I have to say, I was a bit confused as to why Tom Cruise was starring in a Samurai movie. Cruise Says Role in “Samurai” Difficult explains his actual role:
In the film, directed by Edward Zwick, Cruise plays an American hired in the late 1800s to help Japanese warriors in Western war tactics.
Here’s the part that interests me most though:
‘I trained for eight months prior to shooting the film,’ the 41-year-old actor told a news conference packed by some 700 reporters and cameramen Thursday. ‘I put on 20 pounds for the character but also for the muscle to carry the swords and wear the armor.’
Twenty pounds of muscle is a lot of muscle — and eight months isn’t very long to put on that much mass.