10 Actors Who Turned Down Voicing Characters On The Simpsons
2. Tom Cruise
The Simpsons' staff shouldn't take it too personally that Tom Cruise has never lent his voice to their show - but don't hold out on it eventually occurring. Cruise is yet to sign up for a voiceover role in his career, preferring to stick to live-action pieces.
Twice has Tom been approached by Matt Groening's team with a role in mind for him and twice has he refuted their offers. The first of these came in the aforementioned tenth-season episode, When You Dish Upon A Star. Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger were ultimately chosen to play the celebrity couple in the episode, but Tom Cruise and his then-wife Nicole Kidman were approached before them, following Bruce Willis and Demi Moore turning the show down.
More notable, however, was The Simpsons' first attempt at landing Tom Cruise. The writers had hoped for Cruise to appear in season four's Brother From The Same Planet, which would have seen him play Bart's mentor - purposefully also named Tom. Once the Mission: Impossible star rejected their plans, the role went to Phil Hartman.
Despite the lack of Tom Cruise in the episode, the character itself was heavily influenced on Cruise's role in the Top Gun franchise, being an F-14 pilot in the US Navy and riding a motorcycle.