Rosamund Pike feared losing $218M film role after she asked Tom Cruise to 'stop talking' during auditions
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike worked together in the 2012 film 'Jack Reacher', where Pike played Cruise's love interest. However, Pike expressed concerns about potentially jeopardizing her chances for a significant role in the movie by speaking up against her co-star.
Prior to being officially hired, Pike had concerns that her chances of working with Cruise might have been jeopardized. Her audition tape for the role in 'Jack Reacher' caught the attention of director Christopher McQuarrie and Cruise.
'Do you think you could not talk during my scene?'
"In my audition there was a moment where I was doing a scene with a guy who was standing in for Richard Jenkins, who plays my father," Pike explained. "I could see Tom Cruise and McQuarrie out of the corner of my eye kind of talking during my scene and it was distracting. So I said, 'I’m sorry guys, do you think you could not talk during my scene?'"
However, she immediately regretted her decision. "I thought, 'Oh my goodness, what have I done?' I’m probably the only actress in 30 years who’s ever told Tom Cruise to stop talking," she said. Pike's response, however, turned out to be the decisive factor that secured her the role. "Chris sent me an e-mail saying, 'Now that’s how you book [the job],'" she recalled.
'I now count him as a friend'
Despite this, Pike had an enjoyable experience working on the action thriller and had always been a fan of Cruise, making her thrilled about the opportunity to collaborate with him. "It’s a thrill, obviously! It’s kind of every teenage girl’s dream — certainly mine, and then suddenly 20 years later here I am working with the man in such a close way that I actually got to know the man. Really, that was such a privilege, because I now count him as a friend," she once told MTV News.
Pike cherished her time working with Cruise and hoped to collaborate with him again. However, she felt that in the past, Hollywood had a better chance of pairing celebrities based on their chemistry, a practice she wished was more prevalent today. "It’s funny enough because in the old days when the studio saw that the chemistry between a couple was electric, they’d say, ‘OK, we want these two together on-screen again and again!’ And now it’s funny how rarely that happens. The studios don’t really set people up for another film together just because they were great together," she said.