Tom Cruise Revives Risky Business Dance for Jennifer Hudson Show
Tom Cruise slipped back into his “Risky Business” moves for The Jennifer Hudson Show’s Spirit Tunnel.
He made the walk in black sunglasses and broke into the familiar dance, according to Variety. The clip was released ahead of his full interview.
The Spirit Tunnel is the show’s pre-show ritual. Staff members line a hallway at Warner Bros.’ Studio 1 and sing a customised song to walk each celebrity guest to the stage. It is loud, cheerful and built for moments like this.
For Cruise, the staff dressed for the joke. They wore black sunglasses and sang a tune riffing on “Old Time Rock and Roll”. Cruise laughed, then joined in with the steps and the shoulder shimmies that viewers know from the film.
That film is “Risky Business” from 1983. In the famous scene, a young Cruise slides across a wooden floor in a shirt, underwear and sunglasses to lip-sync and dance to Bob Seger’s version of “Old Time Rock and Roll”. No replica set was needed here. The sunglasses and the song did the work.
He kept the sunglasses on. The hallway sang louder.
The appearance was a stop on the press tour for “Digger”, the new film directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, according to Variety. A press tour is the round of interviews stars do to promote a release. The full Hudson interview was scheduled to air on Wednesday. “Digger” was scheduled for theatrical release, in cinemas, on Friday, Oct. 2.
Hudson said she booked Cruise after speaking to him at the World Cup final in the summer. On the show, Cruise told her he watches her daytime series and had watched her on “American Idol”, the singing contest that first made her a television favourite.
Days earlier, Hudson had told Entertainment Tonight what dance moves she hoped Cruise would bring to the Tunnel. She got her wish.
What makes this stand out is the simplicity. One song, one pair of sunglasses and a dance most viewers can picture at once. Everyone knows the song. Everyone knows the slide. You do not need to have seen the film to get the joke. For fans, this means the full conversation arrives just two days before “Digger” reaches cinemas.
