Tom Cruise And Vin Diesel Have One Thing In Common: They're Our Least-Sexy Movie Stars
When we surveyed our readers about Vin Diesel's best role in 2023, the results were rather illuminating. The actor's "Fast & Furious" counterpart, Dominic Toretto, came in shockingly low, lagging well behind The Iron Giant and Groot. That's right, a giant robot with a limited vocabulary and a sentient tree that only repeats the same sentence over and over were considered better roles for him than the Fast Fam's supposedly beloved patriarch. The number one spot went to Riddick B. Riddick, a morally flexible antihero who would just as soon leave his pals for dead than stick his neck out for them.
Why do these characters fit Diesel so well? Well, if I may be so bold, I would say it's because they all have one thing in common: They don't require him to be remotely sexy.
Now, it's worth clarifying that when I say Diesel isn't "sexy," I'm in no way trashing his appearance. I'm also not talking about modern action and superhero films that cast extremely attractive actors and then refuse to allow them to be even mildly horny, nor the absence of sex scenes in a lot of recent mainstream cinema. Heck, Diesel's filmography probably includes more sexually charged or sensual moments than every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie combined! Yet, for the life of me, there's only one time I can recall watching one of Diesel's movies and feeling like he emanated sexiness (which we'll get into a little later).
The funny thing is, he's not alone on this island. Tom Cruise is one of our biggest living movie stars, yet he's also one of our least-sexy A-listers — and I say this as someone who has generally enjoyed his films throughout his career. (The same goes for Diesel.) But why is that?
How to use your Tom Cruise
Desirability is in the eye of the beholder, and, obviously, some find Cruise to be "sexy" ... but I can safely say I'm not alone in feeling the opposite. There's something almost unnerving about the energy he projects whenever he's onscreen. It's useful when he's portraying intense, un-sexy characters, like the pickup artist/motivational speaker he plays in "Magnolia," or most of the time he's playing Ethan Hunt in the "Mission: Impossible" films (a hero whose dogged determination can be borderline off-putting). Even then, though, things can suddenly get awkward, as we saw when "Mission: Impossible II" tried to turn Cruise into an American James Bond.
As Jordan Crucchiola once observed in her piece "The Best Place for Women in Action Movies Is Next to Tom Cruise," the best Tom Cruise action movies ensure his love interests "have dynamics with Cruise that are clearly rooted in mutual care and affection." What they lack in sexiness, they make up by not being casually misogynistic (which, infuriatingly, Hollywood has long conflated with masculinity).
The same could be said for many of his other films. "Jerry Maguire" even makes a point of this by having Cruise, as Jerry, mock his own attempts at being deliberately sexy, and instead presents his (admittedly somewhat wild-eyed) commitment to others as being his most appealing trait. It's also why the relationship between Cruise's Maverick and Penny (Jennifer Connelly) in "Top Gun: Maverick" works right up until their love scene, which painfully clashes with the playful yet platonic vibe of their previous interactions.
Oddly enough, Cruise's anti-sexiness is similarly an asset in "Interview With the Vampire." His take on the vampiric Lestat de Lioncourt is somehow profoundly lustful without actually being "sexy," which in a way befits that film's sicko gothic spirit.
Cruise, Diesel, and the muscle man conundrum
One need look no further than the first "Jack Reacher" movie for an exhibit of Cruise's lack of sexiness. Fans of the titular character from Lee Child's original books have long pointed to Cruise's physical stature as the reason he's fundamentally wrong for the role, yet it's not only that. "Reacher" TV series star Alan Ritchson is as tall and bulky as Reacher in Child's novels, but more importantly, he's just as sexy. Ritchson's version of the character has an air of relaxed confidence and assurance about him, so much so you can see why people are drawn to him. However, in Cruise's hands, well, you get the sense this guy is probably better off living as a vagabond.
Diesel himself is proof that not all muscle men are inherently sexy. His growly voice can't fill the void that is his chemistry-free romance with Michelle Rodriguez's Letty in The Fast Saga, nor can it hide the absence of sparks flying between his extreme sports enthusiast turned secret agent Xander Cage and other beautiful-looking people in the "xXx" films. There just always seems to be a lack of connection between Diesel and the actors who play his love interests. It's why his scenes with the late Paul Walker in the earlier "Fast & Furious" films remain the sexiest moments in his career. The pair had an honest-to-goodness bromance, which meant Diesel was emotionally tuned in for their interactions in a way he's rarely been with anyone else.
It's not that Diesel is incapable of having romantic chemistry with other actors. His scenes with Helen Mirren in The Fast Saga are off-the-charts hot in a way his exchanges with Dom's various love interests have never been. Far from a casting issue, the problem is Diesel himself.
Cruise and Diesel are handsome but weird (and not in a good way)
You've likely noticed that I've avoided talking about Cruise and Diesel's personal lives so far. While I don't feel comfortable speculating about certain aspects of Cruise's private life (though you've probably heard the same rumors as I have over the years), I would be remiss to go without mentioning Cruise's deeply troubling longtime ties to Scientology. Likewise, Diesel's discourteous and otherwise unprofessional behavior behind the scenes has been widely reported on, and he's now facing allegations of sexual battery and other types of misconduct.
That being said, it's no secret that actors can be sexy onscreen while also behaving in a jerky or even downright immoral manner offscreen (see again: that whole "being an actor" thing). The problem with Cruise and Diesel is they tend to exude a rather unsettling strangeness in their performances. Even then, strangeness itself isn't an automatic turn-off. Barry Keoghan is as strange as they come playing a randy, covetous weirdo like Oliver Quick in "Saltburn," but darn it if there isn't something believable — and more than a little hot — about the way he's able to switch gears and seduce people in the film. Cruise and Diesel, on the other hand, have a habit of being unnerving even when it's uncalled for.
Yet, despite that, they're also compelling screen presences with so-called Hollywood looks who have strategically fashioned lucrative careers for themselves by collaborating with skilled filmmakers and taking a substantial amount of creative control over their biggest franchises (their past public missteps aside). In the end, they're both kind of fascinating anomalies to the rule that cinematic superstardom and being sexy go hand in hand. If anything, their popularity suggests that sometimes having the image of sexiness is all an actor really needs.