‘Interview with the Vampire’ Director Reveals What He Saw “Behind” Tom Cruise’s Famous Smile

Tom Cruise has spent decades as one of Hollywood’s most recognizable movie stars, but Interview with the Vampire remains one of those rare occasions when the actor seems to completely disappear beneath someone else’s skin. His Lestat is charming, funny, cruel, and frequently terrifying, which made the backlash to his casting look rather silly once audiences actually saw the finished film. Director Neil Jordan, however, wasn’t immediately convinced either.

Speaking exclusively with Collider, Jordan recalled being asked by the studio to meet Cruise after numerous actors had been discussed for Lestat. Jordan already admired Cruise’s work, but it was meeting him away from the screen that convinced him there was something the actor could tap into for Lestat. Speaking during a Collider Rewind interview for the film's 4K restoration, Jordan said:

“The studio asked me to meet Tom. I always loved him as an actor. I always liked him as an actor, and there were all sorts of names being mentioned for this. I thought, ‘Tom Cruise? Oh my God. Okay, fine.’ So I drove out to meet Tom, who lived in Brentwood at the time or something like that. Utterly charming guy. But there’s something going on there. Do you understand what I mean? There’s something behind that grin. There’s something behind the beautiful physique, and I don’t know what it is.”

Jordan initially connected Cruise’s enormous fame with Lestat’s existence in the shadows. By their second meeting, however, the director had spotted something else underneath Cruise’s famous charm. “At the time, he was the biggest star in the world, so he had to keep himself in the shadows a bit," explained Jordan. "He didn’t have to protect himself from sunlight, but he had to protect himself from the glare of others, let’s put it that way. There was that aspect of being such a big star that struck me as suiting the part. I met him once, and we talked a bit, and then I met him a second time. That second time, I could see this other thing underneath the charm. It was intriguing and slightly terrifying, too. I thought, ‘Okay, let’s go for this. Let’s see what happens if I cast Tom as Lestat.’ And he gave a great, great performance.”

Neil Jordan Says Tom Cruise Gives Everything to a Performance

Jordan believes part of what makes Cruise such an interesting performer is his willingness to put enormous trust in his directors. He pointed toward Cruise’s work with Paul Thomas Anderson on Magnolia as an example of what can happen when the actor is given the opportunity to explore a completely different side of himself. “I think he’s a very interesting actor because I think he puts an enormous amount of trust in the director. I can see why the work he did with Paul Thomas Anderson, how he would have loved playing that role," said Jordan.

"I think he’s the kind of actor who sees there are multiple possibilities of yourself and seems to love different bits, which is why I’m really interested to see what he does in Digger," the director told Collider. "It’s why I loved what he did in that strange movie with Robert Downey Jr. where he played a version of Harvey Weinstein [Tropic Thunder]. I don’t know what the hell he was playing there, but I went, ‘Okay.’” Whatever the role, Jordan says there’s one thing nobody can accuse Cruise of doing: phoning it in. “I don’t think Tom Cruise would ever do anything without throwing himself into it. That’s the one thing you can say about him. He’s 100%, 110% there.”

Interview with the Vampire is available on 4K UHD. Stay tuned for more from Collider Rewind.