9 Completely Pointless Preparations By Method Actors

6. Tom Cruise Got A Job At FedEx To Play An Assassin In Collateral

If you live in Los Angeles, or were a resident of the area in 2003, chances are you may have received a FedEx package from Tom Cruise. Of course, you weren't to know this, as Collateral director Michael Mann's bright idea was to send the lead of his new movie, and one of the most famous men in the world, undercover as a delivery man in LA at the time to see if he could go unnoticed. This was because Cruise's character in Collateral, the hitman Vincent, was supposed to be able to remain anonymous. It amounted to a completely pointless exercise, not least because Cruise's time under FedEx's employ saw him wearing a company uniform, shades and the long brown hair and beard Cruise was still carrying over from shooting previous movie The Last Samurai. This is not, as anyone who's seen the film will testify, the look that Vincent adopts in Collateral, meaning the people of LA were fooled by someone who looked completely different. Cruise isn't required to deliver any parcels or spend much time blending in in Collateral, either, what with all the remorseless shooting and killing his character does.