Ron Howard on the one actor who won’t take yes for an answer: “He wants you to really mean it”
The spirit of collaboration is key to making any movie work because no actor will do their best under a tyrannical director, and vice versa. Ron Howard was more than open to one star’s suggestions, even if the star wasn’t entirely convinced he really meant it.
It’s an unusual dilemma for the filmmaker to find himself in, creating an oddly oxymoronic situation. Howard worked closely with the performer in question; they put their heads together to develop or expand several elements of the story and character, only for the A-lister to demand that instead of the Academy Award winner bending over backwards to accommodate them, he prove that it was being made in the best interest of the picture.
It is not a typical methodology, then, but when has Tom Cruise ever done things the easy way? After all, nobody asked him to rappel around the world’s tallest building, attach himself to a plane during takeoff, or ride a motorcycle off a cliff and parachute to safety; he did them primarily because he wanted to, but also because the director he was working under agreed it would enhance their movie.
When Howard and Cruise partnered up, though, it wasn’t that kind of production, but a period-set romantic drama that proved beyond doubt that accents are not the action icon’s strongest suit. The Mission: Impossible frontman can play many characters cut from countless different cloths, but an Irishman? Not so much.
1992’s Far and Away saw Howard overseeing husband-and-wife duo Cruise and Nicole Kidman, as well as Joseph Donnelly and Shannon Christie, who ventured from the ‘Emerald Isle’ to America with eyes on carving out a better life. Naturally, things don’t go as planned, and the pair end up waylaid in Boston, penniless, questioning whether the dream will ever materialise.
Before a single frame had been shot, Cruise was constantly in the ear of Howard and writer Bob Dolman, ensuring that the emphasis on his and Kidman’s characters was placed into better focus. Most directors would gladly take ideas on board when one of the biggest stars in Hollywood is making them, but as he explained to Rolling Stone, it wasn’t quite that simple.
“Despite his confidence in his own ideas, he really wants to be directed; he wants his ideas to be edited,” Howard explained, shutting down any notions that Cruise was wielding his star power like a weapon. “He’s the kind of guy who won’t take ‘yes’ for an answer. He wants you to really mean it.”
There’s a thin line between massaging Cruise’s ego and genuinely believing that his additions to the plot and character are worthwhile, and he knows it. Being at the top of the business for so long gives him a very strong bullshit director, so Far and Away wasn’t getting overhauled unless he was completely convinced that Howard was doing it for the sake of the picture.
