Tom Cruise’s career almost ended in 2006, but a small role in this Ben Stiller movie put him right back on track.
Since he made his breakthrough in the romantic comedy Risky Business in the early 1980s, Tom Cruise has become one of the most well-known A-listers in Hollywood. With a career spanning over four decades, Cruise continues to appear in multi-million blockbusters and doesn’t seem like he’s going to stop anytime soon. It’s no surprise he’s one of the highest-paying actors of all time.
With the recent release of its seventh installment, Mission: Impossible has become one of the most successful and longest-running action film franchises of all time. Given that he was a producer for this film and now has a massive net worth, it’s hard to believe that Cruise’s career almost came to an end at some point in the mid-2000s. If it weren’t for this one Ben Stiller movie, we wouldn’t have had a second Top Gun film or the latest Mission: Impossible installment.
In The Mid-2000s, These Scandals Almost Ended Tom Cruise’s Career
In 2005, Tom Cruise was the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons. First, he caused an uproar by doing a couch-jumping stunt during a wild interview with Oprah. This interview not only went viral on YouTube but also caused a feud between the actor and director Steven Spielberg.
The interview was set up to promote Spielberg’s latest movie, War of the Worlds, but Cruise had decided to use the opportunity to declare his love for his then-partner Katie Holmes instead. Of course, the E.T. director wasn’t happy about this, claiming that Cruise’s sudden romantic outburst negatively damaged the movie’s chances of success at the box office.
Later that same year, Cruise was heavily criticized for his feud with fellow actor Brooke Shields. The actress had recently released her book Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression, where she’d opened up about taking antidepressants following her struggles with conception.
In a heated rant on The Today Show, Cruise accused Shields of spreading “irresponsible misinformation” about antidepressants, branding her “dangerous” to the public. In response, Shields wrote a New York Times op-ed, in which she suggested the Mission: Impossible actor “stick to fighting aliens”. He was also heavily criticized by mental health experts for using his platform to increase the stigma surrounding mental illness.
Ultimately, these scandals negatively affected Cruise’s career. It all came to a halt in 2006, when Paramount Studios cut ties with the actor after 14 years of working together. “It’s nothing to do with his acting ability, he’s a terrific actor,” Sumner Redstone, the then-chairman of the studio’s parent company, Viacom, said at the time. “But we don’t think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot.”
A Cameo in This Ben Stiller Movie Saved Tom Cruise’s Career
In 2008, Tom Cruise’s career got back on the right track after the actor accepted to make a cameo in Ben Stiller’s film Tropic Thunder. The movie became a huge box office hit and Cruise was widely praised for his portrayal of balding studio executive Les Grossman.
As it turns out, playing this hilarious character was all the Mission: Impossible actor’s idea. “Tom Cruise had the idea to play Les Grossman in the movie,” Stiller told Esquire. “That part did not exist. He said, ‘Well, there’s no studio executive and that would be really fun to be that guy.’ And he had this whole idea of what the guy should look like. It was his idea to dance. And I remember when we did a makeup test, someone handed him a Diet Coke and then he just started moving.”
Cruise only had two conditions for appearing in Tropic Thunder. He wanted his character to have “fat hands” and to dance, as he told Conan O’Brien in a 2019 interview.
Stiller accepted and got the actor a fat suit, prosthetic hands, and a bald cap that left him unrecognizable. This turned out to be a great idea. Audiences loved Cruise’s character, and to this day, this performance is credited for resurrecting his career and proving he could do much more than action movies.
Thanks To The Latest Installment Of The Mission: Impossible Film Franchise, Tom Cruise’s Career Is Better Than Ever
With a 40-year-long career, Tom Cruise has become one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood. After all, the Top Gun actor has a massive net worth that’s rumored to be in the $600 million range.
According to Variety, Cruise was paid between $12 and 14 million upfront for Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1. This is not a lot compared to his salary for other movies, but that’s because the actor accepted this deal in order to earn millions more on the backend. That’s why his earnings have reportedly reached approximately $100 million this year! With another Mission: Impossible film releasing next year, it’s clear Tom Cruise’s career is not ending anytime in the foreseeable future.
