Stiller praises Cruise's 'Tropic' cameo

Rex Features

Ben Stiller has praised Tom Cruise for his cameo in upcoming comedy Tropic Thunder.

Cruise shed his clean-cut image to appear as a foul-mouthed studio executive in the movie.

Stiller told E! Online that the Mission: Impossible star was keen to make suggestions for his character, revealing: "[Tom] said, 'I want really big hands playing this guy'. I said, 'Really? Big hands?' He had these hands made, and then I said, 'Well, it'd be really cool if you were bald too'. Then we did this makeup test where he got bald."

Stiller added that Cruise's spontaneous dancing in a makeup test was included it in the final cut.

"He just said, 'It'd be interesting if this guy danced'. He started dancing," Stiller recalled. "I was loving it. I loved watching him do this thing, so he started dancing in the makeup test, and then we went back and wrote up this idea that he's dancing in the movie. I liked it a lot."

Tropic Thunder is released in the UK on September 19.