doug Coughlin’s falling out in the first place is Gershon’s photographer, Coral. She’s dating the former but ends up sleeping with the latter, causing the brash youngster to take his bartending talents to the opposite side of the world.
Reflecting on Cocktail during an appearance on Watch What Happens, Gershon recalled Cruise being very protective of her and “a gentleman” when they were shooting their intimate moment, even though she ended up accidentally blasting him in the face with a rogue knee.
“It starts off under the covers, and I told him I was very ticklish,” Gershon explained. “I was like, ‘No, no, don’t ever do that’. In one take, I think he wanted a reaction, and he grabbed my stomach, and I kneed him right in the nose. I was like, ‘Oh my god, I just broke Tom Cruise’s nose’. He was like, ‘No, you told me. It’s my fault’. He was so protective over me. He was great.”
Cruise’s handsome features remained intact for the duration of the shoot, and when Cocktail eventually hit cinemas, it became the leading man’s latest smash hit after earning over $170 million at the box office. The downside is that it also won a Golden Raspberry Award for ‘Worst Picture’ and has never been dislodged as the worst movie he’s ever made.
On a more positive note, Gershon didn’t have to continue on with production burdened by the knowledge she’d broken the nose of the industry’s brightest and fastest-rising star, which would have been a relief.
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