10 Actors Who Perfectly Played Both Heroes And Villains

7. Tom Cruise - Mission: Impossible & Interview With The Vampire

Tom Cruise is your favourite action hero's favourite action hero: or that's probably the tagline he'd probably like to brand himself with. Over the years he's brought his effortless charisma and incredible willingness to do his own dangerous stunts to lots of different action properties and they've mostly all won because of him.

He was great in Minority Report, Top Gun, Days Of Thunder and Edge Of Tomorrow, but his defining heroic character comes in the Mission: Impossible franchise, which seems to be showing no signs of dipping in quality. His Ethan Hunt is a complex, occasionally fragile character, marked by darkness and intense to the extreme, but he's fundamentally good and works in the interest of saving the world, often to his own detriment. That's what heroes do.

On the other hand, his Lestat in Interview With The Vampire is a creature out only for his own gains: he's vulgar, arrogant and brought up in grotesque opulence, believing himself regal and almost God-like. He's also a monster and there's something delicious in the contradiction of Cruise's beauty and his malevolence that really makes the performance stand out.