Actor Michael Cera opened up about the moment he once shared with the legendary Tom Cruise—something of a mentorship moment, if you will, though not one Cera likely expected.
During a visit to The Louis Theroux Podcast to discuss his new film The Phoenician Scheme, Cera was reminded of the time in 2010 when he filmed a bit for the MTV Movie Awards with Cruise.
The Awards included several short sketches in which Cruise appeared as his Tropic Thunder character Les Grossman alongside young up and coming actors like Robert Pattinson and Cera.
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But when it came time to film Cera's bit, it didn't quite go according to plan—because of Cera's mouth.
He told Theroux:
“The first moment I had with him, I arrived, they were shooting, and I was talking to the writer, the guy who was writing these scripts about the thing. We were just kind of mumbling while they were shooting, but they could hear us.”
"And Tom Cruise looks at me — I’ve never met him — and they’re in the middle of a take, and he looks and he goes, ‘Is that Michael Cera talking during a fu*king take?’ He was joking, but it was also like, 'do shut up.'”
Cera went on to say the Cruise did later confirm that he was only joking, but Cera cleverly blamed the incident on the writer anyway, just in case. After all, it's Tom Cruise—you gotta stay in his good graces!
On social media, fans loved Cera's anecdote about his Tom Cruise encounter—but they definitely weren't convinced Cruise was kidding!
Despite the shushing, Cera went on to say that Cruise was nothing but professional on the shoot, even jumping in and volunteering to rearrange the schedule so another costar could make a flight. "He was such a leader," Cera said.