The movie that made Tom Cruise say “I act for free”
Having been one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood for decades, Tom Cruise regularly earns tens of millions of dollars from a single role, which comes with the territory for anybody who’s been sitting at the top of the A-list for so long.
However, the actor didn’t view his on-camera work as what he was getting paid for in one of his popular outings, although it stands to reason he was well-compensated on that front. Jerry Maguire may have been written specifically for Tom Hanks by Cameron Crowe, but it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Cruise leading the cast.
In addition to winning a Golden Globe for ‘Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy’, the Top Gun and Mission: Impossible frontman would also secure an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actor’, while the film itself would go on to earn almost $275million at the box office.
As Crowe admitted on Alec Baldwin’s Here’s the Thing podcast, though, he was wary of bringing Cruise on board based on his reputation for assuming a large volume of creative control on his projects, something that sat ill-at-ease with the filmmaker’s own standing as an unfiltered auteur.
“Your friends take you aside and say, ‘When Tom Cruise says yes, you lose your power. You can’t do a thing. It just becomes a freight train that’s out of control, and it’s a Hollywood freight train and you’ll be lucky if you see the back of the caboose’,” he said. “And you get terrified. And then Tom Cruise calls from England and says, ‘I read your script. I hope I’m the right guy. Let me come out and read it for you'”.
Not only was Crowe stunned that Cruise requested an audition instead of assuming right off the bat the part was his, but his dedication to Jerry Maguire left its director confident “he was ‘that guy’ from the moment he got off the plane” to meet with Crowe for the read-through.
That commitment even carried through to the pre-release press duties, with Cruise taking it upon himself to drum up as much buzz and awareness as possible. “Tom came from London to New York and said, ‘Boys, I’m gonna do some promotion’,” he continued. “And he started on a Monday, did Rosie, did Larry King, did everything. By the end of the week, our numbers were way high. He basically blew us a kiss, went back to England, and the movie opened”.
Crowe had nothing but the utmost admiration of such a huge star, saying, “Guys, I act for free. This is what you pay me for. I’m going to give them everything I’ve got for this movie”. Hiring someone like Cruise brings more than an actor to the table because any production lucky enough to secure his talents gets a one-man marketing and publicity machine, too.
