tom cruise look alike michigan

For Metro Detroit Tom Cruise lookalike, life is no Mission: Impossible

Rick dossin of eastpointe is in cruise control as his hollywood counterpart is back in a very big way..

With last year's massive success of "Top Gun: Maverick" and the latest "Mission: Impossible" film now in theaters, Tom Cruise is firmly back in Hollywood's driver's seat, and Rick Dossin couldn't be happier.

"Good for him," says the 55-year-old Eastpointer. "And good for me!"

It's obvious why it's good for Cruise. But Dossin is excited because he happens to look just like the megastar, a resemblance the Macomb County native has parlayed into a semi-professional side gig as a Cruise lookalike.

His travels as Maverick have taken him across the country, where he occasionally appears at '80s parties, corporate events and even the odd high school reunion. Locally you might catch him at a summer fair or a festival, where his tassel of brown hair and those familiar black shades have caused many a double take, and he's happy to smile for the camera, take a picture and even throw out a Cruise catchphrase ("Talk to me, Goose") or two.

It wasn't always Tom Cruise for whom Dossin was mistaken.

"I used to get a lot of Christopher Reeve or, 'Hey, Superman!'" says Dossin. "I still get it once in a while, but it was never photos or anything like that."

Now he leans into it, often sporting a clean black V-neck T-shirt and sportcoat, his black wraparound shades (usually a $10 pair from a gas station) always within reach. His haircut isn't as untamed as Cruise's current locks, but is a little more controlled.

At 5-foot-11-inches, he's about 4 inches taller than Cruise, but who's counting? Either way, he looks the part — and he's having fun with it.

By day and by night

By day, you might catch Cruise, er, Dossin working his day job as a truck driver, transporting janitorial supplies to various buildings in downtown Detroit and the greater Metro Detroit area. At night, he loves going to concerts, especially '80s-era artists, where his signature look sometimes grants him special and even backstage access.

He's met Sammy Hagar and the dudes from Night Ranger, and Terri Nunn, whose biggest hit with Berlin is the "Top Gun" love theme "Take My Breath Away," once greeted him with a full open-arms hug. He's pals with some of the guys in local '80s tribute bands — lookalikes of a feather flock together — and he made sure not to miss Bret Michaels' Parti Gras concert Thursday night at Pine Knob, where he scored a picture with the Poison frontman.

"He's a super straight shooter, and he’s really easy to get along with," says Craig Janos of Warren, a friend and a local Jack Nicholson impersonator who has known Dossin for several years. For awhile, they tried putting together a dual act based on "A Few Good Men," but it never took off the way they wanted it to.

But they have managed to cause a stir together, like the time they paired up at a Pistons-Lakers game in December 2015 — it was Kobe Bryant's final visit to the Palace of Auburn Hills — and they were mobbed by so many fans looking for selfies that they needed help from security to exit the arena.

That time got a little scary, Janos says, but for the most part people are kind and respectful.

"It doesn't take long for someone to come up to him and ask for a picture," he says.

A few years ago, Dossin was a part of Michigan State Madness, the annual kickoff to the Spartans' basketball season, where he was driven onto the court in a black SUV and appeared alongside Tom Izzo and the rest of the MSU men's basketball team. He never broke character, and he kept it Cruise the entire time.

Last year, following "Maverick's" incredible box office success, Dossin appeared in an in-theater advertisement for Emagine Theaters, alongside Emagine's Paul Glantz and Fox 2 anchor and WNIC-FM (100.3) morning man Jay Towers.

"If you live here, everybody has seen that guy, everybody knows that guy in some way," says Towers, who has been running into Dossin at events and Halloween parties for years. "Rick shows up and he looks like Tom Cruise. 'It's the Tom Cruise guy!' But what's funnier is he's doing Tom Cruise from 1986, not Tom Cruise today. He's become a really funny conversation piece."

Dossin knows that and he uses it to his advantage, Towers says. "He's in on the joke, he gets it," he says.

A decade of being Maverick

Dossin grew up in Eastpointe, the second youngest of six, and graduated from South Lake High School in St. Clair Shores. He's never smoked or drank — sitting down at a bar for an interview following a screening of the latest "Mission: Impossible" movie, he orders a cranberry juice — and he's never been married.

"I never woke up going, 'I gotta get married and have kids!'" he says. "And I'm kind of glad I didn't."

Having no ties at home makes it easier for him to pick up and go to Texas or Colorado or California, wherever he might get booked for an appearance, he says. Those appearances of course slowed down during the COVID-19 pandemic, but things are back up and running now, he says.

Dossin dabbled in modeling and acting in his early years; he once appeared in a Lover's Lane ad, not as Tom Cruise, and he played a cop in Billy Crystal's baseball movie "61*," which was filmed locally in summer 2000.

Dossin began taking the Tom Cruise business seriously after he appeared on "The Wendy Williams Show" in 2012 , during a segment about celebrity lookalikes. After that he went from smiling and nodding when people pointed out his uncanny Cruiseness to making appearances and turning his looks into a business.

In that business, "Top Gun" is his bread and butter, and he's got a flight suit, aviator shades and the Navy whites to complete the look. In his travels he's met several other Tom Cruise lookalikes, and he even crashed with another Cruise during a trip to California a few years ago.

He struggled early on to figure out what to charge; he didn't want to ask too much and price himself out of a job, he says. He now charges $150 an hour for appearances, and he'll even throw in a "show me the money!" for good measure.

While the real Tom Cruise has had his public ups and downs, Dossin — who admits he's "not a huge movie guy" — has always been a fan, dating back to Cruise's "Risky Business" days.

"Like when he jumped up on the couch? I don't really see what was so bad about that," says Dossin of Cruise's infamous 2005 "Oprah" appearance where he declared his love for Katie Holmes by leaping onto the talk show host's furniture. "You see other people doing way worse things."

Dossin has never had the opportunity to meet Cruise, but he holds out hope that one day he'll get the chance.

"Oh, that would be the tops," he says, flashing that winning Tom Cruise smile.

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• Grand Rapids/Muskegon
• Saginaw/Bay City
• All Michigan

The kid from ‘The Shining’ comes face-to-face with his worst nightmare in Michigan

• Updated: May. 23, 2023, 12:02 a.m. |
• Published: Oct. 18, 2022, 8:17 a.m.

"The Shining" actor, Danny Lloyd," meets a Jack Nicholson look-alike at Motor City Comic Con. (Photo by Edward Pevos | MLive)

• Edward Pevos | [email protected]

NOVI, MI - Talk about a surreal moment almost nobody saw. The kid from “The Shining” came face-to-face with a guy who looks just like his worst nightmare, Jack Torrance. The encounter happened at Motor City Comic Con this weekend.

Of course, this wasn’t Jack Torrance or even Jack Nicholson, but he sure looks like him and he walked right up to the actual actor from the 1980 thriller, Danny Lloyd, who said he couldn’t believe his eyes.

“It threw me for a loop there for a minute,” Lloyd told MLive. “I was pretty impressed. At most conventions, you get to see the twins. Sometimes you see someone dressed up like Shelley or Jack, but that gentleman really looks like him.”

Jack is actually Craig Janos from Warren, a Jack Nicholson look-alike who turns heads around town when he attends concerts or events. He can often be seen out and about with Tom Cruise look-alike, Rick Dossin , who also resides in Metro Detroit. The two like to recreate the look of “A Few Good Men” when together.

Meantime, even though this was his only major acting role, Lloyd says what a role it was and what a ride it’s been.

