MBTI® Of Tom Cruise Characters

MBTI® Of Tom Cruise Characters

Known for his megawatt smile and his All-American charm, Tom Cruise has made a career out of playing likable rebels like Joel Goodsen in Risky Business and brave action heroes like Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible. But “Mr. Hollywood” has occasionally flexed his acting chops with dramatic turns in A Few Good Men, as well as demonstrating his comedic timing in Tropic Thunder. Just when you think you’ve got Tom Cruise all figured out, he goes and pulls a Lestat out of his bag of tricks in Interview with a Vampire.

There often seems to be a pattern with the driven men Cruise usually portrays, resulting in his characters sharing similar popular archetypes. But Cruise hasn’t had a career that’s lasted over three decades in Hollywood because he refuses to think outside the box. Here are ten roles that prove his versatility, with a variety of types as classified by the Myers-Briggs® Type Indicator.

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Updated on June 1st, 2022 by Kayleena Pierce-Bohen: The release of Top Gun: Maverick has Tom Cruise reprising one of his most famous characters, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, once again soaring the skies as one of the Navy’s top pilots. This Top Gun sequel reminds fans of the character’s complexity as it balances action, humor, and heart, while also encouraging them to revisit some of the other characters that made Cruise one of Hollywood’s most watchable stars, the MBTI® personalities of which have been included here.

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Top Gun/Top Gun: Maverick) – ENFP

Split image of Tom Cruise in Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick

A person that identifies as an ENFP sees the world for its infinite possibilities, and is resistant to anything that typifies them in a cookie-cutter role. Maverick perfectly captures the essence of an ENFP in Top Gun, as a highly individualistic hotshot pilot within the highly regimented world of the Navy.

RELATED: Which Top Gun Character Are You, According To Your Zodiac?

Never afraid to push the boundaries with his reckless flying techniques, Maverick is nevertheless successful in his flight simulations as long as they’re stimulating. He’s a team player, often putting the welfare of his fellow pilots ahead of his own safety. Though Maverick’s actions are often dictated by his feelings, his intuition is usually correct, which makes his fellow pilots trust him no matter how wild his ideas are.

Jerry Maguire (Jerry Maguire) – ESFJ

As a slick sports agent Jerry Maguire seems to have it all; top athletes as clients, a successful career, and some of Tom Cruise’s most iconic movie quotes. Like all ESFJ’s, he’s a social butterfly that has a need to make people happy, which is why he’s so beloved and respected in his firm. When his clients are happy, he’s happy, and his boss is happy.

An ESFJ is well-liked, but not impervious to failure. When he has a moral dilemma and ends up sending a company-wide memo detailing it, he gets fired. Having to start from scratch with his own management firm and one football star client, it’s because of his previous concern for others that makes them rally around him in his time of need.

Lestat (Interview With A Vampire) – ESFP

Lestat Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise brought his own special magic to the role of Lestat the Brat Prince in Interview with a Vampire, a vampire movie based on the book of the same name by Anne Rice. Though fans of the books weren’t initially thrilled with his casting, he captured the robust vampire’s garrulousness, his love of the spotlight, and his appetite for socializing and seduction.

Such showboating qualities are typical of an ESFP, who often have strong interpersonal skills, with lively and dominating personalities, perfect for vampires seducing humans for a snack. Lestat is able to persuade his progeny Louis to begrudgingly enjoy a vampire’s life, which Lestat embraces with abandon. Though Lestat often appears selfish, his main drive deep down is creating a vampire family of like-minded people that will share his zest for (un)life.

Charlie Babbitt (Rain Man) – ENFJ

As an ENFJ in Rain Man, Charlie Babbitt is people-focused, which makes him a great car salesman. Because ENFJ’s are perceived to be authentic, people don’t often question their motivations. This means some can be master manipulators, which is why Charlie is able to con the mental facility looking after his autistic brother Raymond to release him into his custody, ensuring he’ll inherit the $3 million dollars his father left for his care.

RELATED: Tom Cruise’s 10 Best Movies, According To Ranker

Beneath his exterior, Charlie is a loyal and genuine person. He passes on some of his human intuition to Raymond, who in turn awakens Charlie’s compassion and forces him to confront his past. Though Charlie begins his journey as a disingenuous heel, if he wasn’t an ENFJ, he wouldn’t have been able to change into a selfless provider.

Ethan Hunt (Mission Impossible) – ENTJ

Cruise has made a career out of playing action-oriented men, exemplified no better than in the Mission Impossible franchise, some of Cruise’s best action movies of all time. In embodying the daring IMF agent, he’s brought all of Ethan Hunt’s ENTJ traits into focus. His insane valor coupled with his take-charge attitude makes him a natural-born leader and a man on the move.

An ENTJ’s ability to internally process external obstacles and perceive them as challenges to be overcome makes them extremely dependable. Whereas others may see impossibilities, they simply see an opportunity to push themselves. They make quick decisions but consider their options carefully, which ensures that Hunt’s team always trusts his judgment.

