Tom e-mailed writer Adam Green of Men's Vogue to discuss his friendship with Ben Stiller.  Below is an exerpt from the article which appears in the August issue.

See Tom's side splitting "crameo" in Tropic Thunder when it opens nationwide on August 13th!

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"Stiller first met Cruise during a visit to [then girlfriend] Jeanne Tripplehorn on the set of The Firm, though he had already made an impression on the star with his imitation of him in The Hustler of Money, a Color of Money parody that, as Cruise writes in a long, fulsome e-mail, "had me laughing my a_ _ off." He adds, "We were friends from that moment on. We shared common ground in a love of cinema, a desire to tell stories, challenge ourselves, and develop as artists."

Cruise decided that he wanted to work with Stiller someday and finally saw an opportunity during the run-up to Mission: Impossible II. "It was the usual high-pressure studio scene prior to release," Cruise writes. "Not only careers, but many lives, cute little animals, and very possibly the world at large is at stake, all hinging on that all-encompassing, existence defining 'opening weekend'!! Needless to say, things were getting a little too damn serious for me." At Cruise's request, Stiller starred in the very funny short film Mission: Improbable, in which he played Cruise's fawning, self-deluded stand-in and stunt double, Tom Crooze. Later, Cruise returned the favor, appearing in an elaborate home video that Stiller made for his wife's birthday.

As soon as Cruise saw what Stiller had in mind for him in Tropic Thunder, he committed to playing the profanity-spewing hybrid of Harvey Weinstein and Sumner Redstone. "I feel inspired around him," Cruise says of Stiller, though I like to imagine that he told him, "You had me at 'shut the f&%k up."

Source:  Men's Vogue