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Tom Cruise is blessed with a skillset unlike any other. The actor’s career since the early 80s has only ever been on the rise, without fail, and Cruise has only become more unstoppable with age. The global fascination that comes with his name is indicative of his status as one of the last true movie stars and it is because of that star persona that his career has turned into a timeless legacy.
However, for every great man’s climb to the top, there were a dozen others who were passed over or rejected along the way to make room for the star. In Tom Cruise’s case, the rejection was parried over to his contemporary, Charlie Sheen. Despite being the son of Martin Sheen and his inherent familiarity with the studio system, the second-generation Hollywood actor failed to make his mark as a movie star and it all traces back to one unfortunate casting involving theTop Gunstar.
Charlie Sheen Gets Passed Over for Tom Cruise
Throughout the 1980s,Tom Cruisemade a name for himself, slowly but steadily, as he pushed through the noise and kept being consistently good in roles, whether main or supporting. His discipline finally caught the eye of casting directors as he madeRisky Businessthe breakout movie of his career.
It only took 3 years for Cruise to escalate from dancing in his underwear inRisky Businessto flying an F-14 Tomcat inTop Gun. Roles kept flooding in and the actor started scooping them up, earning 3 Oscar nominations in the span of a decade alone. On top of the two films that already established him in the industry as a megawatt crowd-pleaser,The Color of MoneyandRain Manfurther proved he could hold his own against classic Hollywood legends like Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman.
“The thing that he hasn’t often had the opportunity to do”: Tom Cruise’s Worst Oscar Snub Was in This $354M Classic Despite Director’s Attempt at Proving He Was More Than His Looks
Having worked with Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Barry Levinson all within the course of 5 years, the fame that Cruise accrued cast a large shadow over the filmography ofCharlie Sheen. As such, when Oliver Stone came knocking on the door, it was Tom Cruise and not Charlie Sheen he wanted to star in his next hit,Born on the Fourth of July.
Oliver Stone Lost All Respect in Charlie Sheen’s Eyes
Going through a life-altering/affirming event together ties a bond between people who would have otherwise remained strangers for their entire lives. Although in Charlie Sheen’s case, the “event” in question wasn’t cataclysmic in proportion, it may as well have been in his perception. After all, being passed over for what could have been his career’s biggest role after the director specifically promised to give it to him was enough of a trauma.
In a 2001Playboyinterview, Sheen revealed [viaThe Hollywood Reporter]:
He said we were going to have a relationship like Scorsese and De Niro. He said Al Pacino wanted to do the movie, De Niro wanted to — everybody wanted to — and “I’m going to give you this movie.”
Instead, he heard from a fellow actor, Emilio Estevez that Tom Cruise got the part he was already a shoo-in for. Heartbroken, Sheen later claimed:
I wouldn’t have cared if Oliver had called me personally, based on what we’d been through. We fought two wars you know. But here was a crucial point for both of us, and he couldn’t even call me and say, “I’ve changed my mind”?
“How are we gonna sell that?”: Tom Cruise Had No Idea How One of His Best Movies Had to be Marketed That Hollywood Won’t Touch With a 10 Feet Pole Today
Meanwhile, Sheen’s spiraling addiction and decades of rehab became a famous chapter in the Hollywood history books. As such, industry critics began to analyze whether the loss of theFourth of Julylead role could’ve contributed to his darker turn in the future.
Film critics like Caryn James ofThe New York Timesbelieved,“He was still, for good reason, taken seriously as an actor. Fourth of July would have kept him on that path… What a waste of talent.”Others like Kurt Andersen simply believed in the predestined element of human nature, saying,“I think we’d probably be seeing the same end game.”
In the early 2000s, Charlie Sheen’s career took a drastic turn after the actor baggedTwo and a Half Men, the sitcom that would earn him 4 Lead Actor Emmy nominations for 4 consecutive years in a row (2006-2009) and made him a certified comedy legend and a household name.
Born on the Fourth of Julyis available to buy/rent on Prime Video and Apple TV.
Diya Majumdar
Senior Writer
Articles Published :2410
Diya Majumdar is a Senior Content Writer at FandomWire with over 2000 published articles on the website. Since 2022, she has been working as an entertainment journalist with a special focus on films and pop culture.Among the countless genres and themes of Hollywood, the ones that particularly favor Diya’s tastes include Game of Thrones, DC, and well-aged thrillers and classics.
