Summary

Tom Cruise turned down a role in Ford v Ferrari for one very specific reason.
Cruise prefers roles with daring stunts, as seen in Mission: Impossible movies.
Ford v Ferrari was a critical and commercial success despite Cruise declining a role.

Tom Cruise may be best known for his role as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise. In those movies, Cruise can be seen performing all sorts of death-defying stunts. He is constantly putting himself in danger and pushing the boundaries of what an action star can do. It's enough to make anyone forget some of his other, more dramatic roles that don't involve hanging off a plane as it takes off.

Throughout his long career, Cruise has played a number of unique and varied roles. Those include short-tempered movie executive Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder, the vampire Lestat in Interview With The Vampire, and Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages. However, Cruise turned down one of the main roles in Ford v Ferrari, and the reason why he didn't take it is just about the most Tom Cruise thing imaginable.

Best Tom Cruise Action Movies

Tom Cruise continues to impress with his library of entertaining action movies, but which of them can be considered his finest work?

Posts

By Jake Fillery

In a recent interview with The National to promote F1, Brad Pitt discussed a time when both he and Tom Cruise were up for the two lead roles in James Mangold's Ford v Ferrari. At the time, Cruise was set to play Carroll Shelby, with Pitt filling the role of Ken Miles. However, Pitt recalled why Cruise lost interest in the role, saying "What it came down to is that we both wanted to drive, and he wanted to play Shelby, and I wanted to play Ken Miles. And when Tom realized that Carroll Shelby would not be driving much in the movie, it didn’t come through." The role of Shelby was eventually played by Matt Damon, while Christian Bale starred as Ken Miles. Cruise may get his chance to drive if Pitt can get a sequel to F1 off the ground. F1 was directed by Joseph Kosinski, who also helmed another one of Tom Cruise's latest box office successes with Top Gun: Maverick. That movie saw Cruise, as well as his co-stars, actually flying in Naval jets. While actual pilots were doing the flying, there's no doubt that Cruise wanted to fly one himself.

It's understandable why Tom Cruise would be turned off by the role once he found out there would be little to no driving for him to do. Cruise's whole thing at this point in his career is trying to pull off the most breathtaking stunts possible. In his most recent film, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, Cruise wowed audiences with not one massive setpiece, but two. The first saw him going to new depths to explore a downed Russian submarine in the movie. The second, more publicized stunt took place during the film's intense finale. There, Cruise performed truly amazing aerial stunts, jumping from one biplane to the other. That stunt, according to the movie's stunt coordinator, did not use any green screen. Cruise has, of course, done plenty of other wild stunts in his Mission: Impossible role, including riding a motorcycle off a cliff in Dead Reckoning and performing a HALO jump in Fallout.

While Ford v Ferrari did not feature Cruise or Pitt, it did go on to earn just over $225 million at the box office. It was a hit with critics and audiences, holding a Certified Fresh 92% on Rotten Tomatoes (audiences loved it as well, giving it a 98% on the Popcorn Meter). The movie also went on to be nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It won two for Best Film Editing and Best Sound Editing.

Ford v Ferrari is available to stream on Disney+.

Rating block community and brand ratings Image