In 2008, Tom Cruise was going through a bit of a rough patch, suffering from a small wave of bad publicity and general public discontent, which was strange for someone who was formerly one of the most beloved movie stars in the world. In what was either a stroke of luck or a stroke of genius, he signed on for the absurd Ben Stiller war comedy Tropic Thunder, playing a character who would somehow go on to be this iconic figure in comedy for years to come: the film studio executive Les Grossman.
Cruise is hysterical as the unpredictable and visually ridiculous Grossman because he seems to treat him with the same intensity and seriousness that he would bring to a non-comedic part. So when you see him in his weird fat suit with his giant hands and bald head, there’s a couple of seconds before you recognize him, and when you do, there’s that moment of “Omg it’s Tom Cruise” that is compounded when he keeps going and shouting into his phone without any impression that anything he’s doing is as hilarious as it is for us. It’s no wonder people came flocking back to the Cruisewagon after seeing him as Les Grossman. It was a reminder that he can take a break from taking himself uber seriously and also that he’s just so damn good at acting.
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