‘A Beautiful Mind’: The role Tom Cruise will always regret turning down
Every actor that’s been in the business a long time is always going to have those few roles that got away. Even though they tried their hardest to leave a spotless track record, either commitment got in the way, or the director had a singular vision that left many of them wondering ‘what if’ when they look back on their career. Despite Tom Cruise carving out one of the best resumes in action-movie history, one of his most interesting roles could have been him pushing himself to the absolute brink.
Then again, the tale of Cruise’s film career feels like watching two separate actors occupying one body. There had been plenty of times when he had played any role that came his way, but the lion’s share of his best films since 2000 tend to be about spectacle more than anything, usually involving how much he can put his body through or what death-defying stunt he can manage to pull off while the cameras are rolling.
That’s not to say those roles don’t have their place. They definitely are interesting to watch and continue to be wildly entertaining whenever a new Mission Impossible comes out, but there’s also that artiste in Cruise that doesn’t come out as much. Whether that A Few Good Men or Interview with a Vampire, there are moments where he can act in a completely different way that makes people see the true actor’s actor that he can be at the best of times.
When it comes to his serious roles, Vanilla Sky still feels slightly under the radar compared to his usual roles. While nothing that features Cruise as the lead actor, Cameron Crowe as director, and a tie-in song from Paul McCartney could be considered underrated, most fans are more likely to bring up Ethan Hunt or Maverick from Top Gun when discussing Cruise’s all-time best characters.
If Cruise had his way, he could have worked on A Beautiful Mind before Russell Crowe got his hands on it. Compared to what Vanilla Sky had done at the box office is certainly no slouch, but seeing him slowly start to piece together that his present reality isn’t totally real could have been a nice change of pace for people who had become used to seeing him in the Mission Impossible franchise.
And looking at how A Beautiful Mind cleaned up at awards season with four Oscar wins, it’s a good reason why Cruise may have felt a bit cheated. Crowe’s film is still an adventurous sci-fi film, but looking at the kind of love and care that went into every single shot of Crowe’s portrayal, Cruise would never have been able to be available since he was doing Vanilla Sky at the same time.
Given how Cruise’s filmography up until that point, this could have been an opportunity for him to follow things up after his work in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. While Kubrick’s final film is definitely an acquired taste, Cruise’s chops are on full display, so it’s not like he couldn’t make something that was a little bit outside of the norm.
Even if he couldn’t star in A Beautiful Mind, that didn’t dissuade him from going in other different directions. For some fairweather film fans, he may always be known as the guy who jumps out of planes, but his legacy as one of the greatest actors of his generation is intact as long as he keeps making strange leaps like he’s done in films like Collateral or Tropic Thunder.
