How Ben Stiller Got Tom Cruise to Be in Home Video for Wife’s Birthday

Before starring together in Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller worked with Tom Cruise on a very personal — and hilarious — project.

On the Wednesday, March 19, episode of the “New Heights” podcast, Stiller, 59, recalled first meeting Cruise, 62, while filming a Mission Impossible 2 sketch for the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. “We stayed in touch, a few years go by,” he shared. “And actually, we’d been talking about trying to figure something to do but [we] hadn’t figured it out, and then, I was working on the Tropic Thunder script.”

Stiller found the perfect opportunity to work with Cruise again while filming a “home movie” he was making for his wife Christine Taylor’s birthday. “It starred my brother-in-law Brian Taylor. Brian is the worst actor ever,” Stiller stated, noting the joke of the video was to have Brian act alongside pros.

Stiller continued, telling hosts Travis and Jason Kelce, “[Brian] was obsessed with the Jack Nicholson speech from A Few Good Men that he gives to Tom Cruise where he says, ‘You can’t handle the truth.’ I said, ‘Tom, we’re doing this home movie for Christine. Would you maybe come and do a scene in it where my brother-in-law’s gonna recite the Jack Nicholson speech to you?’ And he said yes.”

Despite the project being a funny birthday present, Stiller said Cruise was a total “professional” during filming. “It blew my mind. He was so good and Brian did the speech to him,” he shared. “And we had so much fun doing that that [when] Tropic Thunder came up, I called him and I said, ‘Are you interested in this movie?’”

According to Stiller, a suggestion from Cruise significantly changed the 2008 comedy. “He looked at me and said, ‘You make fun of the actors, you make fun of everybody and the agents and all that, but you don’t make fun of the studio heads. You should have a studio head. So, it was his idea, that character,” he revealed. “That character did not exist before he suggested it. And then, it became such an important part of the story.”

Stiller wore multiple hats on the set of Tropic Thunder, acting as the film’s star, director, cowriter and producer. Stiller starred as one of a handful of actors dropped into a real-life conflict while filming a war movie. Cruise, meanwhile, showed off his comedy chops and dance moves as the foul-mouthed studio executive Les Grossman.

Stiller tied the knot with Christine, 53, in 2000, and the two went on to welcome their daughter, Ella, and son, Quinlin, in 2002 and 2005, respectively. The pair called it quits after 17 years of marriage in 2017 but never officially filed for divorce. Stiller and Christine rekindled their romance while living together amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think we both wanted it,” Stiller said of their reunion during a January 16 appearance on The View. “In a relationship — we’ve been married for 25 years — you have to work at it. COVID happened and we all got in a house together with our family. I’m grateful. I’m so grateful we’re back together.”

He went on to note that the pair don’t take a day “for granted,” adding, “Because you know it could go away. That, to me, is the gift [of] our relationship is that we have that every day. I’m so happy that we’re [back together].”

Stiller shared more insight into his and Christine’s marriage in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter last month. “Sometimes I have to be pulled from [work],” the actor said of balancing her personal and work life. “I also really love hanging out with my family and Christine and having fun together. So I’m happy that I didn’t totally miss the boat on that.”