Imagine having Tom Cruise visit your movie set and deciding the best possible use of one of Hollywood’s biggest young stars is to cover his face with hair and immediately shoot him. It’s an intriguing way to promote your movie, but we’ll say this: it’s a hell of a story. Apparently, that’s exactly how Cruise’s wonderfully pointless cameo in one of the 1980s’ greatest Westerns came together.

Recently, Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips revisited the 1988 Western classic Young Guns during a FanX Salt Lake panel moderated by Collider’s Maggie Lovitt. During the thrilling conversation, Sutherland recalled just how eager other young actors were to get involved with Young Guns once production was underway. He told Lovitt and the fans in attendance:
“I think all of us felt this might be the only opportunity ever to do a Western, and so we were really excited about this opportunity. But what was amazing, as the movie started, everybody wanted to be in it because they also thought it might be the last Western. And so I remember shooting Tom Cruise off the roof, and he had a big beard on so no one would recognize him.”

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes
Which Western Icon Are You Most Like?
No Name · Doc Holliday · Wyatt Earp · Mattie Ross

Pick your name, your gun, your horse and how you spend a night in town, and we will tell you which legend of the Old West you would have been. Four icons are waiting at the end of this: the stranger who never gives his name, the gambler who would die for a friend, the lawman who never wanted the badge, and the girl nobody has ever talked out of anything.

No Name(Dollars Trilogy)

Doc Holliday(Tombstone)

Wyatt Earp(Tombstone)

Mattie Ross(True Grit)

FIND YOUR ICON →

01
The town is about to learn your name. What do they call you?
In a Western, what people call you is already half the character.

AThey never do find it out, so the stranger will have to do.
BA nickname I picked up at a card table and never shook off.
CMarshal, and most people say it with a bit of respect.
DMy full name, and I will correct anybody who tries to shorten it.

NEXT QUESTION →

02
What are you carrying?
Everything out here is character, right down to what is sitting on your hip.

AOne revolver I have had for years and have never once talked about.
BA pistol, a knife and a deck of cards, and the cards do most of the damage.
CA shotgun, because it tends to end arguments rather than start them.
DMy father’s gun, which is far too big for me, and I am carrying it anyway.

NEXT QUESTION →

03
What are you riding?
A hero and their horse is one of the oldest relationships in cinema.

ASomething plain that nobody in town would look at twice.
BWhatever I won last night, which may not be strictly mine yet.
CA big steady horse that will not spook when things get loud.
DA pony I overpaid for and named myself, and I will hear nothing against him.

NEXT QUESTION →

04
You have got one evening in town. How does it go?
The saloon is where these films quietly tell you who somebody really is.

AOne drink at the far end of the bar with my back to the wall.
BAt the card table, holding court, up forty dollars and climbing.
CA quick drink, then a walk round town to see that everything is quiet.
DUpstairs with the ledger, working out exactly what tomorrow is going to cost.

NEXT QUESTION →

05
A stranger offers you money for a job that sounds like trouble.
Somebody always turns up with a full purse and a bad idea.

AI ask how much, and then I ask for a good deal more than that.
BI say yes before he has finished, mostly because it sounds like a story.
CI ask him who gets hurt if I turn him down.
DI ask for the terms in writing before anybody shakes on anything.

NEXT QUESTION →

06
Somebody is waiting for you in the street. What does the town see?
Two people, an empty road, and everybody else watching from behind the shutters.

ASomebody walking out very slowly who has not said a single word.
BSomebody grinning, which everyone watching finds deeply unnerving.
CSomebody making one last attempt to talk the other man down.
DSomebody far too young to be out there, walking out regardless.

NEXT QUESTION →

07
What is the one thing you will not do out here?
The code is about the only thing west of the river that actually holds.

AExplain myself to somebody who has not earned an explanation.
BRide off and leave a friend standing out there on his own.
CLet a whole town pay for a fight it had nothing to do with.
DLet a grown man tell me I am too young to be standing here.

NEXT QUESTION →

08
The job is finished. Where does the story leave you?
Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your icon.

AOn a ridge somewhere, riding away, without saying goodbye to anybody.
BSomewhere warm and worn out, having enjoyed very nearly all of it.
CHome, with the badge on the table and the whole thing behind me.
DOlder, changed by it, and telling this story for the rest of my life.

REVEAL MY ICON →

The Dust Has Settled
Your Western Icon Is…
Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble.
This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.

The Dollars Trilogy · 1964–1966

The Man With No Name
You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to,
because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room
without you ever having to mention it.

Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, stripping away the
backstory, the speeches and every bit of reassurance until only the competence was left.

You keep your own counsel, and while other people occasionally find that unnerving, you
have never felt any real need to fix it for them.
The Dollars films work because he genuinely is in it for himself right up until the
moment he is not, and he never explains that part either.
You would be gone before anybody got a chance to thank you.

Doc Holliday · Tombstone · 1993

Doc Holliday
You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal
person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two
things were in any tension.

Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond the fact that his friend is in it,
which is the only reason he has ever needed for anything.
You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the
handful of people you actually care about.
Val Kilmer’s performance is the most quoted in the entire genre because the jokes keep
getting sharper as the situation gets worse.
You would spend everything you had on this and still describe it as a good week.

Wyatt Earp · Tombstone · 1993

Wyatt Earp
You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the
alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most
Western reason there has ever been.

Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left
alone and somehow ended up answerable for all of it.
You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who
is exposed rather than who is to blame.
These films understand that keeping order costs far more than breaking it, and that the
person holding the line almost never gets thanked.
You would do the whole thing again, and you would complain about it the entire time.

Mattie Ross · True Grit · 1969 & 2010

Mattie Ross
Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had
already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.

Mattie is the most relentless character in the Western canon and she manages it through
argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than a fast draw.
You have no patience for being managed, so you negotiate, you check the details and you
turn up exactly when you said you would.
True Grit is the rare Western where the moral centre is the youngest person on screen
and every adult around her has to catch up.
You would get what you came for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of
you.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Yes, That Really Is Tom Cruise in ‘Young Guns’

Phillips immediately remembered exactly where Cruise met his extremely brief demise, adding that he was “shot up” while emerging from the pit during the climactic battle. Cruise appears for only moments during the final shootout and is deliberately disguised, despite already being one of Hollywood’s biggest stars following Top Gun and The Color of Money. The cameo came about while Cruise was visiting friends on set, and we appreciate the fact that he decided it might be a laugh to get blown to smithereens. The original movie starred Emilio Estevez as Billy the Kid, with Sutherland as Doc Scurlock, Phillips as Chavez y Chavez, Charlie Sheen as Dick Brewer, Dermot Mulroney as Dirty Steve Stephens, and Casey Siemaszko as Charley Bowdre. Young Guns follows the Regulators as they seek revenge following the murder of rancher John Tunstall, eventually becoming outlaws themselves. Despite the mixed reviews for the film, it became a hit after earning $45.7 million domestically and eventually spawning Young Guns II. A third film is potentially on the horizon, with Sutherland confirming that “the script is amazing.”

Young Guns is available to rent or purchase digitally.

Release Date

August 12, 1988

Runtime

107 Minutes

Director

Christopher Cain