"Vincent is an anti-social character, no doubt about that" laughs Cruise later that day. "You look at people like that, and they bring chaos, not calm. There is this disconnection from life, a disconnection from responsiblity to your fellow man. It was razor's edge playing this character.
Vincent is a hitman, an assasaign with ice in his veins and hair prematurely lost to a deathly grey, in town for one night and five easy targets about to squeal in a drugs trial. Well, what should have been five easy targets…When his taxi driver, and daydreaming loner called Max (Jamie Foxx) becomes aware of his malign agenda, Vincent’s hardwired methods start to fray; he becomes dangerously attached to his unhappy driver, exposed to something that he doesn’t compute in the rigid schematics of his brain: humanity
"There is something about Max ," Cruise expalins "that over the physics and emotional turmoil of this picture , causes Vincent to crack."
If you haven’t got the idea yet, this is bad Tom, not nice Tom. The kind of guy who would take a mobile from an eager fan and tell some delighted mother on the end to go to Hell; who would spy a small child crushed by the crowd and simply to shake his amoral head. That’s just the way this fucked up universe of ours deal out the cards, kid. Vincemt is bad to the bone. So why one earth is he being Played by Top Gun Tom?
“I get offered lots of different things,” replies Cruise “and I found the character interesting and the story compelling, this dynamic between Vincent and Max. It wasn’t like ‘I now want to play a villain.’ It was just a visceral reaction.”
After all, he’s broken the spell of that grin before. Don’t you remember the preening Vampire Lestat from Interview With The Vampire, or Frank T.J. Mackey, the vile self-help guru from Magnolia? No, it wasn’t a decision about being good or bad, shaking up dreary perceptions about his career, it wasn’t much, much easier than that. The director who offered him the role was Michael Mann.
“I just wanted to work with Michael- he is a brilliant, brilliant filmmaker,” gushes his leading man. “When Mann sends you a script, it is not an intellectual decision. I knew how he would handle the material. It was going to be very unique.”
This is useful as it gives us an insight into his new film, Collateral, which he explains about his new role and Vincent’s character. Also, the interview with Tom Cruise reveals the side that is shown by Vincent which is not portrayed in many of his films. For example, in Top Gun, War Of The Worlds and Valkyrie he is portrayed as the good guy; however in Collateral, he is shown as the bad guy.
