Plus, Volk-Weiss shared his account of meeting Cruise for the first time.
How long have you been working on this idea and trying to make it come together?
Brian Volk-Weiss: I would say, honestly, 90 seconds or less into Top Gun: Maverick.
Icons Unearthed is a documentary television series that digs up some hidden secrets behind film history’s biggest blockbusters. Each episode focuses on a new film or franchise and sees prominent industry experts, film cast/crew, and more as they try to debunk rumors and lift the veil on the cinema magic that made these movies the juggernauts they became.
My favorite movie of the century is Mad Max: Fury Road.
Its funny you said it was apropos Icons Unearthed: Star Wars.
I dont think thats a coincidence.
Top Gun: Maverickis pretty recent.
Howd you decide on where to pick up and stop with Tom Cruises career?
Essentially, we need to tell the story.
[That] also covers his life leading up to Risky Business.
Consequently, you really can’t do a doc about Tom Cruise without talking about Top Gun.
So, you really need these story points.
What we tried to do with Tom Cruise is break him down into sections of his life.
Theres the guy who comes to Hollywood and ends up dominatingthats section one.
Then, theres Tom Cruise becomes Jackie Chan, so theres that part of his career.
We broke the rule here, [but] Im really into failure.
I find failure a very interesting topic.
Tom Cruise has had some interesting failures.
Eyes Wide Shut is a failure on many levels.
He and Spielberg didn’t talk for, I think, 20 years after the Oprah couch thing.
His personal life with Scientology and his various marriages are a part of who he is.
Oblivion was absolutely not a classic when it came out.
It barely made a profit.
He made weird [choices] not compared to other movies but compared to all his other work.
Eyes Wide Shut is a good example.
Hes made some choices that didnt work before, but you understand why he took the swing.
Did you feel like there was a prevailing opinion about him that was shared by everyone?
Brian Volk-Weiss: Everybody loves this guy.
Everybody said the same thing.
They said the same thing: He’s insanely intenseand by the way, Ive met him.
Im paraphrasing, [but thats the idea].
And he really took care of people.
This is obviously in the doc, but we interviewed Jay Mohr [for the] Jerry McGuire episode.
Everybody had stories like that.
No, that’s stressful.
I didnt hear anything about him being an a**hole.
A couple of people went out of their way to tell us that.
And we got very frank stuff.
We interviewed the first AD of Top Gun: Maverickit was all Tom.
Tom was there at every meeting.
He was there at every rehearsal.
He was the one who came up with the schedule for how many flights they could do a day.
He was the guy liaising with the military.
That was the other thing that came up frequently.
Nice to meet you.
Is it possible for us to come maybe two hours early and shoot what we need to shoot?
Well be out of there by the time the parade practice is going.
This is Tom Cruise.
It’s me and Dane, and we’re driving to the airport together.
Dane was like, Weve got to get back today because I’m doing the Tonight Show tomorrow.
We’re like, What?
Dax was always deadpanI would bet you everything I owned [that] he was joking.
He was like, Yeah.
We all thought he was full of s***.
Another weird Dax Shepherd joke.
I remember this like it was 10 minutes ago.
He sees Dane and is like, Oh my God.
I have so many questions.
It was the weirdest thing ever.
If he wasnt famous, I [still] wouldve been telling this story forever.
It would have been my weird handshake guy story.
And true to his part, he asked Dane a billion questions.
He was asking so many questions.
How do you do this?
How do you do that?
How do you know when to wrap up?
He had so many logistical questions.
Dane kept saying, Oh, thats a good question, actually.
I never thought about that, and was walking him through it.
Even if he wasnt famous, I never wouldve forgotten the interaction.
After rising to superstardom in the high-flying Top Gun, Tom focused on working with top directors.
With his carefully chosen roles he tested himself as an actor, in search of an elusive Oscar.
From there he moved on to producing his own successful franchise built on doing his own stunts.
But after a few public false steps he nearly lost it all.
Icons Unearthed: Tom Cruiseairs Wednesdays on Vice TV.
