Take those old records off the shelf because Risky Business is turning 40 this year. And not only is Tom Cruise – who played high schooler Joel Goodsen, who gets mixed up with a prostitute and her pimp – amazed by that, but he admits that he still dances around the house in his underwear as he famously did in Risky Business.
At the premiere of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Tom Cruise remembered where so much of his fame began, calling working on 1983’s Risky Business a “formative” experience. “He gave me the opening frame of that shot and he goes, ‘I want to start here, I want to move here,’ and he and I – Paul Brickman, great filmmaker – he and I talked about it, he said, ‘Here’s the choreography.’ Look, I grew up dancing in my underwear in my house, who didn’t? So I was like, I got this!” But the famous shot, set to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll”, wasn’t easy to pull off. “I had to figure out how I slide across the floor in my socks. I saw the opening frame…I want to hit center frame…And I tried to slide in my socks, it didn’t work. And I said, well, let’s just put stuff down on the floor – and I slid all the way across. I was like, that didn’t work!” After a crew member laid down some “sticky spray” to help stop Cruise, he was able to nail the take and land in center frame.
Cruise said shooting Risky Business – and that scene in particular – was an important one for him. “It was a learning experience for me not just as an actor going through it…I spent a lot of time in the editing room…and I saw the shots and look at how editorial they’re putting it together…So I started really…understanding that cinematic process right from the very beginning.”
Four decades – and countless death-defying stunts – on and the moment where Tom Cruise slides across the floor in his skivvies still remains one of the most memorable scenes in his entire career. On performing his own stunts, Cruise said, “I don’t have to, but I want to. I want to thrill that audience.” And thrill he did with Risky Business, which – with the help of Taps, All the Right Moves, and heck, even Losin’ It — turned Cruise into a sex symbol and instant big screen presence.
Are you a fan of Risky Business? Do you still dance around the house in your underwear? It’s OK, you can tell us!