“I feel like if you’re going to be a kid actor, basically a one hit wonder, and then go about your regular life, I hit the lottery. I think I know how it became a cult classic. It was cable TV. I was in high school, I think, when it started hitting the top 20 best Halloween or best scary movies. When it was released, my memory was that it wasn’t a huge success, considering it was Stanley Kubrick and Jack Nicholson.”

Lloyd says even though “The Shining” is a horror film, it was never really a Halloween movie, but don’t tell that to fans who watch it over and over every year around this time.

“It’s October, and really, it was not a Halloween movie, but it is now. Although, I’ve had lots of fans of the movie tell me they watch it when it’s snowing out, for obvious reasons.”

MORE COMIC CON FROM MLIVE :

Alice Cooper reminisces with us on his Michigan roots as he visited back home

More than two dozen photos of celebrities we saw in Michigan this weekend

Cosplayers who turned heads at Motor City Comic Con

Catching up with “Hocus Pocus” and “TGIF” actor Jason Marsden

A non-hidden camera conversation with James ‘Murr’ Murray of ‘Impractical Jokers’

Car from ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ in Michigan before hitting red carpet

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The Agony and Ecstasy of the World’s Biggest Tom Cruise Impersonator

Evan Ferrante is in the Tom Cruise business, and business is booming. “Busiest and most lucrative year of my adult life,” he tells Inverse .

Four years ago, times were tight for Evan Ferrante, an actor and producer who credibly calls himself the “leading Tom Cruise impressionist in the world.” His phone wasn’t ringing. He had just turned 40 and feared his career spent putting on the Cruise wig and jumping on couches was finally drying up.

“I was still impersonating Cruise, but very seldomly,” recalls Ferrante, now 44, whose stage name is “Not Tom Cruise.” “I had to take on three other side hustles. I’ve never worked so much in my life. I was a Lyft driver. I was a dog walker. I was hustling nonstop.”

These days, Ferrante’s business is still being Tom Cruise — and business is booming. During the first year of the pandemic, he pivoted to Cameo, which kept him and other celeb impersonators afloat. Ferrante was flooded with requests to cheer up bored, quarantined fans on birthdays and holidays — always in character as the Mission: Impossible star — and the response was heartening. (As one of his many five-star reviewers writes, “This was our second awesome video Not Tom Cruise has done for our son who is a military aviator in training. This guy is a total pro!”)

Then, in 2022, as the world was opening back up and Ferrante was resuming live event appearances, Top Gun: Maverick sold out theaters and restored Cruise to mainstream prominence. Ferrante couldn’t believe his luck.

“There wasn’t a day that went by last year that I didn’t receive an offer to perform live or in a commercial, film, TV, etc. — all thanks to Top Gun: Maverick ,” he says. “Busiest and most lucrative year of my adult life.”

A brief perusal of his Cameo videos or TikTok channel confirms that Ferrante, clad in dark shades and a Risky Business -style wig, has Cruise down cold (or at least a “heightened version of Cruise,” as he calls it). The manic delivery, the choked laugh, the abrupt tonal shifts, and high-pitched “ Whoo! ” He can shift seamlessly between Top Gun , Jerry Maguire , and other characters, and he can cater his shtick to current events (a recent video shows him visiting the WGA picket line in character as Cruise, riffing on Magnolia ).

At events, corporate crowds eat him up. “Many treat me like a dancing monkey or a wind-up doll,” Ferrante says. “Many are respectful. A lot of them are just super-pumped to see a Tom Cruise look-alike with them. They want to do all the lines with me. They’re very handsy with me.”

“People turn and look, and they go, ‘Oh, my God, is that Tom Cruise?’” says Colin Paolo, a creative director in the corporate sphere who has hired Ferrante for nearly a dozen events. “These are grown people that will stand in line. I’m never 100 percent sure whether they actually grasp he is an impersonator. I’ve seen grown men — 6-foot-1, 6-foot-2 — on the phone to their wives saying, ‘I’m getting my picture taken with Tom Cruise!’” (Ferrante never aims to deceive anyone, though he says it happens sometimes, especially when he performs overseas.)

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Ferrante’s flourishing act speaks to Tom Cruise’s improbable endurance as a bankable — and perpetually youthful — screen icon now entering the fifth decade of his career, with blockbuster movies like Top Gun: Maverick and the upcoming Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One introducing him to new audiences.

It’s also reflective of a parasocial, celeb-obsessed culture in which people are hungry for personalized attention from their favorite stars. As A-listers like Cruise become increasingly sequestered and untouchable, doppelgangers such as Ferrante step in to provide the one-on-one connections with fans that neither the real Cruise, nor creepily realistic deepfake simulations , will.

“It’s just a fascinating character to explore, Tom Cruise,” Ferrante says. “I provide a window into his world, right? It’s almost like Mary Poppins with her bags of endless things. I can dip into this bag, and with enough imagination, I can come up with a thousand scenarios that would be funny with Cruise. You don’t know what Cruise’s life or existence is like, and I’m going to fill in the blanks. I’m going to create this mythology, this lore.”

Ferrante with the real Tom Cruise.

Born 17 years after Tom Cruise, Evan Ferrante was raised by an Italian Catholic father and Russian Jewish mother in Armonk, New York. He became a child actor in the 1980s, appearing in commercials and soap operas, like the short-lived Swans Crossing , but says his ethnically ambiguous features made it hard to book roles.

In 1993, he received his SAG card, but the endless auditions became grueling. “It takes its toll on you psychologically,” Ferrante says. “You lose a little bit of your childhood.”

“I sometimes don’t know where Evan Ferrante begins or ends or Tom Cruise begins or ends.”

In 1997, Ferrante was a freshman at Boston University when his hallmate, an aspiring filmmaker named Alex Merkin, noticed that his voice and mannerisms resembled Tom Cruise’s. “ Jerry Maguire had just come out, and it was doing really well,” recalls Merkin. “I told him he should try to learn some of those lines. So he did, and it was, like, uncanny. Almost immediately, it was insane.”

At the time, Merkin did a bad Jean-Claude Van Damme impression. The two teamed up, aiming to impress girls.

“We would try to break the ice by knocking on doors, and we would both do impressions and try to meet women and go on dates,” says Merkin. “It was so good that everywhere we would go, through the next four years and after, it would be like: ‘OK, do the Tom Cruise impression.’ It would just become a party trick. I actually had him record my voicemail greeting as Tom Cruise.”

Once Ferrante embraced the talent, “it was one of those things where it’s like you have a twin that died in the womb, and it’s like you have an evil twin brother — you can’t escape it,” Merkin says. “He was not going to be able to separate himself from it. Not that he wanted to.”

After graduation, Ferrante was ready to leave his Tom Cruise act behind. He was tired of it. But then came the early YouTube days, which coincided with heavy tabloid interest in Cruise’s couch-jumping exploits. In 2006, at a girlfriend’s urging, Ferrante uploaded a crudely shot “demo reel” of his various Cruise characters to YouTube. The video currently has more than 200,000 views.

“It got the attention of some friends of mine in the industry, who had ideas to create a series around this persona that I created, this heightened version of Cruise,” he says.

Soon enough, Ferrante was hired to portray Cruise in a Funny or Die video series, and his party trick became a career. Since then, Ferrante has performed at countless corporate events, parodied Cruise in commercials and cartoons, and pumped out thousands of Cameo messages (current rate: $100 for a personalized video, $387 for a live video call). Movie studios have even hired him to serve as Cruise’s voice match in early cuts of movie trailers.

At times, he was hard up for cash and said yes to appearances he later regretted. There was, for instance, the demoralizing time he agreed to dance in his tighty-whities at several ’80s-themed nights in the Midwest.

“It was all unhappily married, nicotine-stained women in Dubuque, Iowa, and Fredericksburg, Indiana,” Ferrante recalls. “They were just clawing at my underwear. I felt like a Chippendales dancer.”

