Tom Cruise To Reprise His Weirdest Role?
Tom Cruise is gearing up to return to his Top Gun roots, but is signaling a return to his weirdest (and maybe grossest) role ever?
Tom Cruise is currently in the middle of building hype for his much-delayed Top Gun sequel, Top Gun: Maverick. As well as this, Cruise has the continuation of the Mission: Impossible franchise to contend with. It would appear that cruise has a particular affinity with both of these characters, Ethan Hunt & Lt Peter ‘Maverick’ Mitchell respectively, but according to ComicBook.com, he would also jump at the chance to play his Tropic Thunder character Les Grossman once again.
Les Grossman is perhaps one of Tom Cruise’s weirdest roles, his Tropic Thunder appearance sees him wear a fat suit to embody the role of a fearsome executive producer. As well as being one of Cruise’s weirdest roles, it is also one of his most beloved. At the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, ComicBook.com got the scoop; “I don’t know. I did Les Grossman for the MTV Awards … We’ll have to see, that could be fun,” said Cruise when asked what roles he would wish to reprise.
Tropic Thunder itself is a cult comedy favorite, it sees the likes of Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr play ridiculously caricatured actors attempting to shoot a war epic, but unfortunately come a cropper within an authentic and very real violent affair. Tom Cruise is unrecognizable as the foul-mouthed Les Grossman. Not only does he wear a fat suit, but he has a balding head and fat hands to boot. Grossman is often seen in violent negotiations with those who hold his actors captive as well as showing off some epic dance moves, such as in the iconic credits scene below.
What makes Les Grossman even more incredible, is that he was entirely created by Tom Cruise himself. The bonafide action star essentially wrought Les Grossman from the ground up, creating a role that is a vast departure from his usual dramatic fare. The genesis of Grossman is reported by Esquire, who sat down with Director and Tropic Thunder star, Ben Stiller, who had this to say about Cruise’s creativity; “Tom Cruise had the idea to play Les Grossman in the movie. “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.”
It would be amazing if Tom Cruise did get his Top Gun: Maverick red-carpet wish to reprise the role of Les Grossman. However, in the same breath where he told ComicBook.com about his desire to portray Grossman once more, he cited that the upcoming Mission: Impossible movies were taking up much of his creative energy at this point in time; I gotta finish [the Mission: Impossible sequels], you know what I mean? I’m enjoying this night, I’m gonna put all my Mission stuff away for a moment to just breathe tonight.”
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part 1 & Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part 2 will bring to an end Tom Cruise’s high octane action franchise, with the first part due for release next July. Initially, the two films were due to be shot back to back, but the pandemic has caused a series of delays, hence Cruise is still in the midst of wrapping things up with Ethan Hunt whilst promoting his latest adventure as Maverick. Fingers crossed, once this franchise comes to a hopefully, resounding end, Cruise can pick up where he left off with Les Grossman. Top Gun: Maverick is set to hit theatres on May 27th.
