From Jack Nicholson to Al Pacino: When Tom Cruise named his sources of inspiration
There are very few aspiring actors that would look at Tom Cruise and go, ‘nah, I don’t want that career’. The action star’s filmography reads like a rundown of some of the biggest and most profitable movies ever made, ranging from tentpole franchises like ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Mission: Impossible’ to high-grossing one-offs like Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. If that wasn’t enough, there are also his more artsy ventures, like Interview with the Vampire or Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia.
He might be an icon himself these days, but all the greats have their idols that they’d like to emulate. Cruise is no different, as he has spoken frankly about the stars he looks to as sources of inspiration. In one conversation with Vanity Fair in the year 2000 – the same year that saw the release of Mission: Impossible II – interviewer Cameron Crowe named Robert Redford, Jack Nicholson, and Jack Lemmon as potential templates for his later career.
“I haven’t really thought in terms of that. But you study their careers,” is what Cruise said in response. “Redford’s a great director. And Nicholson breaks all the conventions with his career and what he’s done. I guess both of them do. I know now, it comes down to your own personal confidence. And being a director is different than producing movies. It’s different than acting in movies. I mean, it really is. It stands alone.” The Mission: Impossible series marked Cruise’s first foray into producing.
Focusing on his acting heroes, Cruise zeroed in on Jack Nicholson, whom he had worked with on A Few Good Men. “I admire Nicholson, the characters he’s played,” he revealed. “And Redford. [Paul] Newman. [Dustin] Hoffman. [Al] Pacino. All those guys. But you’ve got to go your own way. You’ve got to find what you want to do and what is going to be satisfying. And I don’t know what that’ll be. I’m still learning, and I know I’ve got a long way to go.”
One of the many benefits of being Tom Cruise is that he already had or would end up getting the opportunity to work with many of the names he listed here. As well as the aforementioned Nicholson collaboration, he was both directed by and co-starred with Redford in the 2007 Afghanistan war movie Lions for Lambs. As for Hoffman, the two memorably portrayed brothers in the 1988 classic Rain Man, and he also played opposite Newman in pool hustle drama, The Color of Money. Astonishingly, Cruise and Pacino have never appeared in a movie together, a fact that simply doesn’t seem true.
Crowe – who had directed Cruise in Jerry Maguire – followed up by asking if the actor had a five-year plan, which he said he didn’t. “I knew I wanted to produce movies,” he said. “One day I might direct. I don’t have any plans in the future. I’m just having so much fun as an actor and a producer that I’ll have to see what happens.”
A quarter of a century on from this interview, Cruise still hasn’t made a movie, but is still at the absolute top of his game as an actor. He’s older now than Paul Newman was in The Color of Money, which you would never guess just by looking at them. For better or worse, Cruise is one of a kind, and he has more than lived up to the lofty ambitions he set for himself.
