Tom Cruise has his little sister to thank for one of the most important roles of his career.
Cruise’s sister Cass helped him land a role in Rain Man, the Academy Award-winning title that saw him star opposite Dustin Hoffman, the actor revealed during a wide-ranging conversation with Sight and Sound magazine.
“I met Hoffman when he was doing [the 1984 Broadway revival of] Death of a Salesman,” Cruise shared, explaining that he was at a restaurant with Cass when she spotted Hoffman across the dining room. “My sister was like, ‘There’s Dustin Hoffman, go up and say hello to him.'”
Cruise, who was just six movies into his career — including Taps, The Outsiders, and Risky Business — and was in the midst of shooting Ridley Scott’s dark fantasy Legend, says he initially refused.
“I’m like, ‘I am not gonna go up to Dustin Hoffman,'” he recalled. “And my sister says, ‘If you don’t go up and say hello to him, I’m going to say hello to him,’ and I was like ‘Oh my god.'”
Embarrassed by the idea that his sister would approach Hoffman and tell the actor who he was, Cruise gave in and walked over himself. And to his surprise, Hoffman greeted him by name.
“I went up and said hello, and suddenly he knows my name,” Cruise said. “It was so weird hearing these people know my name. Like, oh my gosh.”
Hoffman ended up offering Cruise and his sister tickets to see him in Death of a Salesman, and invited them backstage after the show. Afterwards, when Cruise was on his way out, Hoffman stopped him with a shocking declaration: “You and I are going to make a movie together one day.”
“I was like, ‘Okay, sure,'” Cruise recalled. But Hoffman made good on his word, sending over the script for Rain Man just two years later.
The film sees estranged brothers Charlie (Cruise) and Raymond (Hoffman) embark on a life-changing road trip after the death of their father, who leaves his $3 million fortune to only one of them.
After making his big screen debut with 1981’s Endless Love, Cruise’s star was already on the rise by the time the late ’80s rolled around. In addition to headlining now beloved titles like Risky Business and Top Gun, Cruise had also worked with acclaimed filmmakers like Scott, Francis Ford Coppola (The Outsiders), and Martin Scorsese (The Color of Money). Rain Man not only continued Cruise’s hot streak, but also showed audiences a different side of him.
Cruise also noted that he learned much from working alongside Hoffman, which he would use later in his career.
“Hoffman and I spent two years working together. One of the things he took me through is everything he did on Kramer vs Kramer,” Cruise explained. “Dustin told me how he structured the scenes based on the talent of his son in the movie and how to film it so that that actor really was what you needed.”
Cruise kept that in mind when working with child actors later in his own career, including Kirsten Dunst in Interview with the Vampire and Jonathan Lipnicki in Jerry Maguire.
“When I’m working with children, I have a very specific thing where I’m making sure that the crew doesn’t all of a sudden disrupt the creative flow,” Cruise added. “They do great work… They’re professional. They want to be great in the movie. They know it’s a job, and they are very proud of that. I never make less of that. I’m very respectful with them, just like I am with every actor that I work with, and everyone on set.”
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
