Before his breakout roles in Risky Business and The Outsiders made him a household name, a 20-year-old Tom Cruise starred in the teen comedy Losin’ It (1982). Directed by Curtis Hanson, the film follows a group of teenagers who take a road trip to Tijuana, Mexico.
In the film, Cruise plays a shy, clean-cut kid named Woody. In a rare twist for a Tom Cruise movie, his character actually loses a quick bar fight against his co-star John Stockwell. After Cruise’s character tries to defend Shelley Long’s character, Stockwell’s character promptly slugs him, and Cruise is forced to walk away.
On the set of the film, Cruise experienced a massive learning curve that fundamentally shaped his ultra-disciplined approach to his future film career. He later described the set of Losin’ It as a major wake-up call. Coming off the highly intense, well-organized set of Taps, he found the low-budget, non-union production of Losin’ It disorganized. He realized for the first time that “some people didn’t know how to make movies” and lacked a shared passion for quality. The experience was so jarring that he vowed never to work that way again, prompting him to seek out highly structured, rehearsal-heavy projects like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders immediately afterward.
The film was shot mostly on location in Calexico, California. Because it was a low-budget production, the environment was highly chaotic. The crew worked grueling six-night weeks for over a month. The production was so strapped for cash that they had to cast at least ten crew members in acting roles and rely heavily on local townspeople as extras.
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