Tom Cruise Was Warned by His Co-Star Before She Nearly Broke His Nose During This Love Scene
Tom Cruise has had more than a few love scenes in his long and successful career. But there was perhaps only one love scene that left him sustaining a bloody injury.
Tom Cruise ended up with a knee in his face while performing this love scene
Cocktail wasn’t the most well-received movie Cruise had done in his long career. It’s mostly known for being the actor’s lowest-rated film to date. However, for Cruise and his co-star, the movie was also remembered for its intense love scene. Cruise had Killer Joe actor Gina Gershon as his love interest.
It was Gershon’s first major studio picture at the time. When working with Cruise, Gershon shared how he looked out for the inexperienced star. When she had to remove her bra for instance, Cruise made sure that no one else would be able to see her bare chest.
“He was very protective over me,” she once told Daily Beast. “Whenever people say all these crazy things, I’ve always really liked him and he’s always been nice to me.”
When it came time for the two to shoot their sex scene, however, Gershon warned Cruise that she was sensitive to certain sensations.
“I remember at one point, you know, it’s like one of my first movies [with] Tom Cruise. And somehow he started off down underneath the sheets. He started to do one thing that tickled me. I said, ‘Oh my God, whatever you do, don’t tickle me. I really get out of control, it’s not funny,’” Gershon once recalled to Sirius XM. “And he’s like, of course he has a gleam in his eye. They say action, and he tickled me, and my knee jerked up and I kicked him right in the nose.”
This sent Gershon into an understandable panic. But Cruise reassured Gershon that he was the one at fault.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I just broke Tom Cruise’s nose.’ And he was like, ‘No, no. I’m fine. You warned me,’” Gershon remembered.
Tom Cruise helped co-star Lea Thompson get out of a nude scene
Gershon wasn’t the only co-star that Cruise helped while working together. Lea Thompson of Back to the Future fame also received generous support from Cruise in their movie All the Right Movies. In the 1983 sports drama, Thompson was originally supposed to remove her bra for two of the film’s scenes. Because of the Top Gun star, however, there were some changes made to accommodate Thompson.
“I didn’t even audition because I didn’t want to take my shirt off, but I got the part and was like, ‘OK.’ Tom managed to talk them out of one of the [nude] scenes, and in the second, he said, ‘Well, if she has to be naked, I’ll be naked, too,’” Thompson told Closer not too long ago. “That’s pretty badass! I’ve always been grateful to him for standing up to the producers.”
Why Tom Cruise toned down the love scenes in his movies
Cruise was once known as a Hollywood sex symbol. But overtime, fans of the actor began to notice that Cruise did less love scenes in his films than he used to. Some speculated that this was Cruise’s way of declaring himself a more serious actor. But Cruise’s spokeswoman Pat Kingsley felt it was based on the actor’s maturity.
“It was the tenor of the early movies; coming-of-age films are about discovering things like sex. Tom’s 31 years old now. He’s come of age,” Kingsley said in a 1993 interview with Entertainment Weekly.