“They were just clawing at my underwear. I felt like a Chippendales dancer.”

Sometimes, playing Tom Cruise is a joy. Other times, it’s a source of psychic confusion.

“It’s an identity crisis, like Jekyll and Hyde,” Ferrante says. “I sometimes don’t know where Evan Ferrante begins or ends or Tom Cruise begins or ends.”

Last year, when Top Gun: Maverick came out, Ferrante remembers thinking, “‘How big could this possibly be?’ And it was way bigger than I ever imagined. Almost every day, I’d get some sort of inquiry — mainly corporate appearances. Commercial work, voiceover work. There was an incessant demand for Maverick. And it did not stop for well over a year!”

Recently, Ferrante’s life has been a little like George Clooney’s in Up in the Air , except instead of traveling around the country firing employees, he travels around getting employees fired up — usually in character as Maverick, the ace naval aviator. He’ll play “Danger Zone,” the bombastic Top Gun theme, as his entrance music, and fist-bump all the middle managers as he races up to the stage. Or sometimes he’s in character as Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible .

Cruise’s oeuvre “pairs well with corporate America.”

Last year, Ferrante performed at so many corporate events in so many cities that he has to start rifling through his 1099 forms just to remember them all. Much of it’s a blur. There was the Snapchat event, the opening of an Alamo Drafthouse somewhere he can’t recall, the fintech company that flew him in a helicopter and feted him with caviar, and the FedEx event where he was tasked with entertaining FedEx presidents from all over.

“All these events, they’re all properly liquored up,” Ferrante says. “Everyone is pretty three sheets to the wind. They come here to let loose.”

“I’ve used him on ‘Remission: Possible’ for pharmaceutical companies,” says Paolo, the creative director. “In the corporate sphere, not to be catty or anything, but they’re pretty much behind the times — they like things that have been done and proven. Like Hollywood, right? They like Top Gun . They like Mission: Impossible. Risky Business is something that not a lot of them understood. But those other two — and since every two years is a new Mission: Impossible — the world opens up for Evan.”

Cruise’s oeuvre “pairs well with corporate America,” Ferrante observes. “With Top Gun , you have ‘I feel the need…’; Jerry Maguire , ‘show me the money’ for anything in fintech or finance.”

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While technology companies pay him handsomely, the tech industry may also be Ferrante’s undoing as artificial-intelligence-generated deepfake software grows increasingly sophisticated. In 2021, a company called Metaphysic worked with a Cruise look-alike named Miles Fisher to create startlingly convincing videos of Cruise teeing off at a golf course, among other activities. It wasn’t really Cruise — just his face digitally “mapped” onto Fisher’s — but the videos fooled countless viewers. (Chris Umé, the co-founder of Metaphysic, did not respond to requests for comment.)

Though Ferrante had nothing to do with those videos, he was initially blamed and had his Instagram account temporarily deactivated. The actor had participated in other deepfake projects previously. “I was probably the very first actor to work with a deepfake technician/engineer,” Ferrante says, referencing a 2019 video in which he helped artificially place Tom Cruise’s face over Christian Bale’s in American Psycho .

Soon, he believes, studios will pay enormous sums to license the digital likeness of famous movie stars in perpetuity. “They’ll pay Tom Cruise $10 billion, whatever, for the forever usage of his likeness. That is certainly coming into being right now. It’s not science fiction.”

Ferrante reenacts an infamous Tom Cruise moment.

Ferrante knows he can’t do this forever. As Rear Adm. Cain (Ed Harris) tells Maverick in the new Top Gun , “The future is coming, and you’re not in it.”

“I’m winding down,” Ferrante says. “I would say I’m in the twilight of my career.”

For one thing, he’s a dad now — he and his partner have a 2-year-old son — and he doesn’t have the same energy he once had. (No, the toddler doesn’t know who Tom Cruise is: “I have this Tom Cruise pillow here. He thinks that’s Daddy,” Ferrante says.)

For another, Ferrante figures he’ll need a more stable income to support his growing family. He now complements his Cruise income by working as a real estate agent for a luxury firm based in Beverly Hills. It’s not exactly clear which is the day job and which is the side hustle.

“One day the phone may stop ringing.”

If Ferrante does hang up his Cruise wig, he wants to go out with a bang. He muses about writing a book someday espousing what he’s learned as a Cruise impersonator and what successful attributes Cruise has that could be parlayed into corporate America. (“It’ll almost be like a mission statement, like from Jerry Maguire .”) He then wants to design a keynote presentation around it and begin presenting his own speech to corporate audiences. He believes Cruise’s “incredible discipline” is the main attribute separating him from the man himself.

For now, Ferrante is just riding the wave of Cruise fever wherever it takes him.

“I was in Chicago a week ago,” he tells me. “I don’t know where I’ll end up next. I’m sure I’ll get a call tomorrow. One day the phone may stop ringing, and I’m prepared for that and I’m transitioning, but every time I transition, they end up sucking me back in.”

This article was originally published on June 28, 2023

For this Tom Cruise lookalike, life is no Mission: Impossible

DETROIT — With last year's massive success of "Top Gun: Maverick" and the latest "Mission: Impossible" film now in theaters, Tom Cruise is firmly back in Hollywood's driver's seat, and Rick Dossin couldn't be happier.

"Good for him," says the 55-year-old Eastpointer. "And good for me!"

It's obvious why it's good for Cruise. But Dossin is excited because he happens to look just like the megastar, a resemblance the Detroit-area native has parlayed into a semi-professional side gig as a Cruise lookalike.

His travels as Maverick have taken him across the country, where he occasionally appears at '80s parties, corporate events and even the odd high school reunion. Locally you might catch him at a summer fair or a festival, where his tassel of brown hair and those familiar black shades have caused many a double take, and he's happy to smile for the camera, take a picture and even throw out a Cruise catchphrase ("Talk to me, Goose") or two.

It wasn't always Tom Cruise for whom Dossin was mistaken.

"I used to get a lot of Christopher Reeve or, 'Hey, Superman!'" says Dossin. "I still get it once in a while, but it was never photos or anything like that."

Now he leans into it, often sporting a clean black V-neck T-shirt and sportcoat, his black wraparound shades (usually a $10 pair from a gas station) always within reach. His haircut isn't as untamed as Cruise's current locks, but is a little more controlled.

At 5-foot-11-inches, he's about 4 inches taller than Cruise, but who's counting? Either way, he looks the part — and he's having fun with it.

By day and by night

By day, you might catch Cruise, er, Dossin working his day job as a truck driver, transporting janitorial supplies to various buildings in downtown Detroit and the greater Detroit area. At night, he loves going to concerts, especially '80s-era artists, where his signature look sometimes grants him special and even backstage access.

He's met Sammy Hagar and the dudes from Night Ranger, and Terri Nunn, whose biggest hit with Berlin is the "Top Gun" love theme "Take My Breath Away," once greeted him with a full open-arms hug. He's pals with some of the guys in local '80s tribute bands — lookalikes of a feather flock together — and he made sure not to miss Bret Michaels' recent Parti Gras concert at Pine Knob, where he scored a picture with the Poison frontman.

"He's a super straight shooter, and he's really easy to get along with," says Craig Janos of Warren, a friend and a local Jack Nicholson impersonator who has known Dossin for several years. For awhile, they tried putting together a dual act based on "A Few Good Men," but it never took off the way they wanted it to.

But they have managed to cause a stir together, like the time they paired up at a Detroit Pistons-Los Angeles Lakers game in December 2015 — it was Kobe Bryant's final visit to the Palace of Auburn Hills — and they were mobbed by so many fans looking for selfies that they needed help from security to exit the arena.

