Director Terry Gilliam has revealed that he rejected a bid from megastar Tom Cruise to join “The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus” after the death of Heath Ledger.
“I’m not sure if it was Tom or his agent [who put Cruise forward for the role],” Gilliam tells Total Film. “I know there was a period when Tom’s agents were keen. The thing is, I was only interested in people who were friends of Heath. Simple as that. I wanted to keep it in the family.”
Interestingly, in 2007 Cruise went on to film a cameo in “Tropic Thunder” as agent Len Grossman, a part which put the actor on the road to restoring his reputation tarnished by the likes of his infamous 2005 “jumping the couch” Oprah interview. Seems like Cruise’s P.R. people were really earning their wages that year trying to get the actor a chance at on-screen redemption.
Gilliam not falling for the bait probably worked out better for both parties though – a Cruise cameo would have really turned ‘Doctor Parnassus’ into a farce and, judging from all the film’s post-Cannes reactions, probably wouldn’t have done Cruise any favors either.
If I remember correctly, a young Tom Cruise was also very keen to play the lead role in Brazil before Jonathan Pryce was cast, going so far as to send Gilliam a videotaped audition. If pressed to remember the source of this I'd say probably Faber&Faber's Gilliam on Gilliam, but I don't have the book near me to check, so I could be wrong on that. Anyway, just an interesting related tidbit.
I think you are missing the point here. Gilliam wanted to finish the film with those who knew Ledger in life. Cruise did not. That's it. He stayed true to that goal as well he should have. Keeping that in mind in my opinion he was totally correct not to take Cruise up on his offer.
As for your statement "judging from all the film's post-Cannes reactions, probably wouldn't have done Cruise any favors either." It is irresponsible and untruthful of Playlist to make such a comment as the use of the word ALL is completely inaccurate. There were many critics at Cannes and since who have liked this movie immensely and have written positive reviews of the film at Cannes and elsewhere. Sadly, you seem to skip right over those reviews in each article you write, ,thus not giving the whole picture. Let us not forget the standing ovation it received from these same people at it's screening Cannes or the comments from reviewers, "Welcome Back Gilliam!", "Dr. Parnassus Is Gilliam At His Best!" and more.
Nonetheless, I personally think Gilliam's decision was completely appropriate for this film and made without malice, but with being true to his project as the purpose of his decision.
Lastly, I still find it quite amusing that a blogger who has NOT seen a film can have such definite derrogatory views on how good that film is.
An Observer
You just never seem to miss an opportunity to say the film got all and only bad Cannes reviews, which is hardly the case. It was extremely well received by the audience.
I couldn't agree with you more that Cruise would not have been a good choice to complete the film. Though I disagree with your jab, that the film would not have done him any favors either. It's moot, for one. Frankly, I don't think on-screen redemption in any film is possible. I don't think anything will erase that couch incident from our brains, do you?
Playlist, I can't wait until you actually get to see this film. I'm almost as anxious for you to see it as I am anxious myself to see it. Then you can finally stop regurgitating and recycling, in many cases, the ramblings of others who ALSO have not seen the film.
I didn't write this someone else did, fyi. I don't monitor what they think.
Playlist,
You're right you didn't write it, but you didn't credit who did. Come on man. I know you aspire to be The Vulture, you've pretty much said so yourself, but this article is lifted straight from The Vulture yesterday. We don't come on here to see you cut and paste man we come to get something new. This is practically verbatim. Even then it's not newsworthy, Gilliam wanted the film finished by people who knew Ledger before he died, Cruise didn't know Ledger. It's that simple. Newsworthy…No. But next time, if you're going to rip from The Vulture at least credit them.
Nosey Neighbor
Posted by Simon Dang at 8:39 AM
Aspire to be Vulture? That's funny considering THEY found this exact story on our site and linked to US.
Next.
nitwit.
I stand corrected, the ORIGINAL article came from contactmusic. You didn't credit them either.
Nosey Neighbor
in best sing-songy tolerant voice: "follow the link mr. jack ass, you will see the quote is from total film, but goes to contact music who jacked it from there (without sourcing themselves), nice try, keep going, have a nice day."
These Parnassus cheesedicks need to go away and they're completely transparent. They were never here before, never engaged in any dialogues, but as soon as their precious Terry Gilliam was insulted that had to flock down to defend their leader. Slag off you drones.
Hilarious. The Playlist is called out on misrepresenting Cannes and it's right into "talk about something else" mode.
I guess at least the "Parnassus cheesdicks" can admit when they might have been wrong about your sourcing.