Through the Years: Tom Cruise

Looking at these old pictures of Cruise in the early 80's, I can't help but notice he looks like a teenager.  No wonder he was a teen heart-throb.  His initial efforts appropriately had him cast in high school movies, whether he was at a military academy (Taps), in a gang (The Outsiders), or playing football (All the Right Moves).  His popularity surged when he slid into the living room wearing nothing but sunglasses, underwear, and a dress shirt in Risky Business.

By the time the movie that made him a megastar (Top Gun) rolled around, he had grown into his looks.  He was 26, even though he looked college aged, but he finally had a more adult appearance.  Around that time, he started to make shrewd decisions to temper his bubble gum efforts with prestige projects.  He acted opposite Paul Newman in the role that finally nabbed the older actor an Oscar in Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money.  After playing a bartender in the Jamaican-set romantic drama Cocktail, he starred opposite Dustin Hoffman in the role that gave Hoffman his second Oscar in Best Picture winner Rain Man.  Before returning to the action drama to fuel his "need for speed" with the racing car version of Top Gun (Days of Thunder), Cruise scored his first AMPAS nomination for Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning Born on the Fourth of July, playing real life Vietnam war veteran and activist Ron Kovic.

Cruise would start the 90's with new wife Nicole Kidman and they'd star in their second film together Far and Away, where they'd both try their hands at Irish accents.  By now, Cruise had settled into his looks, and his performances were glaringly generic.  His two films with Kidman underperformed like she was some kind of bad luck charm.  His A Few Good Men would get nominated for Best Picture and he'd star in The Firm, the first of several financially successful adaptations from the library of John Grisham.  While Grisham was a hot property at the time and there was a built-in audience, The Firm remains the highest grossing of all his legal thrillers.  Much to the initial dismay of author Anne Rice, Cruise decided to switch things up and play against type as the vampire Lestat.  Legions of Rice fans were up in arms over the casting choice, yet, when the author finally got to watch a rough cut, she completely changed her mind and put a letter out in Variety magazine commending Cruise for his interpretation of her most famous character, surpassing all of her expectations.

While much hasn't changed since in Cruise's genetically-blessed face, I would say he peaked looks-wise around the age of 34.  He would also have arguably his best year.  That summer, he would kick off his career as a producer and reboot the Mission: Impossible TV-show, turning it into one of Hollywood's most successful and long-running film franchises.  He would also deliver a career-best performance in Jerry Maguire.  He would receive his second AMPAS nomination and the film would be the only big studio production in the Best Picture field.  Yet, what would follow would become a bit of a professional nightmare.

What seemed a dream opportunity at the time, his collaboration with Hollywood legend Stanley Kubrick on his final film Eyes Wide Shut would take him away from any other opportunities.  The known perfectionism of the auteur, as well as working off his own timeline and recasting two major roles after the scenes of the original actors were complete, would push filming the length of three years.  It would also be Cruise's third and final time acting opposite Kidman.  Like any other film they've done together, it would be one of his lowest grossing efforts.  Since Eyes Wide Shut was abstract and far from what mainstream audiences were used to, it was probably a bad decision from a business standpoint to pair him up with Cruise.  The actor would quickly get back in action by taking his first supporting role in an ensemble film since the early 1980's when he was first starting out.  In Magnolia, his Frank T.J. Mackey was a motivational speaker with some seriously suppressed emotional issues.  The turn was one of his best and played like an eerie inadvertent commentary on his persona.  It also resulted in his third and last Oscar nomination. He'd quickly hop back into his role as Ethan Hunt and use the familiarity of his Mission: Impossible to reignite his presence in the minds of movie-going audiences after having been seemingly down-for-the-count for so many years.  People went bonkers at the box-office for the second installment.

In the early 2000's, Cruise continued working with choice directors, putting out one big budget affair a year.  In 2001, he reunited with Jerry Maguire director Cameron Crowe in hopes to recreate some of their "magic," as Kidman put it.  Unfortunately for them, they chose to remake the superior Abre los ojos.  Vanilla Sky was a hot mess, but it still managed to make more money than it deserved both stateside and internationally.  After being in the industry for over two decades, the world's biggest movie star finally got to work with the world's biggest director Steven Spielberg.  They joined forces to create the modern science-fiction classic Minority Report.  For a conceptual film with a great premise and heart-pounding sequences, the film did quite well with both critics and audiences.  In 2003, Edward Zwick directed Cruise as a military officer learning the ways of the samurai in late 19th-century Japan.  The film did fared alright, but, for a Cruise movie, it fell short somewhat of expectations.  Ten years after going blond for Lestat, Cruise would add some gray to his hair to play cold-blooded assassin Vincent, a choice director Michael Mann had Russell Crowe make to play The Insider.  Again, the film did well, but costar Jamie Foxx would be the one who received an Oscar nod, not Cruise.  Foxx, nominated for Supporting Actor, would also get a nomination for the lead category Cruise campaigned in (and win for Ray).