That time got a little scary, Janos says, but for the most part people are kind and respectful.

"It doesn't take long for someone to come up to him and ask for a picture," he says.

A few years ago, Dossin was a part of Michigan State Madness, the annual kickoff to the Spartans' basketball season, where he was driven onto the court in a black SUV and appeared alongside Tom Izzo and the rest of the MSU men's basketball team. He never broke character, and he kept it Cruise the entire time.

Last year, following "Maverick's" incredible box office success, Dossin appeared in an in-theater advertisement for Emagine Theaters, alongside Emagine's Paul Glantz and Fox 2 anchor and WNIC-FM (100.3) morning man Jay Towers.

"If you live here, everybody has seen that guy, everybody knows that guy in some way," says Towers, who has been running into Dossin at events and Halloween parties for years. "Rick shows up and he looks like Tom Cruise. 'It's the Tom Cruise guy!' But what's funnier is he's doing Tom Cruise from 1986, not Tom Cruise today. He's become a really funny conversation piece."

Dossin knows that and he uses it to his advantage, Towers says. "He's in on the joke, he gets it," he says.

A decade of being Maverick

Dossin grew up in Eastpointe, the second youngest of six, and graduated from South Lake High School in St. Clair Shores. He's never smoked or drank — sitting down at a bar for an interview following a screening of the latest "Mission: Impossible" movie, he orders a cranberry juice — and he's never been married.

"I never woke up going, 'I gotta get married and have kids!'" he says. "And I'm kind of glad I didn't."

Having no ties at home makes it easier for him to pick up and go to Texas or Colorado or California, wherever he might get booked for an appearance, he says. Those appearances of course slowed down during the COVID-19 pandemic, but things are back up and running now, he says.

Dossin dabbled in modeling and acting in his early years; he once appeared in a Lover's Lane ad, not as Tom Cruise, and he played a cop in Billy Crystal's baseball movie "61*," which was filmed locally in summer 2000.

Dossin began taking the Tom Cruise business seriously after he appeared on "The Wendy Williams Show" in 2012, during a segment about celebrity lookalikes. After that he went from smiling and nodding when people pointed out his uncanny Cruiseness to making appearances and turning his looks into a business.

In that business, "Top Gun" is his bread and butter, and he's got a flight suit, aviator shades and the Navy whites to complete the look. In his travels he's met several other Tom Cruise lookalikes, and he even crashed with another Cruise during a trip to California a few years ago.

He struggled early on to figure out what to charge; he didn't want to ask too much and price himself out of a job, he says. He now charges $150 an hour for appearances, and he'll even throw in a "show me the money!" for good measure.

While the real Tom Cruise has had his public ups and downs, Dossin — who admits he's "not a huge movie guy" — has always been a fan, dating back to Cruise's "Risky Business" days.

"Like when he jumped up on the couch? I don't really see what was so bad about that," says Dossin of Cruise's infamous 2005 "Oprah" appearance where he declared his love for Katie Holmes by leaping onto the talk show host's furniture. "You see other people doing way worse things."

Dossin has never had the opportunity to meet Cruise, but he holds out hope that one day he'll get the chance.

"Oh, that would be the tops," he says, flashing that winning Tom Cruise smile.

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Tom Cruise Has a Look-Alike & He Looks Identical to Maverick from 'Top Gun'

Click here to read the full article.

Prepare for a double take. Tom Cruise’s look-alike wore a Top Gun costume to Comic-Con and pretty much fooled everyone there. Jerome LeBlanc, a professional Cruise impersonator from San Diego, California, had fun with his Cruise-esque looks at San Diego Comic-Con last week. Not only did he wear the costume that Cruise’s character LT. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell wears in 1986’s Top Gun , but LeBlanc also went to the exact location where several key scenes in Top Gun were filmed, according to the OC Register.

Per the OC Register, LeBlanc surprised fans at San Diego’s Kansas City Barbeque (where some barroom scenes in Top Gun were shot) on Thursday, July 18, dressed head to toe like Maverick. Dressed in aviator glasses and pilot’s jacket — with his hair pushed back to Cruise’s signature quiff — LeBlanc looked like a dead ringer for the Oscar-nominated actor. ( See photos here .)

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LeBlanc’s appearance was especially exciting given that Cruise had revealed the trailer for Top Gun ‘s sequel , Top Gun: Maverick , at San Diego Comic-Con that exact day. Unfortunately, the look-alike didn’t run into the real-life Cruise. “We tried to accidentally bump into him,” LeBlanc told the OC Register. “It didn’t work out.”

View this post on Instagram Remember boys, no points for second place. So get down to the best @donutbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . @comic_con #comiccon #donutbar #tomcruise #chefsantiago #maverick #flightdeck #petemitchell #lieutenant #topgunmaverick #tomcat #sandiego #f14 #topgunpilot #filmset #missionimpossible #paramount #entertainment #celebrity#california #moviestar #dangerzone #needforspeed #topgun2 #inverted #pickoftheday #smile #topgunonmidway #midwaymaverick #calove A post shared by Top Gun • Maverick (@californiatomcruise) on Jul 22, 2019 at 7:16am PDT

View this post on Instagram I had some Risky Business to take care of in Chicago. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . @magnificent.events #tomcruise #maverick #petemitchell #lieutenant #topgunmaverick #tomcat #chicago #topgunpilot #filmset #paramount #entertainment #celebrity #moviestar #dangerzone #needforspeed #topgun2 #inverted #pickoftheday #smile #topgunonmidway #midwaymaverick A post shared by Top Gun • Maverick (@californiatomcruise) on Jul 20, 2019 at 9:34pm PDT

This isn’t the first time LeBlanc has surprised fans at Kansas City Barbeque, which has become tourist destination since the release of Top Gun . (Some memorabilia, including the piano that Goose plays “Great Balls of Fire” and signed autographs, are on display at the restaurant.) According to the restaurant’s owner, Chris Coffey, LeBlanc has frequented the spot a lot to shock tourists and take photos with fans. “He’s been coming here for awhile,” Coffey told the OC Register. “He knows all the regulars. They all know him.”

View this post on Instagram Maverick outside Conan, Comic Con 2019. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Duffle Bag & Jacket: @cockpitusa @tmz_tv @entertainmenttonight @comic_con #comiccon #donutbar #tomcruise #chefsantiago #maverick #flightdeck #petemitchell #lieutenant #topgunmaverick #tomcat #sandiego #f14 #topgunpilot #filmset #missionimpossible #paramount #entertainment #celebrity#california #moviestar #dangerzone #needforspeed #topgun2 #inverted #pickoftheday #smile #topgunonmidway #midwaymaverick #calove A post shared by Top Gun • Maverick (@californiatomcruise) on Jul 22, 2019 at 11:33am PDT

View this post on Instagram Maverick on TMZ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . @tmz_tv @donutbar @comic_con #comiccon #donutbar #tomcruise #chefsantiago #maverick #flightdeck #petemitchell #lieutenant #topgunmaverick #tomcat #sandiego #f14 #topgunpilot #filmset #missionimpossible #paramount #entertainment #celebrity#california #moviestar #dangerzone #needforspeed #topgun2 #inverted #pickoftheday #smile #topgunonmidway #midwaymaverick #calove A post shared by Top Gun • Maverick (@californiatomcruise) on Jul 22, 2019 at 9:00am PDT

