Tom Cruise went undercover as a FedEx deliveryman for Collateral

Here's a lovely oddity from the annals of Tom Cruise preparation lore — and yes, he really did it. Despite being known for dangling himself off skyscrapers and sprinting away from danger in nearly every film, Cruise's obsessive approach to roles isn't just about adrenaline or absurd stunts. Case in point: back in the early 2000s, Cruise briefly became an actual FedEx delivery bloke. And nobody caught on.

Going Undercover for Collateral

Collateral dropped in 2004, with Cruise in rare form as Vincent — a hitman coolly working his way through Los Angeles, dragging Jamie Foxx's unsuspecting cab driver along for the ride. The whole film hinged on one thing: Vincent's ability to slip beneath the radar, to drift through crowds mural-plain and unnoticed. Basically, Cruise needed to be utterly forgettable — which is not usually what actors are aiming for, is it?

Director Michael Mann wasn't about to leave that kind of thing to chance. He had Cruise kitted out in proper FedEx livery — cap, badge, everything — and sent him into a downtown LA liquor shop with a real parcel (turns out it was just a calendar). The challenge? Get in, talk to three different people, and get out — all in full guest-star anonymity. Mann deliberately chose a spot with just one way in and a set of escape routes, to keep things sharp. According to Mann, nobody even batted an eyelid. Apparently, if you've got a FedEx hat and a delivery to make, people will believe what they're seeing — even if you've got the most famous teeth in Hollywood hiding under the brim.

Michael Mann told Empire magazine that people take one look at the FedEx uniform and don't question a thing — even when it's Tom Cruise doing rounds in LA.

That knack for invisibility wasn't the only bit of prep on the cards. Cruise also did pretty intense weapons and hand-to-hand combat training — with none other than British ex-military pros Mick Gould and Andy McNab. (Yes, live rounds on set — apparently the first time Cruise had ever worked under those conditions.) He and Mann, plus screenwriter Stuart Beattie, built out Vincent's backstory in detail — rough childhood, an odd love for jazz — none of which made the final cut, but all of which shaped the performance anyway.

86%: That's the Rotten Tomatoes score Collateral landed after release, earning Jamie Foxx an Oscar nom and Cruise some rare villain points.

Cruise's Other Intense Research Sprees

While the Collateral experiment is a gem, it's hardly the only entry in Cruise's catalogue of method-adjacent prep. For Born on the Fourth of July, where he played Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, Cruise spent weeks rolling around LA in a wheelchair — not just for the cameras, but to actually get the physical rhythm right. He shadowed Kovic closely, absorbing the man's mannerisms and state of mind in a way that's become pure Cruise at this point. That one earned him his first Best Actor nomination at the Oscars, so who's to say it was wasted time?

If you want another flavour, there's Jerry Maguire. For that, Cruise hung out extensively with real-life agent Leigh Steinberg, soaking up the ins and outs of the high-stakes sports world and seeing firsthand what it really means to 'show me the money.' It's always immersion first, then performance.

• Collateral: Undercover as a courier, full-weapons drills in LA, backstory building that doesn't even make the film.
• Born on the Fourth of July: Weeks navigating LA in a wheelchair, shadowing the real Ron Kovic.
• Jerry Maguire: Hands-on research with sports agent Leigh Steinberg.

That's the pattern with Cruise: full commitment, deep-dive research, and a willingness to look like an absolute nobody if the part calls for it. And that's why the performances land, even when the research sounds like the plot of the film itself.