7. Werner Herzog Plays A Genuinely Terrifying Villain In Jack Reacher
Tom Cruise said he cast Werner Herzog in
Jack Reacher because he "looks dangerous before he even speaks," which seems somewhat ill-judged if you've ever been exposed to the man's quiet, cerebral and calming voice as he narrates his own documentaries or conducts interviews. Still, there is a strange, almost hardened presence to Herzog, who is undoubtably one of the world's best and most interesting filmmakers. As a big fan of Herzog, I was still bewildered and confused to find out that he was going to play a villain in a Tom Cruise action movie. I needn't have worried. Though I'm
still bewildered as to how or why Werner Herzog, director of
Cave of Forgotten Dreams, is in this movie, he successfully nails it. Despite the inherent nuttiness of this occurrence though, Herzog was perhaps more primed for this role than we give him credit for. Though he certainly appears to be a gentle soul in real life, les we not forget he was shot during an interview, wrote it off as "not a significant bullet," and pulled Joaquin Phoenix out of a flaming car wreck - all in the same week. It's easy to forget that the man is a badass.