View this post on Instagram Closing Comic Con with the one and only, Chef Santiago of @donutbar 🍩 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . @comic_con #comiccon #donutbar #tomcruise #chefsantiago #maverick #flightdeck #petemitchell #lieutenant #topgunmaverick #tomcat #sandiego #f14 #topgunpilot #filmset #missionimpossible #paramount #entertainment #celebrity#california #moviestar #dangerzone #needforspeed #topgun2 #inverted #pickoftheday #smile #topgunonmidway #midwaymaverick #calove A post shared by Top Gun • Maverick (@californiatomcruise) on Jul 21, 2019 at 6:14pm PDT

View this post on Instagram Not your average superhero. 😂 #marvel #captainmaverick A post shared by Top Gun • Maverick (@californiatomcruise) on Jul 19, 2019 at 10:32am PDT

View this post on Instagram You won’t lose that loving feeling at The Lafayette Hotel‘s Mississippi Room & also around the pool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . @thelafayette #aircraftcarrier #tomcruise #4thofjuly #maverick #flightdeck #petemitchell #lieutenant #topgunmaverick #tomcat #sandiego #f14 #topgunpilot #filmset #missionimpossible #paramount #entertainment #celebrity#california #moviestar #dangerzone #needforspeed #topgun2 #inverted #pickoftheday #smile #topgunonmidway #midwaymaverick #calove A post shared by Top Gun • Maverick (@californiatomcruise) on Jul 5, 2019 at 9:28pm PDT

View this post on Instagram We are a nation of many. A diverse collection of incredible stories. This year, Visit The USA’s roving content creation labs will travel the country in search of people, places and experiences which tell the story of the USA. You know Maverick’s story already… So come visit the USS Midway Museum in San Diego to hear about its history and also the stories from the docents aboard. #ipw19 #brandusa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . @ussmidwaymuseum @visittheusa #aircraftcarrier #tomcruise #maverick #ipw19 #flightdeck #petemitchell #lieutenant #topgunmaverick #tomcat #sandiego #f14 #topgunpilot #filmset #missionimpossible #paramount #entertainment #celebrity#california #moviestar #dangerzone #needforspeed #topgun2 #inverted #pickoftheday #smile #topgunonmidway #midwaymaverick #calove A post shared by Top Gun • Maverick (@californiatomcruise) on Jun 5, 2019 at 9:26am PDT

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Man behind viral Tom Cruise deepfake videos calls the technology ‘morally neutral’

The man behind the viral Tom Cruise deepfake videos on TikTok believes the positive outweighs the negative when it comes to the technology that allows him to so convincingly impersonate the Hollywood superstar.

Miles Fisher, the Cruise lookalike who has fooled millions with his TikTok videos , spoke about the possibilities and downsides of the deepfake technology in an exclusive interview with NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff.

"As I find myself the unofficial face of this deep fake movement, it’s important to learn and I’m fascinated by this," Fisher told Soboroff on TODAY Tuesday. "This is the bleeding edge of technology."

In a series of digitally manipulated videos, images and audio released earlier this year, it appeared like Cruise himself was showing off magic tricks, working on his golf swing and playing guitar. Except that wasn't the "Mission: Impossible" star at all. It was Fisher.

"I think we’ve created the first deepfake that’s so realistic, that a large majority of people have seen," he said.

Fisher, who bears a strong resemblance to Cruise in real life, said the similarities to the star often hampered him as he tried to make his own way as an actor.

Last year he decided to lean into the connection to Cruise, contacting Belgian visual effects specialist Chris Umé to create the viral Cruise videos for fun. The technology has also improved to the point that what once would've taken Umé weeks to make can now be created much quicker.

"About five days, maximum six days, I could turn around something like this," Umé told Soboroff on TODAY.

Cruise, who did not respond to a request for comment from NBC News, has not asked the duo to stop. Fisher and Umé also have not monetized the TikTok account @deeptomcruise, which has more than 3 million followers.

However, Fisher and Umé are now working together in a company started by Umé called Metaphysic that uses deepfake tech.

"How can we use this technology by creating kind of identity rights?" Fisher said. "Let’s say Tom Cruise gave us the consent for this likeness, where we could move beyond just small parody clips. Everybody gets paid for that intellectual property."

Deepfakes in recent years have also created impersonations of Jennifer Lawrence, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mark Zuckerberg and former President George W. Bush that drew notice.

The potential threat of the technology has been debated in Congress, which raised the specter of its use for political propaganda, fake revenge porn and other nefarious purposes.

“Deepfakes can cause real, concrete harm. Whether that’s a deepfake sex video, or a fake porn video targeting political enemies, or a well-timed deepfake, maybe used to cause harm to an IPO,” University of Maryland law professor Danielle Citron told NBC News ahead of congressional hearings about it in 2019. “And in unrest, if you time it just right, you can incite violence.”

The FBI told NBC News in a statement that it is tracking the technology closely and "will continue to investigate any violations of federal law and actors that may use them for nefarious acts."

Some companies are working on safeguards that will allow people to identify a deepfake like adding data to video and pictures so it will be clear when something has been digitally altered.

Fisher and Umé say they will only take on projects with positive applications.

"The thesis of this company that Chris started begins with ethics," Fisher said.  

"I think the technology is morally neutral," he continued. "As it develops, the positive output will so far outweigh the negative, nefarious uses."

Scott Stump is a trending reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY (which you should subscribe to here! ) that brings the day's news, health tips, parenting stories, recipes and a daily delight right to your inbox. He has been a regular contributor for TODAY.com since 2011, producing features and news for pop culture, parents, politics, health, style, food and pretty much everything else. 

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Photo of Tom Cruise lookalikes goes viral, sparks debate on authenticity

Hollywood star Tom Cruise has amassed a massive fan base worldwide with his highly anticipated movies, that consistently rake in millions at the global box office. 

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Known for his daredevil stunts, particularly in the "Mission Impossible" series, Cruise has established himself as an iconic action star. However, recent internet buzz surrounds a photo of individuals who bear an uncanny resemblance to Tom Cruise, leaving netizens perplexed.

For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.

I thought for a moment, hey Tom Cruise (middle guy) looks younger, only to realize all three of these guys are stunt doubles. https://t.co/AXkE06ifrT — Suby #ReleaseSanjivBhatt (@Subytweets) June 8, 2023

Filmmaker Lakshmi R Iyer shared the image, claiming it features three stunt doubles of Tom Cruise from his upcoming action-packed film, "Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One". In the photo, the three men, strikingly similar in appearance to Cruise, stand together with their arms around each other. The photo was accompanied by a tweet stating, "Tom Cruise's stunt doubles at the wrap party of Mission Impossible 7."

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The photo quickly went viral, triggering a debate among netizens regarding its authenticity. Some speculated that it could be an artificially generated image, possibly using AI technology. Others believed that the individuals pictured are indeed members of Tom Cruise's stunt team. This led to humorous remarks from netizens, questioning which one among them is the real Tom Cruise or suggesting they might serve as stunt doubles for the actor's emotional scenes.

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Amidst the confusion surrounding the photo, anticipation continues to build for Tom Cruise's forthcoming film, "Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One". Serving as the first installment of a two-part finale in the action-packed spy thriller series, the movie is set to hit theaters on July 14.

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দক্ষিণ ও দক্ষিণ-পূর্ব এশিয়ার কেন্দ্রীয় বাজার হওয়ার সুযোগ আছে বাংলাদেশের: প্রধানমন্ত্রী

দক্ষিণ ও দক্ষিণ-পূর্ব এশিয়ার বাজারে প্রবেশের জন্য ইতালির ব্যবসায়ীদের বাংলাদেশে বিনিয়োগের আহ্বান জানিয়েছেন প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনা। 

বাইরে থেকে ওষুধ কিনতে না চাওয়ায় রাজশাহী মেডিকেলে রোগীর স্বজনকে মারধর

The world's foremost Tom Cruise impersonator tells us about those viral Tom Cruise deepfakes

With your sound off and limited familiarity of his golf swing, the Tom Cruise deepfakes taking TikTok by storm are convincing enough. There he is at the tee, stumbling in a hallway, and performing a magic trick — with the trademark scrunched-face laughter and off-center incisors, to match a suitably realistic haircut. Fire up the sound, and the voice isn’t quite there, but with a username like @deeptomcruise, it’s unlikely these were ever intended to mislead to such an extent. (Oh, but they have .)