However, there were mechanics that were already set in motion that would change everything.  After breaking up with Penelope Cruz, he fired his longtime publicist Pat Kingsley who had been with him from around the time he coupled up with Kidman.  He hired his sister as his publicist.  Then, 2005 would roll around and everything would take a turn for the crazy.  It all started in April when Katie Holmes disappeared for a little under a month while meeting with Cruise for a role in the next Mission: Impossible film.  She reemerged at his side as his girlfriend.  Ready for a few paparazzi closeups, the media dubbed them "TomKat."  In no time, he infamously jumped on Oprah's couch in front of millions of people and dispensed unsolicited psychiatric advice to Brooke Shields (his costar in his very first film Endless Love) which led to a heated exchange between him and Matt Lauer on The Today Show.   It was as if the Frank Mackey character had come to life.  Despite the controversies, his second effort with Steven Spielberg War of the Worlds would still perform well at the box-office (but, again, not up to expectations, which it probably could have done, had it not been for his odd behavior).

The next year, Cruise and Holmes would have little Suri.  He would release the third Mission: Impossible, costarring Michelle Monaghan (who, I guess dodged a Scientological bullet; marrying a graphic artist the summer it filmed), which would be the least successful installment to date.  The next year, his mid-budget Lions for Lambs would line him up with Meryl Streep, Andrew Garfield and director/star Robert Redford.  It too would perform miserably at the box-office considering the talent involved and fail to garner any awards traction.  In 2008, he went for broke and cameoed as off-his-rocker, overweight, and schleppy producer Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder.  The turn was both disturbing and hilarious.  While he didn't repair the damage he had done to his brand overnight, he nudged back towards the audiences good graces by showing that he was able to make fun of himself.  Unfortunately, they weren't quite ready to completely forgive him.  When Bryan Singer released Valkyrie, it was his first big-budget movie to miss the domestic $100M mark since 1992's Far and Away.  Playing the real life military officer Claus von Stauffenberg, Singer had discouraged Cruise adopting a German accent.  The next year, 2009, would be the first year since 1997 Cruise didn't release a film.  Hoping to rub off on each other's commercial appeal, Cruise reteamed with Vanilla Sky costar Cameron Diaz for the action comedy-romance Knight & Day.  Poorly reviewed, its worldwide gross managed to double its budget, but it just wasn't up to snuff for pairing these two movie stars together.

In the last couple months, things have improved dramatically for Cruise.  Whenever his career has steered off its course, he has always found solace in Mission: Impossible.  While the poorly timed third edition didn't pay off as he would have liked, the latest sequel has shown that Cruise has continued to rehabilitate his public image.  While the fourth movie plays more like an ensemble and craftily keeps Cruise from being front and center, he has shown that his brand can take a beating, but can always make a comeback.  (I honestly didn't believe this could happen.)

Cruise is one of the few huge movie stars who has never taken a paycheck for voice-over work.  He has starred in seventeen films that have grossed over $100M domestically, a record, I imagine met or surpassed by few, if any.  He has three Oscar nominations under his belt and has starred in four Best Picture nominees.  Upcoming projects include Rock of Ages this summer where he will belt hard rock tunes as Stacee Jaxx.  Come this awards season, he will play investigator Jack Reacher (a serial character from author Jim Grant) trying to solve a military mystery in One Shot directed by Christopher McQuarrie (Oscar-winning screeenwriter of The Usual Suspects).  He's also producing, so I imagine he's thinking franchise potential, if he's successful.  Right now he's filming a science-fiction with newish director Joseph Kosinski (TRON: Legacy) set for release Summer 2013.  In it, he'll battle aliens.  He's also attached to star in We Mortals Are with director Doug Liman, another film where he fights off other worldly creatures (with a little Groundhog Day twist thrown in for good measure).

Cruise has taken great care of himself over the years.  At almost 50, he's still looking ten years younger than his actual age.  Many have speculated that he has had some work done, and, if that's the case, than his surgeon knows exactly what s/he is doing and how to work with Cruise's face.  Perhaps Nicole Kidman should have stayed with him, because her doctor needs to be fired for the atrocities committed on her skin and lips.  Cruise's only aesthetic weakness seems to be whenever he gains a few pounds, it immediately goes to his face.  He looks good with or without a tan, but he doesn't wear even a hint of pudgy well.  Also, he's a little too married to the length of his locks.  The rare times he has cropped his hair (as long as it wasn't too close to the scalp), he looks his best.  Granted, he has a great head of hair and might as well show it off,  but it gets boring, especially when the only times he switches it up and adds color or curl, it's for a movie role.  But, his brunette color is his strength.  I just wish he would texture it and play around.  He also looks good with stubble.

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