The success and spotlight that Tom Cruise is enjoying this year thanks to his work in Top Gun: Maverick might be a little nostalgic for his fellow mega Hollywood star, Leonardo DiCaprio.
While playing a significantly different character in a very different story, DiCaprio did nonetheless gain widespread acclaim for his portrayal of an eccentric pilot in the 2004 biographical drama film, The Aviator.
This parallel perhaps provides an insight into the kind of career trajectories the pair have enjoyed. Cruise and DiCaprio are undeniably two of the most recognizable movie stars in the world today, and they both have the portfolio to back it up.
While 2022 appears to be Cruise’s year, DiCaprio had his moment in the sun last year, albeit in a star-studded ensemble cast in the apocalyptic comedy drama film, Don’t Look Up.
Cruise will be returning to his Mission: Impossible franchise next year, while DiCaprio is working with director Martin Scorsese for a Western crime drama titled Killers of the Flower Moon.
For all this combined success between them, Cruise and DiCaprio have never starred in a film together. Fans have a theory that explains why.
Why Do Fans Think Tom Cruise And Leonardo DiCaprio Never Worked Together?
The assumption could be made that Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio’s respective profiles make it likely that their professional paths should have at some point crossed on the big screen. As a matter of fact, fans seem to believe that their status as two giants of industry is the very reason why they have never worked together.
The conversation arose a few years ago on Quora, and there seemed to be a consensus among the participants that Cruise and DiCaprio are individually just too big to ever collaborate.
‘I’d argue Cruise and DiCaprio function as professional adversaries, two apex predators competing for parts under increasingly converging niches. And frankly, they seem to know it,’ one fan argued.
To back up their position, the fan brought up DiCaprio’s starring role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He added that the actor’s Rick Dalton character had initially been offered to Cruise.
In reality, the part that Cruise was offered in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was Cliff Booth, eventually portrayed by Brad Pitt.
Quentin Tarantino Didn’t Think Leonardo DiCaprio And Tom Cruise Would Have Gelled In ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’
A plot summary for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on IMDb reads, ‘A faded television actor and his stunt double strive to achieve fame and success in the final years of Hollywood's Golden Age in 1969 Los Angeles.’
The faded TV actor was the character Rick Dalton, while his stunt double was Cliff Booth. In director Quentin Tarantino’s eyes, he had to find just the perfect pairing for actor and double. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt were just that, but he didn’t feel that DiCaprio and Cruise would have gelled well together.
So, while the Mission: Impossible star was indeed offered the part of Cliff Booth, Tarantino would have only gone with that choice if the leading man wasn’t DiCaprio.
“The reality is I had maybe eight different pairings of actors that could go together in a realistic way in this kind of situation,” he said while speaking on a podcast in 2019. “The ones that I got were definitely my number 1 [choices], but I had to have a few different backups.”
Leonardo DiCaprio Nearly Worked With Tom Cruise In A 1994 Movie
The theory that Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Cruise are too big of Hollywood stars to work together might appear to make sense at first glance. On closer inspection, however, it tends to just fall flat on its face.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is perhaps the biggest proof that the size of the stars does not necessarily hinder their ability to collaborate. DiCaprio and his co-star Brad Pitt – another Hollywood behemoth – fit into their roles seamlessly, and without hogging each other’s spotlight.
So good were they with their respective performances, that they both earned Oscar nominations. Pitt emerged victorious as Best Supporting Actor, but DiCaprio was pipped to the Best Actor gong by Joaquin Phoenix for Joker.
Before the Titanic actor was the global superstar he has become today, though, he narrowly missed out on a role that would have seen him appear next to Cruise AND Brad Pitt.
The latter two starred in the 1994 horror romance Interview with the Vampire. DiCaprio had been in the running to join them, but the part he would have played eventually went to Christian Slater.