Tom Cruise Jokes He ‘Still’ Dances in His Underwear 40 Years After Iconic ‘Risky Business’ Scene

The ‘Mission: Impossible’ star is remembering how dancing in briefs helped launch a decades-long movie career

Tom Cruise is looking back fondly on his breakout role.

Of his iconic scene in 1983’s Risky Business — in which he danced in only a shirt, briefs, and socks — Cruise, 60, joked with Access Hollywood: “Look, I grew up dancing in my underwear in my house. Who didn’t?”

When asked if such dancing continues 40 years later, he responded with a smile: “Yeah, I still [do].”

Cruise, who is currently promoting his new film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, revealed that Risky Business is what helped start him down the path to action stardom.

The scene in which his teenaged character Joel Goodsen — celebrating a house to himself — struts and dances to Bob Seger’s rendition of “Old Time Rock & Roll” has been recreated and parodied repeatedly since the box office success of the movie.

Cruise expressed awe that the film turns 40 this year. “That’s amazing,” he told Access Hollywood. “I made it in ’82, I was 19 when I made it. I'll never forget that night, that day that I shot that scene.”

Risky Business writer and director Paul Brickman, Cruise added, worked with the actor on its famous opening shot of Cruise sliding into the center of the frame.

“I had to figure out how I slide across the floor in my socks,” remembered the Oscar nominee. “So I saw the opening frame and I go, ‘I want to hit center frame.’ And it didn't work. And then I said, 'Well, let's just put [slick] stuff on the floor — and I slid all the way across.”

A sticky spray placed in the center of the frame eventually did the trick, Cruise said, revealing how “it was a learning experience for me… I went in the editing room and I saw the shots and looked at how editorially they were putting it together. So I started really understanding that cinematic process right from the very beginning.”

He continued, “I feel very lucky to have that opportunity, to be able to have that kind of script and that kind of material at that age.”

Fresh off the box office-smash success of last year’s Top Gun: Maverick, Cruise recently called moviemaking “a privilege that I have never taken for granted.” According to Variety, the actor addressed a crowd in Rome, saying, “It’s my passion to entertain you, and I will always fight for big theaters and that kind of experience for everyone.”

He also weighed in on Scarlett Johansson’s comments that he’s a dream costar, telling Entertainment Tonight on Monday, “I'd love to make a movie with her!"

"She is enormously talented," he said. "So charismatic, versatile. She has great physical ability obviously."

Related: Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell Spotted Leaving London Screening of 'Mission: Impossible 7'

As for other movies on his radar, Cruise told Access Hollywood he “can’t wait” for Harrison Ford’s upcoming movie, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. 

“I can’t wait to see it," he said, "And I will keep going to [Ford’s] movies. That guy, he’s so charismatic, he’s such a great actor and movie star. And a great guy.”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One premieres in U.S. theaters July 12.

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