The one director Tom Cruise was honoured to work with: “I would have kicked myself”
One of the many benefits of being Tom Cruise is that he can work with whoever he wants to, because there aren’t many filmmakers in the industry who’d turn down the opportunity to work with a star of his magnitude and one of Hollywood’s most guaranteed box office draws.
The downside is that Cruise hasn’t been all that interested in returning to his auteur-driven phase to a significant degree outside of his tantalising upcoming collaboration with Alejandro G Iñárritu, with the A-lister preferring to repeatedly reunite with people he knows, trusts, and respects.
Christopher McQuarrie is the most notable by far, with the writer, director, and producer having worked with Cruise on the majority of his films since they first crossed paths on 2008’s Valkyrie, while he’s been directed twice by Joseph Kosinski and Doug Liman in recent years, in addition to reuniting with The Last Samurai‘s Ed Zwick for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.
It’s been a long time since Cruise went out of his way to track down the industry’s foremost filmmaking talents, which saw him collaborate with Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone, Ridley Scott, Syndey Pollack, Cameron Crowe, Martin Scorsese, John Woo, and Brian De Palma within the space of a dozen years.
Of course, he’s far too wealthy and famous to go around begging for parts, but even for a superstar on Cruise’s level, there’s no chance he’d say anything other than yes when Stanley Kubrick came calling. Eyes Wide Shut was a mammoth undertaking, one that rumbled on for well over a year as the director refined his vision, but he wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
“We knew from the beginning the level of commitment needed,” Cruise told Cathy Booth of diving headfirst into Eyes Wide Shut and giving everything of himself to Kubrick. “We felt honoured to work with him. We knew it would be difficult, but I would have absolutely kicked myself if I hadn’t done this.”
It was an exacting process, to say the least, but Cruise was at the mercy of his director. Kubrick wasn’t exactly thrilled by the sideshow that came along with hiring one of the most famous people on the planet to headline the cast alongside his then-wife, but the media frenzy and tabloid obsession was par for the course when Cruise and Kidman were taking top billing in a psychosexual odyssey helmed by one of the best ever.
Cruise didn’t think Eyes Wide Shut got the recognition it deserved, either, but defending the finished article from criticism was at least better than the prospect of watching from afar and kicking himself that he’d missed the chance to team with Kubrick on what turned out to be the final feature of a storied career.
