“It was unpleasant”: Tom Cruise Deeply Disliked His Character in a $162 Million Film That Went Against His Macho-Action Hero Persona

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Of the many films that Tom Cruise has filmed over the years in Hollywood, the Stanley Kubrick thrillerEyes Wide Shuthas to be one of the weirdest experiences of his life. Considering it’s Cruise we are talking about, the poster boy of action films, the wildly erotic thriller did not fall under his usual foray into artsy blockbusters.

Despite the subject matter and the plot of the movie, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman left an indelible mark with the 1999 film that also proved to be the final masterpiece of Kubrick’s lifetime. The creative endeavor that connected Cruise, Kidman, and Kubrick in a once-in-a-lifetime experience, however, also went against everything that the action star would go on to represent some time into the future.

Tom Cruise sacrifices his core identity for one film

It is not alwaysTom Cruisewho gets to choose his missions. Sometimes, the missions choose him and that is whereStanley Kubrick‘sEyes Wide Shutcomes in. The masterful sculptor of stories and thrillers had an eye unlike any other when it came to films, and Cruise was the only actor with enough gung-ho to match Kubrick’s enthusiasm for the creative medium.

The duo then boldly crossed over into a territory that no other man had dared to before with their collaborative work onEyes Wide Shut– a film that to this day manages to make the audience feel deeply unsettled and uncomfortable in their own skin.

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Despite his action-hero persona, the actor managed to find space for the Kubrick thriller where he donned the role of a doctor haunted more by his personal curiosity than the threat of what knowledge beyond his means might bring.Eyes Wide Shutputs Cruise’s character as well as the audience in a precarious position that makes the film as much a thriller as a psychological experiment in horror.

Tom Cruise’s hatred for his role inEyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shutfound its perfect lead pairing in Tom Cruise andNicole Kidmanbut starring in a Kubrick film is not everybody’s cup of tea. The film’s core ideology and the role that was required of Cruise went against everything that theMission: Impossiblestar represented in his career – the macho action hero who could single-handedly thwart criminal syndicates all over the globe.

However, once upon a time, Cruise was known more for his work in arthouse cinema than hisMission: Impossibleidentity. Films likeMagnolia,Interview With the Vampire,Rain Man,Jerry Maguire, andVanilla Skymade up most of his career beforeKnight and Day,Edge of Tomorrow, andMission: Impossiblecame along.

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When interviewed byVanity Fairabout his role in the film, the actor claimed:

I didn’t like playing Dr. Bill. I didn’t like him. This guy’s holding everything in for such a long time. And he never broke out. Every moment, it’s just about containment. It was unpleasant. Who wants to be there that long?

Stanley Kubrick framed the role of the tightly wound Dr. Bill in a way that would make any actor feel suffocated by his part. Cruise as well as Kubrick understood what it would take to make the role of Bill work and the former made every moment worthy of shining through the director’s lens by making the audience feel the suffocation too.

Eyes Wide Shutis streaming on Paramount+.

Diya Majumdar

Senior Writer

Articles Published :2409

Diya Majumdar is a Senior Content Writer at FandomWire with over 2000 published articles on the website. Since 2022, she has been working as an entertainment journalist with a special focus on films and pop culture.Among the countless genres and themes of Hollywood, the ones that particularly favor Diya’s tastes include Game of Thrones, DC, and well-aged thrillers and classics.

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