Karwai Tang/WireImage Tom Cruiseis recalling how one of his earliest film projects taught him a valuable lesson. TheTop Gunstar reflected on his first few films during a career retrospective discussion at the British Film Institute in London on Saturday. After praising his collaborators from the film in which he played his first major role, 1981'sTaps, Cruise shared his less charitable feelings about his next project, the 1982 teen comedyLosin' It. "I did a film, it was calledTijuanaat first, and it was with Hanson, Curtis Hanson, who went on to directL.A. Confidential," Cruise recalled of the film, which featured his first leading role. "And coming out ofTaps, which was, we spent six weeks with rehearsals, and there was an environment that [producer] Stanley Jaffe and [director] Harold Becker had created that really defined the rest of my career." Embassy Pictures/Getty The actor explained that the on-set dynamics onTapsandLosin' Itcouldn't have been more different "The quality wasn't there," he said, noting that "what they told me it was going to be and what it ended up being were two different things." Losin' Itstarred Cruise as a Los Angeles teen who drives to Tijuana with his high school friends who are all trying to lose their virginity (hence the title), and are accompanied by a woman (Shelley Long) seeking a divorce. The film was ultimately a critical and commercial dud, earning just $1.7 million at the box office on a $7 million budget and achieving a brutal 18% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (and a 28% approval rating from audiences on the same platform). Cruise framed the film's subpar reception as a teachable moment. "It was an incredible learning experience because it was the first time I realized some people didn't know how to make movies, and some people didn't have the same level of passion or quality commitment," he said. "I'm not making less of it, that experience was just as valuable and important asTapsfor me. And I went back and I would go, 'Okay, what was different in these two environments, and how can I set myself up to learn and to keep growing?'" Embassy Pictures/Getty Cruise said that he committed to not repeating the same mistake. "I'm not gonna do this again," he recalled saying at the time. He sought to return to theTaps-esque model of lengthy rehearsals before filming, so he auditioned forFrancis Ford Coppola'sThe Outsiders. "We all rehearsed, and it was an amazing experience," Cruise said of working with his costars in the coming-of-age drama, which also starred C. Thomas Howell,Matt Dillon,Patrick Swayze,Ralph Macchio,Diane Lane,Rob Lowe, andEmilio Estevez. "It is an audition process, so I saw all of these incredible young actors," he recalled. "We're workshopping, and we're adlibbing, and we're doing comedy, drama, and writing skits." Want more movie news? Sign up forEntertainment Weekly'sfree newsletterto get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more. Watch Cruise's full BFI career retrospective above. Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly
