Nine months ago I was standing on the Sunset Strip. It was in Florida.
That is, the set for the movie make of musical “Rock of Ages” was built in Miami, Fla., note-for-note of the famed rocker row circa the mid ’80s. There’s choppers and crimped hair on the extras, and it’s all very dirty.
So is Tom Cruise, who plays man-child music star Stacee Jaxx in the Adam Shankman-directed flick. His locks are worn long and he’s positively brimming tattoos and shabby furs. He’ll be centerstage of a ensemble that includes co-leads Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta, plus Paul Giamatti, Alec Baldwin, Mary J. Blige and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Shankman guided me and some other journalists through some Stacee footage last year in a trailer off the strip, of the 49-year-old actor playing an early 30s-something sex god with microphone. I am skeptical of “Rock of Ages,” partly because I enjoyed the Broadway show and I’m leery of the scale of this project; I’m also weary of co-opting the music of my youth to force into caricature.
But I will say this: watching tape of Tom Cruise sing in the scene for Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me”? We were all fanning ourselves, more than a little bit.
I’ll be publishing more on the visit to Los Angeles-by-way-of-Miami next week about this same time. Meanwhile, Cruise has been showing up on the pages of W and Playboy this week in promoting his image. Below check out a clip of Cruise’s Stacee Jaxx sing some “Sugar”: