Why Tom Cruise Regrets Starring In Ridley Scott's 1985 Dark Fantasy Epic Legend

By the time 1983 was over, Tom Cruise was ready to conquer the world. Thanks to his roles in "The Outsiders" and "All the Right Moves," the man who would one day swing around the tallest building in the world in "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" (giving his then flailing career new life) had established himself as one of the most promising actors of his generation. That same year, by dancing in nothing but a pink button-up shirt and his tighty-whities in "Risky Business," he also provided the world with one of the most iconic visuals in teen coming-of-age dramedy history. Yet, it would take another three years for both Tom Cruise the blockbuster star with a mega-watt grin and the serious artist to fully emerge with "Top Gun" and "The Color of Money." Why the delay?

In a word: "Legend." Director Ridley Scott's 1985 fantasy adventure is as visually wondrous as anything else he's ever done, between the incredible practical makeup employed to transform Tim Curry into the, quite literally, devilishly sexy Darkness and the amazing pre-CGI production design. Unfortunately, as has been a recurring theme throughout Scott's career, the film's 89-minute theatrical cut robbed "Legend" of its substance. The result was what critics agreed was a bland story about a boring hero (Cruise, whose long, flowing hair and tattered green tunic getup make him look a little like Peter Pan) who sets forth to save an archetypical ethereal princess (Mia Sara, then a year away from her breakout turn in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") from Curry's way-cooler villain. 

Personally, I would mostly be annoyed if Tom Cruise tried to "rescue" me from being Tim Curry's mistress of darkness, but to each their own.

Recalling what happened with "Kingdom of Heaven," "Legend" floundered in theaters before eventually gaining newfound appreciation when Scott's far longer and more compelling director's cut surfaced on the home media market some 20 years later. By that point, though, Cruise has firmly left the film in his rearview mirror and taken the lessons he learned its initial failure to heart (for both better and for worse).

Cruise's reputation as an actor-auteur who maintains strict creative control and is involved in every step of development on his films proceeds him these days, and you can trace that back to "Legend." In an interview with Rolling Stone to discuss his then newfound box office smash-hit "Top Gun" in 1986, Cruise reflected on his time collaborating with "Top Gun" helmer Tony Scott's sibling Ridley Scott on his '80s fantasy flop. Dismissing his role in "Legend" as merely "another color in a Ridley Scott painting," Cruise made it clear he regretted starring in the film, stating, "I'll never want to do another picture like that again."

While "Legend" was beset by unexpected problems (namely, its primary set burned down during filming), what Cruise meant was that he would never make another movie without addressing his artistic concerns in advance — something he hadn't done with that movie, which he found to be a deeply frustrating shoot. Indeed, that's precisely what he did when he received the "Top Gun" script. "I liked it," Cruise told Rolling Stone, "but it needed a lot of work. I was worried." As such, he convinced producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer to let him work on the script with them before committing to star. In his own words:

"I said, 'After two months, if I don't want to do it, the script's gonna be in good enough shape, and you'll have more of a sense of what you want to do. And there are other actors.' I think they were kind of taken aback at first, [but] after coming off 'Legend,' I just wanted to make sure that everything was gonna go the way we talked about it."

Cruise has carried that philosophy with him for the past 40 years now, and it's difficult to argue with the outcome. It's pretty rare for the actor to appear in an outright dud, with "Legend" remaining one of the few entries on his filmography that wasn't successful in some respect upon its initial release, be it artistic or financial. The only downside is, when Cruise's ego gets away from him and/or he doesn't do his due diligence, things can go spectacularly wrong (like we saw with the Cruise-led 2017 reboot of "The Mummy"). Then again, if he's going to fail, he likely prefers to do so squarely on his own terms.