Tom Cruise is known for two things. The first is making some of the best action movies ever made, and the second is sending out Christmas cakes to his co-stars (Editor: He’s probably known for other things?). Still, it turns out he’s also quite wise, offering some sage advice to Emily Blunt while making the science fiction movie Edge of Tomorrow.
OK, we say sage advice. What we actually mean is he got quite blunt (no pun intended) with his co-star when she got worried about wearing a prop battle suit for the alien movie. We had to wear these enormous suits, which I think would’ve been great if we had CGI’d them, but we wanted to do it in a tactile way,” She told the SmartLess podcast .” When you hear the word ‘tactile,’ you think that sounds nice and cosy. There was nothing cosy about these suits.”
“It was like 85 pounds,” Blunt continued. “It was so heavy… The first time I put it on, I started to cry, and [Cruise] didn’t know what to do. I was like, ‘Tom, I’m not sure how I’m going to get through this shoot,’ and just started to cry. I said, ‘I’m feeling a bit panicky about the whole shoot.'”
So what did Cruise tell his crying friend? Well, he was helpful in a brutal sort of way. “He [Cruise] just stared at me for a long time, not knowing what to do,” she finished. “And he goes, ‘Come on, stop being such a pussy, OK?'”
Blunt admitted she found the frankness really refreshing and actually started laughing before finishing her scene. This isn’t the first time Cruise has offered advice to one of his colleagues, although it’s probably the bluntest he’s ever been.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Monica Barbaro, who starred in the wonderful Top Gun 2 (seriously one of the best movies of the year), explained how Cruise would constantly take the younger cast aside to offer them his pearls of wisdom or share the intricacies of filmmaking with them.
“I remember one day when we were on the carrier and in his room as we talked about some changes he had made to the story,” Barbaro explained. “He would always pull us aside and be like, ‘This is why we’re changing this. This is where the story has to go.’ So he would teach us the dynamics of storytelling.”
If you love Cruise’s work, check out our guide to the Mission Impossible 7 release date, or we have a list of the best spy movies ever made for you to enjoy.