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Credit: Far Out \/ Bernard Gotfryd \/ Library of Congress \/ Sony Pictures Releasing<\/p>\n
Tue 4 August 2026 18:15, UK <\/p>\n
Tom Cruise has been a big deal for a long time, and he\u2019s been such a big deal for such a long time that Robert Duvall<\/a> turned down one of modern cinema\u2019s most iconic movies to work with him.<\/p>\n Even though he\u2019d been in the business for longer than the A-lister had been alive, that\u2019s the kind of respect that Cruise has commanded from his peers, no matter how old they are. Look at Morgan Freeman; he revealed himself to be a massive fanboy<\/a> when they collaborated on Oblivion.<\/p>\n Still, missing out on the chance to play a major role in a critical, commercial, and awards season smash that seized the zeitgeist and became an indelible part of the cultural lexicon in favour of making an entertaining-if-formulaic genre film was certainly a choice, not that Duvall was lacking in legendary credits.<\/p>\n By that point, he\u2019s already starred in the first two Godfather flicks, To Kill a Mockingbird, Bullitt, True Grit, M*A*S*H, The Conversation, Network, Apocalypse Now, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, to name a few, so it\u2019s not as if the Academy Award winner was short on a seminal title or two in his back catalogue.<\/p>\n However, none of those movies won the \u2018Big Five\u2019 at the Oscars, and Jonathan Demme\u2019s The Silence of the Lambs did, becoming the third and so far final feature<\/a> to do so. It gave the world Anthony Hopkins\u2019 Hannibal Lecter, and had things turned out differently, the part could have been Duvall\u2019s.<\/p>\n In reality, it was an either\/or situation, with the star revealing that, if he wasn\u2019t interested in playing the cannibalistic criminal mastermind, the door was always open for him to play Jack Crawford instead, a part ultimately filled by Scott Glenn. However, Cruise has a power of his own, and it was too strong to resist.<\/p>\n \u201cThey offered me one part, and then the other, and I said, \u2018I\u2019d rather work with Tom Cruise than wait around for these people to make up their minds,’\u201d he explained. At one stage, he had a meeting to discuss Lecter, and then another shortly afterwards about Crawford, and he didn\u2019t appreciate it.<\/p>\n Further reading: Cutting Room Floor<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThat was a strange move for a director to do,\u201d Duvall noted. \u201cSo I\u2019m just as glad I did the Cruise thing.\u201d The Cruise thing was Tony Scott\u2019s Days of Thunder, which gave him yet another opportunity to ply his trade as a wizened sage and mentor figure, with the film proving to be a hit among cinemagoers.<\/p>\n That said, it was no Silence of the Lambs, and with Gene Hackman, Robert De Niro, and Sean Connery all turning their nose up at playing Lecter<\/a>, too, one of the industry\u2019s most iconic villains of all time became a nightmare to cast until Hopkins made it his own.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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