The frighteningly uncanny facial impression of Cruise is a minor viral sensation, with one such video raking in more than 6 million views in three days. After seeing a few of these zip around the timeline, my first instinct was to call up another Tom Cruise impersonator, Evan Ferrante, who’s been featured on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon , It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia , and recently performed voice work for The Animaniacs .

To examine the trend and talk about the tough work of becoming the Mission Impossible actor, we spoke with the 41-year-old impersonator, who has the definitive take on the sprinting maniac. Operating as Not Tom Cruise , with a successful YouTube channel and Cameo profile (my first introduction to Ferrante, as an anniversary gift), he’s into his third decade of professionally donning the shaggy wig and black shades. Ferrante walked us through the nuances of celebrity impression deepfakes, the keys to a great Cruise impression, and an unlikely run-in with the man himself.

How long have you been working on your Tom Cruise impression?

I've been doing the Tom Cruise impersonation thing as a career since, roughly, 2004 or 2005 when YouTube and Funny or Die launched. I started putting up some videos. I was an actor prior to that, but I just didn't think the videos would lead to anything. One was just a montage of Tom Cruise's best performances, without a wig and glasses — it was really just about my acting, my impersonation. And it was in commemoration of him and Katie Holmes tying the knot, right after he jumped on the couch on Oprah . I thought it would be the opportune time in the zeitgeist to exploit that.

He’s just a very excitable, energetic character. I really need to be in the right headspace and have enough cups of coffee and stimuli to properly function as Tom Cruise.

Viral wasn't even a word back then, other than having a virus or bacterial infection. That did very well and then got the attention of my friend in high school — a director named Richie Keen ( Fist Fight , It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia ). And they had an idea for a series called “ Tom Cruise Is a Cockblock .” That video spawned a trilogy because it was so successful on Funny or Die , and reached immortal status within a week — which is a high mark for that site.

There are other lookalikes out there that do cosplay work — there’s a guy now, a terrific actor, who’s recently got some acclaim, because he’s using the very advanced deepfake software. He's an accomplished actor in his own right, but he tends to look like Tom Cruise a little bit more. He doesn't really have the voice down, but he's got the look. It really transforms him into an imperceptible kind of illusion of Tom Cruise.

The actor you alluded to is the same one going viral on TikTok right now?

Yeah, his name is Miles Fisher. He’s been on Mad Men , some other TV shows, Final Destination . He’s an actor I admire, and did a great Christian Bale a number of years ago.

I've also been using deepfakes, working with the best people in the industry doing it, from Collider TV and Corridor Digital to just individuals who work with software and are the go-to technicians out there. But this one is getting a lot of acclaim, because again, the technology just keeps getting better and better. People are drawn to illusion and people are drawn to lookalikes for some reason, because people like to be fooled or question things.

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What, to you, are the most important elements to dial down for a Tom Cruise impersonation?

I would say the most important aspects are going from laughter to being really serious in an instant, also the pregnant pause Tom Cruise has, where he’s like [ switches to Cruise voice in Jerry Maguire] “Put me on the line with Bob Sugar” — of course, his big smile, his laugh, his woos. He’s just a very excitable, energetic character, so channeling that energy is something that I've had to work very hard in doing and I can't really do it sustainably for very long. It requires a great deal of energy. So I really need to be in the right headspace and have enough cups of coffee and stimuli to properly function as Tom Cruise.

From the looks of your website, you actually got to meet him at one point. How did that happen?

We met each other at the Chateau Marmont one evening, I think back in 2015, I think it was in November. We met at 2 in the morning in the lobby of the hotel. I tried to buy a bottle of champagne, prior to that, a few hours earlier in the garden, when we were both having dinner. I was having drinks with my friends and he was having dinner with a hodgepodge of celebrities — Jeremy Renner, people from The Office , Zero Dark Thirty — a big gathering of writers, directors, producers. I tried to buy a bottle of champagne, thinking it'd be a nice way to commemorate our meeting. And I was shot down immediately by the waiter, who said that I’d be banned for life, and he’d be fired, and it just wouldn’t happen. I was resigned to the fact that I’d just be breathing the same oxygen as him, two ships passing in the night. But my girlfriend at the time said there’s no way in hell we’re leaving tonight without meeting him.

As the night goes on, I'm a little bit drunk, I’m tipsy. I was very happy I was just in the same room with him. But everyone leaves the garden except for my friend and my friend gets a phone call. He gets a phone call from my girlfriend who went to the bathroom, since my phone was dead. And he says to me, Tom Cruise is waiting for you in the lobby. So I get out of my chair, knowing that he's telling the truth, and sprint from the garden shop to the lobby and Tom Cruise is waiting for me there. He does a slow turn, always in slow motion to me. And we embrace one another, and shake each other, and we say it’s an honor and privilege to meet you. We took a great picture together — he was wearing platforms, since he’s a little bit taller than me in the picture. Jeremy Renner was standing right behind him.

The deepfake works wonderfully when there’s an impersonator underneath who can bring the deepfake or the character to life underneath it.

You’ve described deepfakes as an enhancement to your impression, and it kind of edits out your original facial expressions. So are there some ways this works like autotune, where a layperson might not understand the nuances to mastering it?

There’s a spectrum with regard to the quality of deepfakes. And again, the deepfake works wonderfully when there’s an impersonator underneath who can bring the deepfake or the character to life underneath it. Anyone can wear a deepfake mask — you, myself, my mother — could wear a Tom Cruise mask. Doesn’t mean it will be any good, it just means the technology will map it onto whoever wears the mask.

Also, age has a lot to do with it, the way your body moves, your mannerisms. So, for instance, the movie The Irishman got a lot of criticism, because you had older actors wearing a young deepfake mask. There was a disconnect because you were watching an older actor move in the mask, and it didn’t really work. There was a disconnect when Robert De Niro was beating someone up as only a 70-something man would beat somebody up.

People are skeptical of deepfakes for political reasons, but also perhaps for taking away work for real-life impersonators. Do you worry it might remove the novelty for career impersonators?

It’s an interesting question because a lot of people don’t care. It’s a testament — look, Miles’s video is excellent — to how viral and popular something’s become simply because it meets the criteria of fooling someone based on technological prowess and style over substance. Now it's all about the substance, in my opinion, but these days substance means far less than it used to.

Is it crucial that you nail his facial quirks when you’re filming, or can they edit it in afterwards?

It’s really not. If I were to explore deepfake and make it pretty imperceptible or perfect, I could probably figure out what facial expressions I would absolutely need to make it stronger. The software is so good that it merges his facial expressions with mine. If I open my mouth up too much using the Impressions app, it doesn’t work as well and the lighting has to be great. But when I’m working with a professional team, using top-of-the-line software and 4K cameras, I don’t have to worry about it too much.

In Miles’s recent videos, are there any tics or body language that don’t square with Cruise that you’ve picked up over the years?

Honestly, I think we do similar things — and I’m not going to say anything bad about his impression. He does a very good impression, but the voice isn’t quite there and is a giveaway for me. He’s got the perfect Tom Cruise hair, and the energy and the pauses down and the laugh. Again, it’s not a Tom-petition, I always say when people talk to me about other impersonators.

