The real reason Tom Cruise only directed once and never again: “He’s super specific”
Actors-turned-directors have been around for decades, and it feels like every semi-established star fancies themselves as a filmmaker at least once these days, but Tom Cruise hasn’t been one of them.
Which is strange, since he’s clearly obsessed with movies, and not in a regular way. Cruise’s devotion to the industry is commendable, if a little overzealous, and since he’s literally recorded a mammoth film school instructional video that he shows to his friends, which is weird, you’d think he’d give it a shot.
He dedicated himself to learning everything he could about every aspect of production, and the years he spent solidifying himself as the biggest star in the business saw him surround himself with the finest and most distinguished auteurs in the business, and that wasn’t a coincidence; he was a tiny, Scientologist sponge, but for whatever reason, he’s never felt the need to put that knowledge to practical use.
Sure, Cruise could tell you pretty much anything about how movies are made, and in an age where actor/directors are more prevalent than ever, his status as a long-tenured A-lister, powerhouse producer, and short-lived studio mogul would mean that if he wanted to helm a feature of his own, there wouldn’t be anyone who could stand in his way and tell him no.
And yet, a 1993 episode of the anthology series Fallen Angels, ‘The Frightening Frammis’, is the one and only time he’s directed anything. Tom Hanks and Kiefer Sutherland were also actors who took the reins on an instalment of the show, and they’ve directed multiple films, but Cruise never took the next step.
“Cruise is a force of nature,” creator William Horburg reflected. “He was a fantastic partner, in the sense that he demanded no special treatment at all: ‘I want the same budget as everybody else. I want the same shitty trailer as everybody else. I’m not here to kind of bring my world into your production’. He was very meticulous about the whole thing, and he took it seriously.”
So far, so modest, with ‘Frightening Frammis’ following Peter Gallagher’s conman, who borrows $25,000 from his wife in the hopes of pulling a scam that’ll double his money, only to end up stranded in the desert without a penny to his name. However, the reason why Cruise never felt the need to direct again sounds as though it boils down to one simple word: ego.
“I think for him it was very hard to not be the star,” Horburg suggested. “He’s super specific in terms of that performance and just seeing it all through the lens of an actor, and how he would interpret it. You could see him trying to give Peter Gallagher his space, and just let him make his own choices and be his own version of that character, and I felt that was hard for him.”
A standalone episode of TV was fine, albeit tricky for Tom Cruise: Superstar to put himself to one side and focus on being Tom Cruise: Director, without constantly imagining how he’d play the role if he was on the other side of the camera. Not being the focal point wasn’t something he was used to, which helps explain why it was a one-and-done thing. Then again, the solution would be simple: have him a direct something where he also stars, and it’s problem solved.
