“It made me feel old”: Tom Cruise Managed to Nab His Breakout Role in $63.5M Despite Offending Casting Director
Starting his career in the 80s, Hollywood star Tom Cruise has come a long way since. With several hit films under his belt, a notable legacy has no doubt been made already. However, Cruise did not earn his stardom overnight and just like many had to gradually climb the ladder and mark his name in the film industry as a promising and great actor.
Talking about him during his earlier days, Nancy Koppler, the casting director for 1983’s Risky Business opened up about what it was like when young Cruise walked in to audition for the role of Joel Goodson.
Tom Cruise Offended the Casting Director of Risky Business
With a humble beginning in the film Industry, Hollywood’s iconic star Tom Cruise sure made memorable impressions on many. However, his politeness once ended up offending the casting director Nancy Koppola for the 1983 teen rom-com, Risky Business, directed by Paul Brickman.
Talking about the casting process, Koppola described young Cruise, who still had his jagged tooth and jet-black hair, as one of the most “polite kids” she ever encountered. However she also mentioned that the one thing she did not enjoy about the whole interaction was that,
“He called me ‘ma’am,’ which I hated because it made me feel old.”
But apart from that everything seems to have been perfect as he nailed the audition and finally got cast for the lead role of Joel Goodman which many other actors such as Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, John Cusack, etc had previously auditioned for.
At the time, the Top Gun actor had also been working on Francis Coppola’s The Outsiders. He was cast opposite Rebeccas De Mornay, who played the role of Lana in Risky Business.
A Brief Look at Tom Cruise Starrer Risky Bussiness
The 1983 film Risky Business directed by Paul Brickman is a teen rom-com that centers around an upper-class teenage kid named Joel Goodman (Tom Cruise). After his parents leave him alone at home for a holiday, Goodman decides to turn his home into a brothel but soon ends up getting messed up in great chaos.
The film was well received and did a great job at the box office with 63.5 million dollars in collection against a relatively mere budget of 6.5 million dollars. This might be one of Cruise’s lowest-grossing and lesser-known movies, nevertheless, it was still a great commercial as well as a critical success.
Source: Variety
