Tom Cruise is maybe the biggest movie star of all time. Throughout his illustrious career, he’s done so much, from working with auteurs in prestige dramas to becoming the greatest action movie star this world has ever and maybe will ever see. Working with him, by most accounts, is an enjoyable experience, and most co-stars have a good experience working with him. Most is the key word there, though, as it’s not a universal experience, and one co-star just came out and said he was really not looking forward to pairing up with the eventual Mission: Impossible star.

Tim Curry Speaks on Starring Opposite Tom Cruise

For a long time, Tom Cruise was everywhere. He was in a boatload of 80s and 90s movies, including Legend from acclaimed director Ridley Scott. The film is a dark fantasy adventure movie starring Tim Curry as Darkness and Cruise as his opponent in the movie. For many, that would’ve been a fun pairing in 1985. For Curry, it was not.

“Before we met on the set of ‘Legend‘, I had seen ‘Risky Business,’ with Tom cast perfectly as the cute, innocent young rebel. And when we finally appeared in a film together, he was very nice and easy to be around — but he’s also quite unique, and not a person I fully understood. We never had any issues, but I cannot say I felt the appeal,” Curry said via FOX News in his latest memoir.

Curry made clear that Cruise didn’t cause any problems, but he also just didn’t quite get what Cruise had going on. “Unlike many others in the eighties, I wasn’t desperately star-struck around him; in fact, I was kind of dreading it,” the Clue star went on. “I couldn’t really identify why. Maybe he sensed my reticence and was consequently a little awkward.”

The actor liked that Cruise was very dedicated to his role as a young actor, but he came away a little amused by how in-depth he actually went. Curry revealed that Cruise asked to sleep in the snowy set so he’d be more at home there like his character.

Tim Curry Didn’t See the Talent

Cruise’s talent has shone through across the decades in movies like Magnolia, Mission: Impossible III, Rain Man, Vanilla Sky, and Eyes Wide Shut, but Curry thought his early status was more due to his good looks than a wealth of acting talent. “In the premise of the film, he loses his power, but he looks great doing it. He has the perks that looks and money bring in Hollywood. I mean, people all over the world want to f**k him—and I’m sure that wouldn’t be the worst feeling. I was just never blown away by his talent,” he added.

Director Ridley Scott didn’t want the two hanging around and becoming too friendly given their roles as heated antagonists, and Curry’s intense prosthetic attire meant that he spent a lot of time getting into and out of costume, so the actor readily admitted that he didn’t get to know Cruise all that well. And while the comments seem negative, they’re not really out of a bitter place.

“There’s not much I can say definitively about him, since we didn’t get to know each other very well, but at the end of the day I found him to be a very thoughtful, considerate colleague—which I appreciated,” Curry concluded. Curry’s not the only one who’s felt an interesting way about working with Cruise. Brad Pitt, Cruise’s co-star in Interview with the Vampire felt that Cruise was quite intense, which is not at all a surprise to anyone who’s watched Cruise act.

Conclusion

Not everyone can get along with everyone, and while Tom Cruise is utterly beloved by the movie public, working with someone of that caliber and intensity is not always the perfect scenario. For Tim Curry, there was just something he couldn’t quite connect with, and that’s just how things go in Hollywood from time to time.