I absolutely loved him in this. Easily one my absolute favorite roles of his. He was so freaking good as Vincent
Would really love to see him as an actual bad guy in a film again.
Because he is awesome as the hero Ethan Hunt and Pete Mittchell are likeable and cool
shareHe was great in this and so was Jamie Foxx. Perfect casting.
shareI think because he likes being the hero. If his recent film role choices are any indication, I'd say he's going through a bit of a mid-life crisis - trying to stay young by taking on nothing but leading man action hero roles. It's a shame, because his best roles are complex ones like Vincent. My favourite performance he's done is in Magnolia, though, although that character is also pretty repugnant (at least on the surface...)
shareTake away his crazy personal life & beliefs, guy is a genuinely good actor in my opinion.
He just hasn't done a "challenging" role in years. And no, I'm not counting his wild, crazy stunts
His performance in Tropic Thunder is another fantastic performance & one of my favorite of his
Yeah, nothing on the level of Collateral in terms of challenge. I did really like his performance in Edge of Tomorrow, and I appreciated that his character started as a pampered coward. But, yeah, nothing challenging.
Tropic Thunder was genius. Took me almost the whole first scene with Les Grosman to figure out who he even was. I kept thinking, "I know that voice! Why do I know that voice!?"
I agree that he's a good actor. I'd even say great. I think he's one of the most underrated actors around; people write him off as a wacko (true) or a pretty boy/leading man, and they ignore stuff like Interview with the Vampire, Born on the 4th of July, or even a surprising amount of complexity he brings to John Anderton in Minority Report.
I think you’re exactly right. We might underestimate the importance of “the brand” to some of these iconic actors. I was reading about Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson having provisions in their contracts that they have to score a certain number of punches in movie fights so they don’t appear as weak characters. If protecting the brand goes to that level, I could easily see a guy like cruise only taking hero roles at this point
shareI haven't heard about Vin Diesel in that regard, but I have heard that Johnson has a "no lose" clause where he doesn't lose fights in movies. People talked about it in relation to his tenure as Black Adam, and that being a problem (especially if DC ever wants him to fight Superman).
Cruise produces his stuff and has a tonne of control. He's taking exactly the roles he wants.