Tom Cruise; Richard Curtis.Photo:JC Olivera/Getty; Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage
JC Olivera/Getty; Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage
Richard Curtismight not have hadTom Cruiseon the set ofGeniein person, but he was there in spirit.
In the new holiday comedy from theLove Actuallywriter,Melissa McCarthy’s titular character Flora develops a crush on the action star, 61, after seeing him in aMission: Impossibleflick, her first-ever movie-theater experience. She soon peppers her bedroom wall with posters of Cruise, dreams about a potential life with him and even gets a sweatshirt with the actor’s face on it as aChristmaspresent from her new friend Bernard (Paapa Essiedu).
“We definitely had to ask him [for permission],” Curtis, 67, tells PEOPLE of including Cruise in the film. “I mean, we asked him through his people. I’m lucky enough to know Tom a bit. He’s always been very sweet to me. And we worked on a film for a while, which didn’t happen.”
Jokes Curtis of the former PEOPLESexiest Man Alive’s response, “I don’t know whether it’s a favor to me and Melissa or whether someone in the mail room said, ‘This sounds okay.’ But it means that after all these years, I’ve at last made a Tom Cruise movie.”
“There’s a 3-second clip ofMission: Impossible. So I’m so thrilled that bit’s in,” he adds.
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.
Melissa McCarthy inGenie(2023).Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
InGenie, McCarthy’s Flora befriends the down-on-his-luck Bernard, who summoned her. The story switches between moments of off-the-wall humor and more serious, heartfelt messages about love, friendship and the holiday season.
Curtis says that McCarthy, 53, came up with some of the jokes in the movie herself — like one line when she’s asked about whether she likes cats and she answers, “I love them, they’re delicious.”
“When Melissa would think of a new funny joke, then she would do it, and that’d be great. But then, of course, you’ve gotta do it four more times. You’ve got to make sure you got it right. You’ve got to make sure you get it at the right speed from the right angle,” he explains with a laugh. “So it’s always a mixture between kind of mischief and very conscientious behavior on movies.”
“In my movies, you want it to be emotionally true at the same time as being silly. So [Melissa] went between being impish and just being a really proper, serious actor,” says Curtis, who’s also known for romantic-comedy classics likeLove Actually,Notting HillandBridget Jones’s Diary.
Paapa Essiedu, Emanuele Secci and Alan Cumming inGenie(2023).Universal Pictures
Curtis tells PEOPLE that he has stayed friends over the years with the “sweet and interesting” Cumming, whom he asked to join the cast ofGenie"as a favor."
“We just thought if Bernard’s the sweetest guy in the world, and we got in touch with him and said, ‘Would you like to now play the nastiest guy in the world?’ [whether he would],” the filmmaker says. “And he’s played a few scoundrels in his time.”
“So it was lovely seeing Alan again. He’s aged well, I think,” Curtis quips.
Genieis now streaming on Peacock.
source: people.com
