Up next in 10
Tom Cruise is without a doubt one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Starring in action packed roles like Mission Impossible, it's hard to see Tom Cruise slide into other genres. Though his turn in Tropic Thunder as Les Grossman, might be one of his best roles to date. Tropic Thunder not only showed us the comedic side of Tom Cruise, it cemented his character Les Grossman as one of the best supporting characters in a comedy. But why exactly did Tom Cruise decide to put on the fat suit and bald cap for Tropic Thunder?
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
I am dealing with a bunch of prima donnas
0:02
You know how you handle an actor? They whine about anything. You pull down their pants, and you spank their ass
0:07
That's Tom Cruise in a fat suit with giant fake hands playing a foul-mouthed sociopathic studio executive
0:13
who, at one point, tries to orchestrate the death of an innocent man for his own enrichment
0:17
On paper, it sounds more cringe-inducing than funny, but in practice, it turned out to be one of the highlights
0:22
of 2008's now classic comedy, Tropic Thunder, and arguably one of the most memorable moments
0:27
of Tom Cruise's already impressive career. But why would he agree to take such a role in the first place
0:32
Look, f*** stick, I'm incredibly busy, so why don't you get the hell out of here before I snap your d*** off and jam it into your a**
0:38
Dropping in August of 2008, the Ben Stiller-directed Tropic Thunder was a box office hit that earned glowing reviews
0:44
from both critics and audiences alike. But despite a cast that included comedic heavyweights
0:48
like Stiller himself, Jack Black, and Danny McBride, alongside typically more dramatic stars
0:53
like Robert Downey Jr., Matthew McConaughey, and Nick Nolte, the main thing on everyone's mind
0:57
was Tom Cruise's jaw-droppingly against-type performance as the utterly odious dancing studio executive Les Grossman
1:05
This is Les Grossman. Who is this? This is Flaming Dragon. Oh, okay. Flaming Dragon
1:10
F***face. The casting, which was initially intended to be kept a secret from audiences
1:14
but was spoiled by the publication of unauthorized set photos, was, to say the least, a head-scratcher
1:20
Although many of his films incorporated comedic moments, and he did turn up to the romantic comedy Jerry Maguire
1:25
Cruise wasn't exactly known for being a funny man. That being said, in the mid-2000s, Cruise was, to put it lightly, on a roll
1:32
2001's Vanilla Sky, 2002's Minority Report, 2003's The Last Samurai, 2004's Collateral, and 2004's War of the Worlds
1:40
were all major critical and financial successes. And while 2000's Mission Impossible 2 was panned by critics
1:46
it was still the highest-grossing film of its year. So in 2006, Cruise set out to rehabilitate the franchise with Mission Impossible 3
1:54
a mission we now know he would very much succeed at A look at Cruz filmography shows that this was actually a fairly pivotal moment in his career subsequent to which he would almost exclusively play action heroes In fact since 2006 Cruz has only played non hero roles in three films Those
2:10
include the poorly received 2007 drama Lions for Lambs, the poorly received 2012 musical Rock of
2:16
Ages, and the wildly successful Tropic Thunder. Tropic Thunder tells the story of the making of a
2:20
big Hollywood Vietnam war film called Tropic Thunder. But thanks to the egos and insecurities of the movie's stars
2:27
the production isn't going so well. After a $4 million mistake that literally sets a whole jungle on fire
2:33
the movie's inexperienced director, Damian Cockburn, played by Steve Coogan, finds himself in hot water with the studio executive bankrolling the movie
2:40
Les Grossman. Grossman is absolutely brutal to Cockburn, even going so far as to order the production's key grip
2:46
to punch the director in the face. This is your fault. You limey f***
2:51
He orders Cockburn himself to take control of his actors, or else. Terrified of the raging studio executive and desperate to get the production back on track
2:58
the director agrees to a completely insane plan to drop the actors into the middle of a real war zone
3:04
and have them act out scenes while he shoots the movie guerrilla style. The plan quickly gets Cockburn killed and sets the movie's main plot into motion
3:11
And it's all because Les Grossman put so much pressure on the situation
3:15
Later, when Speedman is being held for ransom by heroin manufacturers, manufacturers, Grossman again ups the pressure by trying to antagonize them into killing the actor
3:22
so he can collect an insurance payment. I got a better idea. Instead of a hundred million
3:28
how about I send you a hobo's d**k cheese? Speedman's agent, Richard Peck, expresses shock
3:34
at the producer's actions. That, in turn, prompts Grossman to try and bribe Peck into letting
3:38
Speedman die in exchange for a huge cash payment and a G5 airplane. While he pushes Peck to take
3:44
the deal, Grossman blasts the song Low by Flo Rida and T-Pain and performs the hip-hop dance
3:49
for which he's now famous. The last time Cruise had really attempted to do comedy was when he made
