Tom Cruise recalls crowds forming during ‘A Few Good Men’ courtroom scene

Long before A Few Good Men arrived in theaters, Tom Cruise had good reason to believe the film would mesmerize its audience.

The Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning star recently looked back on the “extraordinary” experience of working alongside Jack Nicholson — and the moment he knew they had made something special.

“I remember the Nicholson scene, when we were there in the courtroom. Suddenly, I’m looking around, and the rafters were filled,” Cruise recalled Sunday, while on stage at the British Film Institute. “People were coming in just to see this scene. The town knew that we were shooting it, and they would come just to see the scene, to see us go at it.”

The iconic moment in question sees military lawyer Daniel Kaffee (Cruise) going one-on-one with Nicholson’s intimidating Colonel Nathan Jessep, eventually forcing the marine to lose his cool and bellow the memorable line, “You can’t handle the truth!” Much like the gathered crowd, Cruise was thrilled to have a front-row seat to Nicholson’s performance. 

“It was magnificent to watch him and see what a wordsmith he is,” Cruise said. “Like a great crooner, to see him carve up the dialogue and make it his own and find his own stillness. You could see. He had his hat.”

Based on Aaron Sorkin’s play of the same name and helmed by Rob Reiner, A Few Good Men was a critical and commercial success, earning four Academy Award nominations including a Best Supporting Actor nod for Nicholson (which marked his tenth overall nomination, of which he won two).

Noting that Nicholson was a “very generous” scene partner, Cruise went on to call him “an actor’s actor.”

He explained, “He’s off-camera the whole time just feeding me and very supportive. He’d be like, ‘That was a good take. Good, good, good Tommy. Nice Tommy.’ You know, always pulled me aside, ‘That was a nice one, Tommy, remember that in the next one.’ Just really lovely, and he just loved me going at him.'”

Heaping further praise on Nicholson, Cruise said their partnership spawned “a wonderful feeling.”

“He’s just right there. Just very present,” he recalled. “I spend a lot of time just teaching actors about the lens and understanding what the lens is. It’s important to understand the tools around you and what you’re doing. Nicholson understands that lens. And those guys that came up, Newman, all of them, understood the lens.”

He added, “It’s like understanding the stage as an actor, but a lot of artists, it’s not taught in film school to understand what the lens is and what to do.”

Watch Cruise’s full remarks about Nicholson above.