Tom Cruise has been looking in the face of death and laughing for years now, devising dangerous stunts for movies like MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and then pulling them off himself. But no matter how many planes he hangs off of or leaps from, Cruise’s most daring role is that of Les Grossman, the vulgar, insensitive billionaire in the movie TROPIC THUNDER, for which he wore a bald cap, a fat suit, fake chest hair, and big fake hands. In a movie filled with hysterical work he somehow stole the show with his character, and while at Comic-Con yesterday he brought out a little bit of the classic Grossman dance moves and crass language for the crowd.
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Cruise made his Comic-Con debut by bringing down the house with the first high-flying trailer for next year’s TOP GUN: MAVERICK, but he wasn’t just coming in for a flyby. He also sat down with Conan O'Brien, who has been covering other panels and segments at the convention, and O’Brien used the chance to talk THUNDER. The comedian led into the conversation by recounting the comedy sketch they did last year where they were in a car together for hours on end, and O’Brien said he shouldn’t have been surprised Cruise was so funny considering he had won over everyone with his funny chops years before in the movie.
The actor then started recapping how he got the role in the first place, saying that he had actually taken hip-hop dance classes before he got the role (of course he did) because he likes to take all sorts of classes as a way of learning new skills (of course he does). After getting the call from Ben Stiller about the role, he said that he was interested but that he wanted to “have fats hands and I’m gonna dance.”
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Stiller was hesitant, but Cruise persisted by putting on a demonstration, and soon he got all his wishes. He won over audiences with his quotable one-liners and the character’s quick temper, and during the talk Conan got Cruise to say two of the character’s best lines. One was the “Playa…playa” bit, all before dishing out the “Would you stand back and literally f**k your own face!” and “I will massacre you!” Everyone in the crowd went wild (of course they did), and hopefully, Cruise got the hint that if he's reprising characters from past movies like in TOP GUN, he may as well get back into Grossman mode for a new outing.