The Role That Turned Tom Cruise Into a Sex Symbol — And Made Him Bulk Up in Record Time
Risky Business minted Tom Cruise as an overnight sex symbol — but before the iconic slide, he had to pull a wild stunt to win over a skeptical director Paul Brickman.
Tom Cruise didn't just slide across a hardwood floor in his socks to become a star. To land and sell the lead in 1983's Risky Business, he basically hacked his own face. The director wasn't convinced he was right for it, so 20-year-old Cruise went on a pretty wild body tweak to look like an actual suburban kid instead of a grim cadet.
The body switch that sold Joel
Right before Risky Business, Cruise had finished Taps, where he had trimmed down and came off intense and severe. Great for a military drama, not so much for a Chicago teen who accidentally turns his house into a bordello. According to IMDb trivia, to get closer to director Paul Brickman's vision of a softer, boyish Joel, Cruise trained seven days a week and dropped about ten pounds. Then he did the exact opposite: he stopped working out and loaded up on extremely fatty foods to put a little baby fat back on. Bizarre? Yep. Effective? Also yep. That's how he landed that fresh-faced look that made him an overnight sex symbol.
Brickman wasn't sold at first
Brickman had seen Taps and thought Cruise seemed, well, lethal. He was picturing someone gentler for Joel, and he said as much. Cruise once summed up the reaction this way:
"Originally, Paul had seen Taps and said, 'This guy for Joel? This guy is a killer! Let him do Amityville III!'"
Despite that, Cruise's agent finagled a casual drop-by at Brickman's office. Rebecca De Mornay had already been cast, so they threw the two together to see if sparks flew. By Cruise's own telling (via IMDb), the test wasn't exactly fireworks, but Brickman believed in him anyway. The behind-the-scenes takeaway: he wasn't an obvious choice, and he had to prove he could shake off the commando vibe.
Set romance: hot start, rough landing
Filming kicked off in 1982, and the movie didn't just jump-start Cruise's career; it also launched one of his first major romances. De Mornay and Cruise fell for each other during and after production. She had been with Harry Dean Stanton, but ended that relationship and started seeing Cruise. When the movie hit in 1983, Cruise exploded into one of Hollywood's most in-demand young stars. De Mornay got a boost too, but her next project didn't click, her momentum dipped, and the gap between their careers got... awkward.
She later told The Wrap that the whole period was "personally jarring and thrilling and discombobulating," and described their energies this way: Cruise was a big bright major chord; she was more of a minor chord. America loves the major chords. By 1985, their more-than-two-year relationship was over. Post-breakup, Cruise briefly dated Cher before marrying Mimi Rogers. De Mornay dated Richard Cox and later married Bruce Wagner.
The payoff
Risky Business earned Cruise his first Golden Globe nomination and pretty much set the table for the next four decades of his career. De Mornay didn't get the same launch, but she's a key part of why the movie still works: that coolly vulnerable energy she brings is the perfect counterweight to Cruise's wide-eyed chaos.
Quick stats
- Movie: Risky Business (1983)
- Director: Paul Brickman
- Cast: Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay, Joe Pantoliano, Richard Masur, Bronson Pinchot, Curtis Armstrong
- Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
- Runtime: 1h 39m
Risky Business is streaming in the US on AMC+ and The Roku Channel. What's your go-to scene? The Porsche in the lake? The dance? Or the egg-scrambler of a train sequence?