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It allegedly went down when the two crossed paths in 2010, while filming pre-taped segments for that year's MTV Movie Awards.
Michael Cera's first time meeting Tom Cruise was certainly memorable .... just maybe not in the way he had hoped.
The Arrested Development star opened up about his first encounter with the "very friendly" Cruise during Tuesday's episode of The Louis Theroux Podcast, where he recalled the first time the two crossed paths in 2010 while filming pre-taped segments for that year's MTV Movie Awards.
"It was surreal to work with Tom Cruise. It was fascinating. Tom, like, runs the set. I was really there for, like, five minutes, but what I observed was like he was like the first [assistant director] on the set. … It was his thing. He was such a leader," Cera described.
But things quickly took a turn when Cruise, known for his intensity and demanding professionalism on set, allegedly called out Cera during filming.
"The first moment I had with him, I arrived, they were shooting and I was talking to the writer … we were just kind of mumbling while they were shooting, but they could hear us," he claimed. "It was just, like, 40 feet away, and Tom Cruise looks at me -- I've never met him, they're in the middle of a take -- and he looks and he goes, 'Is that Michael Cera talking during a f--kin' take?' He was joking, but it was also like, 'Do shut up.' It was so surreal."
The exchange didn't stop there.
The pair later met properly, where Cera says Cruise playfully gave him a hard time about the incident.
"And then I met him and he was like, 'Talking during a f--kin' take.' I knew he was playing around, so I was like, 'It wasn't me, it was the writer!' He was like, 'I'm kidding, I'm kidding.' I was like, ' … I'm kidding too,'" Cera shared.
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View StoryWhile he's definitely intense, Cruise has been known to have a softer side. In addition to sending many of his friends and former co-stars coconut cakes from California's Doan's Bakery every year, Cruise's Mission: Impossible co-star Simon Pegg says he's very much just a "normal guy."
"I've been able to hack my way through all the bizarre mythology that surrounds him. On one side he's Tom Cruise -- this enigmatic film star everyone wants to know about," Pegg told The Times in 2023. "And on the other he's just a guy. I like being normal with him.
As for how Cruise unwinds, Pegg said, "I don't know if he ever unwinds. He took us go-karting and zip-lining. He hates doing nothing."
