(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Tuesday 1 October 2024, 16:45 PM, United Kingdom
The spirit of cooperation is the key to the success of any film because no actor will do his best under a tyrannical director, and vice versa. Ron Howard was more than open to a star’s suggestions, even if the star wasn’t entirely convinced he really meant it.
It’s an unusual dilemma for a director to find himself in, creating a strangely paradoxical situation. Howard worked closely with the performer in question. They put their heads together to develop or expand several story and character elements, only to have the first star demand that instead of bending over backwards to accommodate them, the Oscar-winner proves it was made for the best interest. From the picture.
It’s not a typical approach, but when has Tom Cruise ever done things the easy way? After all, no one had asked him to rappel around the tallest building in the world, or stick to a plane during takeoff, or ride a motorcycle off a cliff and parachute to safety; He did it primarily because he wanted to, but also because the director he was working under agreed that it would enhance their film.
When Howard and Cruise teamed up, it wasn’t that kind of production, but a romantic period drama that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that accents aren’t an action icon’s strongest suit. Mission: Impossible Striker can play many characters cut from countless different cloths, but an Irishman? Not much.
In 1992, Far and Away saw Howard supervising the duo of Cruise and Nicole Kidman, as well as Joseph Donnelly and Shannon Christie, who ventured from the “Emerald Isle” to America with the goal of a better life. Naturally, things don’t go as planned, and the Boston couple ends up penniless, wondering if the dream will ever come true.
Before a single frame was shot, Cruise was constantly in the ear of Howard and writer Bob Dollman, ensuring that his and Kidman’s characters were better focused. Most directors would gladly take ideas when one of the biggest stars in Hollywood made them, but as he explained to Rolling Stone, it wasn’t that simple.
“Although he is confident in his own ideas, he really wants to be directed; Howard explained that he wanted his thoughts to be edited, shutting down any notion that Cruise was using his star power as a weapon. “He’s the type of person who won’t take ‘yes’ for an answer. He wants you to really mean it.”
There’s a fine line between massaging Cruise’s ego and sincerely believing his additions to the plot and character are worth it, and he knows it. Being at the top of the business for so long gives him a very strong director, so Far and Away wouldn’t be fixed unless he was absolutely convinced that Howard was doing it for the picture.
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