3:53
a brief cameo in the 2002 Austin Powers sequel Goldmember so audiences didn have much experience seeing him play characters as over the top as Les As a result many if not most people who hadn heard about his casting didn even recognize the
4:06
actor behind his cleverly transformative makeup job. But as unlikely as his casting might have been
4:11
the simple fact is that Tom Cruise played Les Grossman because Tom Cruise created Les Grossman
4:17
Yeah, according to Stiller, Tom Cruise had the idea to play Les Grossman in the movie. That part
4:21
did not exist. In fact, Cruise, who had learned of the script while hanging out watching movies
4:26
with Stiller, was originally set to play the part which ultimately went to McConaughey. But when he
4:30
actually read the script, Cruise sensed that it wasn't as tight as it could be. In his own words
4:35
there was a structural compression missing down on those characters, you know, that keeps the
4:39
pressure on these guys that really drives the story. After eyeing the character for himself
4:43
Cruise told Conan O'Brien, Ben, he's a good buddy of mine, Ben Stiller, he called me up. And I said, look, I'd love to play
4:51
this character, but I want to have fat hands and I'm going to dance
4:54
It was a strange request, but it wasn't totally random. Cruise, who was constantly working to expand his performing skills
5:00
was taking hip-hop dance classes at the time. Always looking to find places to put what he learned to use
5:05
Cruise realized they worked for the Grossman character. Stiller didn't really get it at first and urged Cruise to play the part without makeup
5:11
but the actor, who as a child had written comedy sketches and played various comedic characters to entertain his mother and sister
5:17
was confident it would be funny. According to Stiller, I remember when we did a makeup test
5:21
Someone handed him a Diet Coke, and then he just started moving. There was no music at this point, so Stiller was still uncertain
5:27
but he later chose to dub the now iconic song Over the Dance, and it was at that point that the director finally saw why it was funny
5:34
Once they agreed, Cruz began formulating Grossman from his experiences with various real-life producers
5:39
And while he's never specifically named anyone the character was based on, it is widely believed that the main influences were producers like the famously intense Hollywood power player Scott Rudin
5:48
as well as the now disgraced Harvey Weinstein, which possibly suggests why the character's last name is Grossman
5:54
I will f*** you up! But what made Les Grossman work so incredibly well was that instead of making jokes delivering punchlines or otherwise trying to keep up with all the comedic powerhouses in the cast Cruz played the executive in a mostly straightforward manner The comedy was allowed
6:10
to flow from the extremity of Grossman's over-the-top personality, juxtaposed against the situations he was placed in. And despite playing something so far out of his normal
6:18
wheelhouse, Cruz, who is better known for dramatic moments like getting Jack Nicholson
6:23
to crack on Stan in A Few Good Men, and performing death-defying stunts in Mission Impossible films
6:31
still leaned into his strengths as an actor and got his laughs by cashing in on his own well-known
6:36
intensity. Audiences loved Les, and apparently so did Cruise. He even put the fat suit on and
6:42
revived the character for an appearance at the 2010 MTV Movie Awards, after which Paramount told
6:47
the press a Les Grossman spinoff movie was in the works. That movie never materialized, but it seems
6:52
that Cruise never let go of the idea. In fact, as recently as 2023
6:57
Mission Impossible sequel director and regular Cruise creative partner, Christopher McQuarrie, said that the Les Grossman movie
7:02
was one of the three films he was at work developing with the star. Whether that Les Grossman spinoff
7:07
ever really sees the light of day or not, it's truly hard to overstate how much of a contribution
7:12
Tom Cruise made to Tropic Thunder. He dramatically improved the script by creating one of the most memorable
7:17
and hilarious characters and then brought that character to life with the trademark attention to detail
7:22
and perfectionism he's always been known for. Long story short, he threw himself into the part
7:26
and he absolutely crushed it. Even though Les Grossman was a huge hit with the public
7:30
and Cruise clearly had such a great time playing the role that over a decade later, he still wants to return to it
7:36
the outlandish part remains something of an anomaly in his career. Surely there are business-related reasons for that
7:41
It's probably hard to find the time to create off-the-wall weirdos for comedic cameos
7:45
when you can be raking in millions hand over fist doing big budget action movies
7:50
But we now know that somewhere in the multiverse, there's a world where Tom Cruise is a quirky character actor
7:56
who plays goofy roles under goofier makeup jobs. And it's hard not to be a little sad that we don't get to live in that universe