Excerpt from Conversations with Wilder
Tom Cruise is a thinking actor. He makes it look effortless. For example, Rain Man. It took several years for everyone to realize that the roles could have been switched. That is a movie I would have liked to have seen — the crazy guy is the good-looking one. The ease in which he handles the hardest roles … Tom Cruise, he’s like Cary Grant. He makes the hard things look simple. On film, Cary Grant could walk into the room and say “Tennis anyone?” like no one else. You don’t value the skill until you see a less skilled actor try to same thing. It’s pure gold.
(Wilder and Cary Grant were friends for many many years. Wilder, til the end of Grant’s life, was trying to get Cary Grant in his films. Grant, for his own private reasons, continuously said no. I’ll post more quotes on that later. The Humphrey Bogart role in Sabrina had been turned down by Cary Grant, which was why Bogart was so cranky during the whole shoot. He knew that he was second-choice.)
