Billy Crudup Shares Funny Tom Cruise Cue Cards Story On "Mission: Impossible 3"

When 'Mission: Impossible 4' was filmed in Vancouver, I had a part as a businessman in the Dubai hotel Burj Khalifa, riding an elevator for the scene where Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner are watching the elevator monitors. Unfortunately, a year later I was gutted when my scene was cut and I didn't enter the MI-VERSE.

Billy Crudup, in an interview with Deadline, is talking about acting with Tom Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible 3', sharing a hilarious anecdote about using cue cards: "I’ve told this story once before, but it’s worth repeating. J.J. Abrams wrote and directed that film—or at least co-wrote it—and there’s a big scene, not unlike the J.K. Simmons dynamic, where my character has to explain to Tom Cruise how he’s been duped. He thought of me as his subordinate, but in truth I’m so well connected in ways he couldn’t possibly understand. And I do all of this while he’s bound and gagged, and I’ve been beaten him up."

"When I first got the monologue, it was a really great piece of writing, and I wanted to start working on it right away. You can usually memorize things quickly, but to make it interesting—to make it feel like it’s really coming out of you and that you’ve thought through it—you need time to do proper text analysis. So I said to J.J., “This is great. I’m on it right now.” And he told me, “Oh no, don’t start memorizing it. We’re working through some bits and pieces, and I need to make sure the story works with the way we’re shooting it now.” They were constantly changing the script."

"About two weeks out, I said, “J.J., for this much text, if you want it done well, I need time now. Can we lock it down?” He said, “Not yet. We’re almost there.” A week before shooting, I said, “J.J., I’m just going to start memorizing this. Win, lose, or draw—if you change it, you change it. But if you want it good…” And he cut me off: “No, no. I promise, it’s coming today.”

"Three days before—nothing. The day of—I get a brand-new monologue. All of it changed. And when we get on set, I can’t get any of it out. Nothing is there. Tom, with all his beat-up makeup on, looks at me and goes, “No problem. You ever worked with cue cards?” And I said, “No, Tom. I have not worked with cue cards.” He goes, “We’re on it. Get this monologue on a cue card.”

"Cut to Tom, when they were shooting my coverage—he’s off-camera but holding the cue card like this, maintaining eye contact, acting his ass off through it, all while keeping the lines steady in front of him. A phenomenal colleague. If you rewatch the scene, you can probably see my eyes darting between the card and his eyes. I had to read the whole thing."

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Written By: Dan Lalonde

Photo Credit: Paramount