• Artificial Intelligence /

Tom Cruise deepfake creator says public shouldn’t be worried about ‘one-click fakes’

Weeks of work and a top impersonator were needed to make the viral clips.

By James Vincent , a senior reporter who has covered AI, robotics, and more for eight years at The Verge.

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When a series of spookily convincing Tom Cruise deepfakes went viral on TikTok , some suggested it was a chilling sign of things to come — harbinger of an era where AI will let anyone make fake videos of anyone else. The video’s creator, though, Belgium VFX specialist Chris Ume , says this is far from the case. Speaking to The Verge about his viral clips, Ume stresses the amount of time and effort that went into making each deepfake, as well as the importance of working with a top-flight Tom Cruise impersonator, Miles Fisher.

“You can’t do it by just pressing a button,” says Ume. “That’s important, that’s a message I want to tell people.” Each clip took weeks of work, he says, using the open-source DeepFaceLab algorithm as well as established video editing tools. “By combining traditional CGI and VFX with deepfakes, it makes it better. I make sure you don’t see any of the glitches.”

Ume has been working with deepfakes for years, including creating the effects for the “Sassy Justice” series made by South Park ’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone . He started working on Cruise when he saw a video by Fisher announcing a fictitious run for president by the Hollywood star. The pair then worked together on a follow-up and decided to put a series of “harmless” clips up on TikTok. Their account, @deeptomcruise , quickly racked up tens of thousands of followers and likes. Ume pulled the videos briefly but then restored them.

“It’s fulfilled its purpose,” he says of the account. “We had fun. I created awareness. I showed my skills. We made people smile. And that’s it, the project is done.” A spokesperson from TikTok told The Verge that the account was well within its rules for parody uses of deepfakes, and Ume notes that Cruise — the real Tom Cruise — has since made his own official account, perhaps as a result of seeing his AI doppelgänger go viral.

Deepfake technology has been developing for years now, and there’s no doubt that the results are getting more realistic and easier to make. Although there has been much speculation about the potential harm such technology could cause in politics, so far these effects have been relatively nonexistent . Where the technology is definitely causing damage is in the creation of revenge porn or nonconsensual pornography of women. In those cases, the fake videos or images don’t have to be realistic to create tremendous damage. Simply threatening someone with the release of fake imagery, or creating rumors about the existence of such content, can be enough to ruin reputations and careers.

The Tom Cruise fakes, though, show a much more beneficial use of the technology: as another part of the CGI toolkit. Ume says there are so many uses for deepfakes, from dubbing actors in film and TV, to restoring old footage, to animating CGI characters. What he stresses, though, is the incompleteness of the technology operating by itself.

Creating the fakes took two months to train the base AI models (using a pair of NVIDIA RTX 8000 GPUs) on footage of Cruise, and days of further processing for each clip. After that, Ume had to go through each video, frame by frame, making small adjustments to sell the overall effect; smoothing a line here and covering up a glitch there. “The most difficult thing is making it look alive,” he says. “You can see it in the eyes when it’s not right.”

Ume says a huge amount of credit goes to Fisher; a TV and film actor who captured the exaggerated mannerisms of Cruise, from his manic laugh to his intense delivery. “He’s a really talented actor,” says Ume. “I just do the visual stuff.” Even then, if you look closely, you can still see moments where the illusion fails, as in the clip below where Fisher’s eyes and mouth glitch for a second as he puts the sunglasses on.

Although Ume’s point is that his deepfakes take a lot of work and a professional impersonator, it’s also clear that the technology will improve over time. Exactly how easy it will be to make seamless fakes in the future is difficult to predict, and experts are busy developing tools that can automatically identify fakes or verify unedited footage .

Ume, though, says he isn’t too worried about the future. We’ve developed such technology before and society’s conception of truth has more or less survived. “It’s like Photoshop 20 years ago, people didn’t know what photo editing was, and now they know about these fakes,” he says. As deepfakes become more and more of a staple in TV and movies, people’s expectations will change, as they did for imagery in the age of Photoshop. One thing’s for certain, says Ume, and it’s that the genie can’t be put back in the bottle. “Deepfakes are here to stay,” he says. “Everyone believes in it.”

Update March 5th, 12:11PM ET: Updated to note that Ume and Fisher has now restored the videos to the @deeptomcruise TikTok account.

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Things To Do | Comic-Con 2019: This maverick Tom Cruise…

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Things to do | comic-con 2019: this maverick tom cruise lookalike went from the danger zone to the ‘top gun’ bar in san diego.

After all, the Hollywood megastar buzzed San Diego Comic-Con with the “Top Gun: Maverick” trailer and then came in low to drop by “Conan.”

And so when a fellow bearing a strong resemblance to Tom Cruise showed up on Thursday at Kansas City Barbeque where key barroom scenes were filmed in the 1985 fighter pilot people had reason to be excited.

But it wasn’t the real one. Fans could be forgiven for mistaking Tom Cruise celebrity impersonator Jerome LeBlanc for the real Maverick. The San Diego entertainer has been making appearances as a Tom Cruise lookalike for nine years.

Headshot courtesy of Jerome Blanc

Kansas City Barbeque (Brady MacDonald)

A photo of Kansas City Barbeque bartender Chris Coffey with Tom Cruise lookalike Jerome LeBlanc. Courtesy of Chris Coffey

Comic-Con makes it even more difficult to tell the real stars from the cosplayers with 135,000 attendees in town for the world’s largest pop culture convention.

The self-described “sleazy bar” of the film, which is down the street from the San Diego Convention Center, bills itself as a Top Gun tourist destination.

The regulars at Kansas City Barbeque on Harbor Drive all know LeBlanc, who makes appearances there as a Tom Cruise lookalike. Comic-Con brings out-of-towners to the San Diego establishment who aren’t accustomed to having Tom Cruise drop by the “Top Gun” bar.

LeBlanc filmed segments with “Entertainment Tonight” outside Spreckels Theatre while Cruise was taping “Conan.”

“We tried to accidentally bump into him,” LeBlanc said. “It didn’t work out.”

LeBlanc also stopped by the USS Midway and the Top Gun bar in full Tom Cruise mode.

“He’s been coming here for awhile,” Kansas City Barbeque bartender Chris Coffey said. “He knows all the regulars. They all know him.”

LeBlanc posed for photos at the bar with Top Gun fans. The restaurant is a veritable Top Gun museum with movie memorabilia on the walls and autographs from the stars. The piano where Goose played “Great Balls of Fire” is in the corner. “You Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” is still on the jukebox. “Top Gun” shirts and hats are for sale behind the bar.

The “Top Gun: Maverick” sequel to the movie about the U.S. Navy’s fighter pilot school in San Diego is set to be released in 2020.

We can think of at least one person who just can’t wait for that day to arrive.

READ MORE about SDCC 2019 :

• Photo galleries: Cosplay | Scenes from Comic-Con | Her Universe Fashion Show | Preview night
• Recaps: Day 2 | Day 1 | 5 memorable moments from opening day | Preview night and the Running of the Nerds
• Only at Comic-Con:  Tom Cruise lookalike at the “Top Gun” bar | Wheelchair cosplay | The dancing monster
• Fashion: Her Universe Fashion Show winners | SoCal Her Universe designers | Interview with Her Universe’s Ashley Eckstein | The Hero Within clothing line | What cosplay weapons are allowed | The 23 swag backpacks
• Inside SDCC: A daily guide to TV and movie panels | George Takei and “The Terror” | “Fear the Walking Dead” | Christian comic books |  The $1.1 million comic book | Mensa members predict the future | The future of college esports |
• Super fans:   Orlando Jones is Comic-Con’s No. 1 fan |  “Steven Universe” |  “Dragon Ball Z” world record | Wayward Cocktails “Supernatural” party
• Things to do: No badge needed for these activities | Comic-Con museum in Balboa Park | Where to drink and party
• History: The 12-year-old who co-founded Comic-Con | 50 facts about Comic-Con’s 50 years
• The big issues: Service animals are superheroes | Cosplay, panels reflect diversity | Security measures
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Deepfake videos of Tom Cruise went viral. Their creator hopes they boost awareness.

