From Hollywood to Home: Black Voices in Entertainment
I don’t doubt you’ve heard of the iconic movie A Few Good Men. It was directed by Rob Reiner, came out in 1992, and had a pretty star-studded cast that included Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, and Tom Cruise.
If you need a reminder, Demi and Tom played Lieutenant Commander Joanne Galloway and Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, who team up to defend two Marines accused of murdering a fellow Marine at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The film is based on Aaron Sorkin’s 1989 play of the same name.
To this day, A Few Good Men remains among Demi and Tom’s most beloved performances. However, it sounds like their early days working together on the project were maybe a little awkward.
Pre-production on the movie began in 1991, at which point, Demi was nearly eight months pregnant with her second child with her then-husband, Bruce Willis.
Speaking as part of a Q&A at the New Yorker Festival over the weekend, Demi speculated that her pregnancy made Tom slightly uncomfortable when they first started reading lines together. “I think Tom was quite embarrassed,” Demi recalled, per People.
At the time, Tom was married to Nicole Kidman. Nicole has previously said that she wanted to have kids with Tom “from the minute” they tied the knot in 1990. Sadly, Nicole experienced an ectopic pregnancy early in their marriage; however, they went on to adopt two children, Isabella and Connor, in 1993 and 1995, respectively. Tom also went on to welcome a biological daughter, Suri, with Katie Holmes in 2006.
Demi didn’t go into much more detail about Tom’s behavior around her, but she did speculate that his apparent discomfort may have stemmed from the fact that it was pretty rare to have a pregnant actor on set at that time. She also said that not many of their peers were having children at this point, likely due to the major pressures that came with balancing a career and parenting.
In hindsight, Demi said that her involvement in the project left her feeling somewhat overstretched as she navigated the arrival of her second child, Scout LaRue Willis, who was born in July 1991. “I look back at that time now, and I go, ‘What the fuck was I thinking?’ And what was I even trying to prove?” she said. “But it wasn’t as supported as it is today. You know, to be breastfeeding and then blocking and rehearsing a scene.”
Tom hasn’t commented on this, but we’ve contacted his representative. Whatever the case, it’s interesting to consider what Demi said about the lack of pregnant women on movie sets and how much that has changed in the past 30+ years. LMK your thoughts in the comments!
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