8 More Actors Who Look Exactly Like The Characters They Played

While action icon and Academy Award nominee Tom Cruise may not immediately strike you as the sort of bloke who would be the perfect fit to play a German WWII Colonel, the second you place a photo of the real-life Claus von Stauffenberg next to the Mission: Impossible icon, it soon becomes clear exactly why this superstar was an intriguing choice.

You see, back when Bryan Singer first discussed the part with Cruise before 2008's Valkyrie went into production, the director actually threw a script and image of the German officer in front of the actor. And it was in this moment that Cruise clocked just how similar his own profile was to the real-life figure (via People).

Though he wouldn't actually attempt a German accent or speak that much of the language in the finished film and von Stauffenberg's family would eventually openly state that the actor was "too small" for his part (via Digital Spy), the star still did all he could to understand what it must have felt like to lose an eye, a right hand, and two of the fingers on his left during the war- as von Stauffenberg did after being caught in an attack by Allied forces.

Cruise committed to wearing an eye patch, and practiced dressing himself and writing with only the fingers he would have had on his left hand whilst preparing for the war drama.

Whether you're in the camp who adored his work as the German hero or the one who would have preferred to have seen someone else get the chance to play this historical figure, though, there's no getting away from the fact Cruise and von Stauffenberg look eerily similar when standing side-on.