The creator of a series of deepfake Tom Cruise videos that garnered more than 11 million views on TikTok said he never wanted to trick people.

But since he has, he's hoping the sudden influx of attention can help bring greater awareness to the continued evolution of the technology that can create incredibly realistic fake videos of people.

“The important thing is, we didn’t want to fool people at any moment,” Chris Ume, 31, the Belgian visual effects artist behind the viral deepfakes, said in an interview. “If I can help in creating awareness, or even work on detection in the future, I would love to.”

Ume created the four videos, in which it appeared to show the Hollywood star playing golf, doing a magic coin trick, and falling over while telling a story about the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Three of them went viral, attracting attention on TikTok and across the internet.

And though most people realized quickly that the videos were fake, even experts were impressed by their quality.

“My first thought was they’re incredibly well done,” said digital image forensics expert Hany Farid, who is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and specializes in image analysis and misinformation. “They’re funny, they’re clever.”

But they also offer a warning: Deepfake technology that has emerged in recent years continues to evolve and improve. And while deepfake videos have not yet been effectively used in many misinformation campaigns, the danger is growing.

“In the early days, you could see the potential, but it wasn’t even close to being there,” Farid said. “But this felt to me like it was a real step, like we just took a big step forward in the development of this technology.”

Cruise did not respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile his impersonator, Miles Fisher, replied to an NBC News email but said he did not wish to comment further.

Synthetic digital content, otherwise known as a deepfake, can include anything from an image or video in which one person or object is visually or audibly manipulated to say and do something that is fabricated. In the case of the @deeptomcruise TikTok account, Ume used a combination of visual effects and editing software to make Fisher look almost identical to the "Mission Impossible" actor. 

Other manipulated videos have gained traction in recent years. A video produced by BuzzFeed warning the public about deepfake technology featured the actor Jordan Peele's realistic-looking impersonation of former President Barack Obama in 2018 that gained more than 8 million views on YouTube, and more recently other videos have emerged involving the former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg .

While analyzing the @deeptomcruise TikTok videos, Farid said he found it difficult to detect common discrepancies that have previously been spotted in other deepfakes — such as glitches around the face, particularly when it has been partially obscured by a moving hand.

He said he was able to identify inconsistencies particularly around the eyes, although “they were very minor.”

“This one was very polished," Farid added. "It was long and in high resolution."            

Although Ume used sophisticated visual effects editing, advancements in digital editing through smartphone apps such as Reface, Facetune and even Snapchat have made techniques like face-swapping and image altering more accessible and could cause the possible weaponization of deepfakes, experts say.

However Matt Groh, a research assistant with the Affective Computing group at the MIT Media Lab, said there were “still a lot of constraints on what this can do.”

“Our imagination can quickly run wild, and just assume it's really good on all fronts — and maybe someday it can be,” he said. “When you have a bunch of different videos, rather than a single video, you start to see where some of these imperfections lie.”

To allay the fears of experts like Farid, Ume said he would like to see regulations brought in to allow responsible use of deepfake technology, and for social media networks to create labels for such content.

Detection software isn’t good enough right now, he said. 

“That’s obvious because these three videos weren’t detected by the models," he said.

Since his videos went viral on TikTok, Ume has released a visual effects breakdown of how he created them, in an attempt to help educate people on how they’re made and how difficult they can be to produce.

“It’s not something you can do at home,” said Ume, who is part of a team of deepfake artists at Deep Voodoo — a visual effects studio assembled by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the show “South Park.”

The TikTok videos were so convincing, Ume said, because of his expertise, as well as the ability to work with someone like Fisher who could impersonate Cruise so well.

TikTok updated its policy, after releasing a statement in August 2020 , that prohibits synthetic or manipulated content which "misleads users by distorting the truth of events and cause harm to the subject of the video, other persons, or society."

However, TikTok did not take any action against @deeptomcruise or the videos it posted because it did not go against its community guidelines. The social media platform declined to comment.

While the deepfake Cruise videos are entertaining and were “never really meant to be deceptive,” Farid said, there are “legitimate concerns” about how this could inspire others to create similar fabricated content.

“Think about the implications for national security,” Farid said. “Think about the implications if I create a video of Jeff Bezos saying that Amazon stock profits are down 20 percent — how much can I move the markets? How many billions of dollars before anybody figures out that it's fake?”

Bianca Britton is a reporter for NBC News' Social Newsgathering team based in London.

The Economic Times daily newspaper is available online now.

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Tom Cruise’s new look has left fans questioning if it is actually him

Tom Cruise ’s recent appearance at a baseball game in the United States has sparked conversation as people have been taken aback by the Hollywood icon’s new look.

The 59-year-old Mission: Impossible star was spotted in the stands at Saturday’s game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants and seemed to be in good spirits amongst the fans at Oracle Park and was posing for pictures, including one with fellow movie star Danny Glover .

.@TomCruise is in the house for tonight’s game https://t.co/9W9osKe5FX — SF Giants on NBCS (@SF Giants on NBCS) 1633833323

However, many thought Cruise looked a little different, leading some to speculate that he’d either had plastic surgery done or that it was a lookalike that somehow fooled everyone.

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Gonna spend the rest of tonight and all of tomorrow wondering if some random dude convinced the Giants he was Tom Cruise. — Molly Knight (@Molly Knight) 1633833571

Alright it’s Tom Cruise. He’s talking to Danny Glover, unless he has Glover fooled as well. https://t.co/wmZvxALuab — Molly Knight (@Molly Knight) 1633833826

Am I the only one who thinks this isn’t Tom Cruise but just some random dude who looks kind of like him? https://t.co/xhxI7ANCB6 — Elex Michaelson (@Elex Michaelson) 1633834458

Tom Cruise becomes latest Hollywood star to ruin his face with fillers in an attempt to look “youthful”. https://t.co/uHNkeAWtmq — Mike Sington (@Mike Sington) 1633945839

However, a few people defended the actor and accused some of body shaming the star with their comments.

listen i don’t like tom cruise at all (AT ALL), but i’m seriously sick of twitter trashing people for their weight… https://t.co/8qzgT2AYWK — little ragoo (@little ragoo) 1633958095

People are so nasty about Tom Cruise’s appearance. People are allowed to age and gain weight or take medications li… https://t.co/gQvQGhU8xR — Lana #BLM (@Lana #BLM) 1633884946

Ok back the hell up people! He doesn’t look like he’s had fillers, he looks like he’s gained weight! Could be for a… https://t.co/6pz8rOAbPl — According2Taz (@According2Taz) 1633925423

This isn’t the first time that Cruise’s features have prompted discussion this year. People were equally confused after Cruise was pictured outside a curry house in Birmingham , England in August, where he was filming scenes for Mission: Impossible 7 .

It was an absolute pleasure to welcome Tom Cruise to Asha's Birmingham yesterday evening 🌟 Tom ordered our famous… https://t.co/nGf0OIPztN — Asha's (@Asha's) 1629627474

Cruise has been firmly in the headlines this year as his filming schedule for Mission: Impossible 7 and the eighth film in the franchise has taken him all over the globe, including landing a helicopter in someone’s back garden in Warwickshire. He’s also been spotted a host of sporting events including Wimbledon, the Euro 2020 final and the British Grand Prix.

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