As someone who has watched a lot of BTS Mission: Impossible footage in my day, I’ve seen what Christopher McQuarrie looks like on more than one occasion. He may typically be a behind-the-camera kind of guy, but he did appear as a cop in The Usual Suspects back in the day, and many of us have seen him in plenty of interviews over the last several decades. So, a lot of film fans have an understanding of what the writer/director looks like, but I was still unprepared for Tom Cruise admitting he gets mistaken for a Jerry Maguire star all the time.
Speaking as part of Paramount's CinemaCon panel, Tom Cruise got candid about his long and storied relationship with Christopher McQuarrie. We previously reported on how he contributed to an early M:I script before later getting involved with the franchise as a director, but this story about how 'McQ' (as Cruise affectionately calls him) gets mistaken for Jonathan Lipnicki really took the cake.
I swear to you, we’ll be out places and they’ll come up and go, ‘I loved you in Jerry Maguire. To Mc!! Anyway obviously that is the one. Obviously that is the wonderful Jonathan Lipnicki. [Q’s] always so gracious and goes ‘Thank you so much.’
I cannot stop thinking about this comment, because now that I’m really looking at a side-by-side of McQuarrie and Lipnicki, I can’t unsee it. The two do kind of favor one another in a weird way, and have the whole cute glasses thing going. Never mind the director is 56 and the former child actor is only 34!
So, really what McQuarrie kind of looks like is Lipnicki’s parent.
It's worth noting that Lipnicki has dropped the glasses and looks a bit different these days. Plus, if people really sat down and mathed out when Jerry Maguire came out and how old Lipnicki was in that movie (he was only 6 when the flick released into theaters in 1996), I doubt this mistake would be made. However, it clearly amuses Tom Cruise to no end that it’s happened on (seemingly) more than one occasion.
Tom Cruise is tickled pink about this fan connection to Jerry Maguire, but Jonathan Lipnicki doesn’t have as A+ of a relationship with the fanbase. He says people quote lines from the Cameron Crowe film at him all the time –which makes sense as it was one of his biggest roles – but the real problem is people don’t know Jerry Maguire lines well at all.
It's a great Jerry Maguire BTS fact, and the best news for Lipnicki is that McQ is clearly sometimes taking some of those awkward fan interactions for him.
