One unintended consequence of this year’s Hollywood strikes is that we get a chance to see who the nice guys are. There are several levels to this. The bottom rung, obviously, are the outliers who choose the short-term personal gain of working on a project affected by strikes over the collective good. A step higher are the visible strikers, the performers and writers who are outside the studios picketing.
Then, another level up, are those who have found ways to fund their crews. This is important, since the crew members who are not in the striking unions are struggling to find work. Projects such as the recent Hollywood auction (where people could bid to have Natasha Lyonne help them complete a crossword) and Strike Force Five (in which the late-night talkshow hosts made a podcast designed to raise money for their crews) are perfect examples of this.
And then, right at the top of the tree, are those who have found work for their crews, keeping them employed without resorting to charity. Emblematic of this last group is Tom Cruise, who has chosen to put his resting Mission: Impossible crew to work making a music video for Rick Astley.
Astley has made his first album for five years, and a forthcoming single, Forever and More, needed a video. The video already had a director in Simon Pegg, and Pegg reportedly roped in Cruise to help fill out the crew. “Tom has worked with a number of them on many films so he wanted to be loyal and help out during tough times,” a source told the Sun newspaper. “After discussions with Simon and the label, he’s got them all to cross over and work on the video.”
Which is obviously very wonderful for everyone involved. The crew gets to make an honest day’s work during a situation that is out of their control. Pegg (who previously directed a music video where Pom Klementieff trash-talked the Avengers) gets a chance to showcase his skills. Astley gets a splashy new video for a song that nobody will care about during concerts because it isn’t Never Gonna Give You Up. And Cruise gets to bask in the continued glory of being the saviour of All Of Cinema During Uncertain Times.
Which isn’t to say that you should expect Cruise to appear in the video. He is a performer, and so he is prohibited from performing until Sag-Aftra reaches an agreement with the studios. But this absence means that Astley now has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to step the hell up. He is working with a crew that has grown used to fulfilling the death-defying whims of a man dedicated to total audience satisfaction. Tom Cruise has spent his entire career jumping off things, or riding motorbikes on things, or riding motorbikes on to things and then jumping off them. He has climbed skyscrapers. He has shattered bones. At one point he ate two full-sized curries in a row. And, as such, this is what his crew now expects from Rick Astley.
As yet, nobody knows what the Forever and More video is actually like. For all anyone knows, it’s just Astley miming into an unplugged microphone on a soundstage somewhere. However, this would be a hugely wasted opportunity. If Pegg had any sense, he would utilise the talent of the M:I crew by strapping Astley to the bonnet of a car and then driving it off a bridge, or shoving him feet-first into a cannon and firing him through several panes of sheet glass, or any other of the madcap faux-Jackass stunts that people have come to expect of Tom Cruise.
Because, if he does this, then Rick Astley would be able to write his own future. Impress Tom Cruise with unflinching devotion to physical peril, and the world is yours. Perhaps, once the strikes are over, Cruise might employ Astley in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two. Maybe he’d be a new sidekick, or a hired goon. Perhaps, even, he could be the key to the film’s entire conclusion. After all, what better way to destroy a world-endangering AI program than by overloading its artificial brain with repeated performances of Never Gonna Give You Up? This is Rick Astley’s destiny – if only he’s willing to really, really hurt himself on camera.