The one thing Werner Herzog hated about Tom Cruise

Those stories don’t even go to the extreme lengths the director has gone to for the sake of filmmaking. Whether he’s compromising an entire film crew to plunge deeper into the Peruvian rainforest or hypnotizing the entire cast of Heart of glassthere are few things Herzog won’t do to see his vision come true.

It’s no wonder he’s stumbled into a thriving side gig playing villains. Between his unforgettable voice and the air of hard-earned invincibility, he is a better man for the job than Mads Mikkelsen or Anthony Hopkins. speaks to iNews in 2020, the revered director and accidental movie star was characteristically relieved of modesty. “I’m particularly good when it comes to dysfunctional characters,” he said. “Violent, degraded and hostile or downright scary and dangerous. I’m good at that.”

This was especially evident in the 2012 film Jack Reacherstarring Tom Cruise. In it, Herzog plays Zec Chelovek, a ruthless former Soviet prisoner who turns out to be the story’s arch-villain. There’s more than a hint of comedy in Herzog’s performance, if only because the screenwriters seemed to know exactly what they wanted from him. In one scene, he confronts a cocky henchman and tells him, in his usual husky, thickly accented voice, about the time he spent in prison in Siberia.

“I spent my first winter in a dead man’s coat,” he rasps. “A hole in one pocket. I chewed those fingers off before the frostbite could turn into gangrene.”

It’s a perfect piece of casting in an otherwise unremarkable action film, and that fact wasn’t lost on casting directors or on Herzog himself. After his role in the film, he said that he receives “about 10 offers a week” to play similar roles. But don’t expect him to switch sides of the camera immediately, because the director has no interest in the films he has offered. “I turned it down because the stories were too stupid,” he said.

Jack Reacher is no masterpiece, and neither are many other grungy thrillers of its ilk, but that would almost certainly change if Herzog just accepted the roles he’s offered. Bond villain? He would outdo them all. Marvel movies? He wanted to make them visible. Paddington 3? He wanted to win an Oscar. Sure, he might have better things to do, but as far as the audience is concerned, that would be an incalculable contribution to the medium.

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