Collateral director Michael Mann recalls Tom Cruise’s extreme hitman training for the 2004 crime thriller. Marking Mann’s follow-up to Ali (2001) and The Insider (1999), Collateral stars Jamie Foxx as Max, a Los Angeles cab driver who finds himself tangled up in the violent business dealings of Vincent (Cruise), a ruthless hitman. The film, which also stars Jada Pinkett Smith and Mark Ruffalo, earned positive reviews from critics, with particular praise directed at Cruise in one of his few villain roles.

In a recent interview with Empire magazine, Mann recalls Cruise’s intense training for the role of Vincent in Collateral, which, in addition to fight and weapons training, involved stalking the film’s assistant director as if for a hit. Mann, who was in on the Method antics, even reveals that he sent Cruise undercover as a deliveryman. Check out Mann’s comments about Cruise’s preparation below:

“We knew that [the assistant director] went to the gym three mornings a week, and that he came to work early at 7.30. And here’s where he parked, and that’s the place to get him because there was one way in and three exits. Which is good tradecraft.

“I had him deliver a calendar to a liquor store in downtown Los Angeles, strike up conversations with three people, and nobody knew it was Tom Cruise. There was a sign on him that said ‘FedEx’ and he had a cap that said ‘FedEx’ and when people see a sign, they believe it.”

Collateral Remains An All-Time Tom Cruise Movie

Vincent Was A Major Departure For The Movie Star

Though Cruise’s couch-jumping interview with Oprah in 2005 was certainly a major blow to his public image, prior to that he was seen as one of the most charismatic leading men in Hollywood (a status he’s since reclaimed). The actor was well known at the time for his roles in movies like Top Gun (1986), Jerry Maguire (1996), and the first two Mission: Impossible movies. Just prior to Collateral, he also starred in Minority Report (2002) and The Last Samurai (2003), cementing a shift toward more standard Hollywood leading man fare.

Though Cruise had certainly played some very flawed characters in the ’80s and ’90s, Collateral marked his first time playing a cold-blooded killer, and he was remarkably good at it. No doubt a result of some of his training and preparation, Cruise, sporting gray hair and a matching suit, comes across in Collateral as someone who is truly dangerous and terrifyingly efficient at killing. The film currently sports a strong 86% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 84% Popcornmeter score (previously called the audience score), suggesting movie-goers enjoyed this surprising turn from the actor.

Unfortunately, Cruise has never really returned to this well in the last 20 years, and most of his recent roles, including those in 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick and 2023’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, see him playing more traditional Hollywood protagonists. Cruise is one of the best actors in Hollywood at playing these types of roles, so it’s not a total loss, but it’s also a shame he hasn’t delivered another performance like Vincent. While it remains unclear what the next two decades of Cruise’s career will look like, Collateral still remains a standout film in his impressive filmography.