There’s nothing wrong with being a positive force, but Tom Cruise maintains such a relentlessly upbeat attitude at all times he ended up serving as one of Christian Bale’s many inspirations when he was trying to cultivate the character of Patrick Bateman ahead of American Psycho.

The actor was left transfixed by what he surmised to be “very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes,” with Cruise giving off the impression of being simultaneously charming and charismatic while remaining resolutely dead on the inside. That’s not to say everyone agrees with that opinion, but it’s not exactly a million miles away from the truth, either.

Bale’s exact moment of realisation came when he caught Cruise’s appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman in 1999, where the Mission: Impossible star descends into fits of hysterics to the point he’s unable to compose himself and finish his anecdote. What tends to get overlooked, though, is that the tale is far from light-hearted.

Admittedly, there were no repercussions from the incident, but perhaps a nationally televised broadcast that was being beamed into the homes of millions wasn’t the best place for the A-lister to confess that when he was in danger of experiencing technical difficulties during a flight he was co-piloting, he made the call to switch off a fellow passenger’s oxygen.

As he informed the host, the aircraft didn’t have enough in reserve to maintain its current high altitude, so he turned it off. Soon after, the unwitting passenger lost consciousness, something that Cruise attributed to a simple case of falling asleep when they landed safely at their destination.

Letterman looked more than a little bemused and outright questioned the cinematic superstar if he’d considered what could have happened had slipping into unconsciousness become something a great deal more serious, not that Cruise seemed to mind that much when he was in absolute bits cracking up at his own antics.

“But honestly, looking at it from another direction, isn’t that attempted manslaughter?” Letterman asked. “You just turned a guy’s oxygen off. You’re lucky you’re not doing time, for the love of god.” Cruise clarified that there was no harm done to anyone, and they got where they needed to be, quickly moving on from a situation that may not have even qualified as one of those ‘you had to be there moments’.

Of course, that begs the question as to whether or not the accidental sleeper was informed that their world famous pilot had sneakily turned their oxygen off while they were in mid-air, or if they found out when it ended up as a talking point on Letterman’s TV show. There were no adverse side effects, at least, but it’s not as funny as Cruise seems to think it is.