15 Film Stars You Couldn’t Recognize In Films

6. Tom Cruise: Tropic Thunder

Not that you’d ever guess, but the famous face of Tom Cruise was transformed in Tropic Thunder (2008) as he played the cruel yet hilarious film executive, Les Grossman. Directed by Mr Stiller himself, the guys tried their best to keep it under wraps by leaving out Tom’s name until the very last moment in the credits. Sneaky.

Apparently, they have fooled many, as Cruise was beyond his usual roles, playing a vulgar movie mogul, cleverly concealed as a bold businessman with beard one would not expect of Cruise. There were speculations that the character was based on Summer Redstone, with whom Cruise had a public argument, but others suggest it is more likely that his character was based on the movie’s producer Stuart Cornfeld.

Cruise was having a bit of a crisis at the time, since most news about him was not in favor of his public image, but he might have gotten back the audience’s sympathies with this role.  Stiller considered Cruise to partake with a supporting role, but the one that would make a memorable appeal.

The agents called Cruise to consider the agent role, instead of which, Cruise suggested a better fit would be more of foul-mouth agent, whose juicy swears will remain to be quoted by many. Stiller liked Cruise’s idea to create Les Grossman, a vulgar and obscene agent who would top everyone else’s performance in every scene he appears.

For the MTV Movie Awards, Cruise once again employed his character in another first-rate performance, after which there were talks a spin-off may take its course to Paramount. Even though there hasn’t been much news on the Cruise spin-off, there aren’t any rumors the project has come to halt. MTV spread the news that Michael Bacall has already written the script with main role for Less Grossman.

Since Cruise has been working on a lot of major projects recently, it is unclear whether he would need to film Less Grossman movie, but he makes a decision, the project would be ready to go.