Joel Goodsen (Risky Business) – ESFP

Tom Cruise in Risky Business

Joel Goodsen is one of Tom Cruise’s most electrifying characters and a perfect example of an ESFP. The life of the party, born to capture the attention of others and hog the spotlight, it’s the very qualities that endear him to his fellow high school classmates that get him in trouble in Risky Business.

With his parents gone for the weekend, he just wants to party with a dream-girl prostitute, but he doesn’t realize there are consequences to fulfilling his fantasies, like her steep bill of service and crashing his dad’s Porsche trying to impress her. It’s his need to be the center of attention that is at the root of his problems; however, like a true ESFP, his charm makes it hard to stay mad at him.

Vincent (Collateral) – INTJ

collateral best movie stunts tom cruise performed himself

In the gritty action thriller Collateral, Tom Cruise plays very much against type as Vincent, a merciless hitman who enlists the services of Max, a Los Angeles taxi driver to chauffeur him as he fulfills various contracts. Vincent is reserved, comfortable with solitude, and self-sufficient, making him a perfect INTJ.

RELATED: 10 Best Directors Tom Cruise Worked With

INTJ’s are methodical and observant, always questioning the world around them and developing strategies to navigate it. Although he’s a sociopath, Vincent understands the way people tick, allowing him to anticipate the habits of his victims. He doesn’t like uncertainty and minimizes it by adapting to the obstacles in his profession as quickly and as proficiently as possible. He values Max’s knowledge of Los Angeles, and the two unlikely companions reach insightful platitudes during their time together.

Ron Kovic (Born On The Fourth Of July) – INFJ

Tom Cruise in Born On The Fourth Of July

After hearing an impassioned speech by two recruiting officers, a young Ron Kovic decides to enlist in the USMC. While serving in Vietnam, he accidentally kills a fellow soldier. He’s later paralyzed from the waist down in the ensuing battle and spends the rest of his days contemplating the complexities of war in a community for wounded veterans.

As an INFJ, Ron is an idealist, unaccepting of things at face value, and full of depth of character. It’s these traits that force him to travel to see the family of the man he killed in action, even though he knows he will not be forgiven. His introspective nature and regard for human life are driving factors in his becoming a war protester by the film’s end.

Les Grossman (Tropic Thunder) – ESTP

Les Grossman is one of the most bombastic displays of Tinseltown hubris in cinema and he’s hilarious to watch as he spits vulgarities in Tropic Thunder. As a petty, hostile, and abrasive studio executive, it’s not hard to see why he comes across as an ESTP. They’re often completely controlled by their emotions and lack the capacity to properly regulate their feelings.

Grossman is the first to chew out a new intern, or even a professional peer, expecting mistakes to be fixed on the fly (either his own or those under his employ), while seemingly never having a contingency plan because everyone around him is too stupid (in his eyes) to carry it out. Grossman’s fanatical need for creative control makes him a crazy boss to have when you’re trying to make a movie.

LT. Daniel Kaffee (A Few Good Men) – ESTJ

Tom Cruise A Few Good Men

Standing up for what’s right, even if what’s right appears obscured by moral ambiguity and faulty bureaucracy, is at the essence of Lt. Daniel Kaffee’s case against Colonel Nathan R. Jessup in A Few Good Men. In the thrilling military courtroom drama, the young Naval attorney has to reveal the latter’s decomposing code of ethics even while he’s protected by Marine autocracy.

RELATED: 10 Best Military Movies, According To IMDb

As an example of an ESTJ, Cruise’s Daniel Kaffee is highly organized, dedicated, and a believer in traditional values. He is an example of the very best citizenry and knows when it’s present (or absent) in others, despite their rank. His discipline and long-game strategy help him win against Colonel Jessup, who is eventually bated into exploding and revealing his true colors.

Capt. Nathan Algren (The Last Samurai) – ISFP

Tom Cruise is The Last Samurai

When the Emperor of Japan recruits Nathan Algren to train his country’s first modern army, the American military captain embarks on a journey of conscience that puts him at the center of two distinctly different worlds and eras; the East and the West, the Samurai way and the path of progress. The Last Samurai has some of the best stunts Cruise has ever done, but the period piece is also carefully interwoven with a surprising amount of philosophical drama.

Like many ISFP, Algren is quiet, contemplative, and desirous of his own space, and finds himself naturally gravitating to the honorable customs of the Samurai warrior. He quickly learns that forcing his Western values on the men under his charge will only lead to conflict, and by putting their needs above his own, earns their loyalty and respect.

Stefan Djordjevic (All The Right Moves) – INFP

Stefan Djordjevic (Tom Cruise) looking shocked in All the Right Moves

All the Right Moves stars Cruise as Stefan Djordjevic, the star of his high school football team who dreams of earning a scholarship and leaving his quiet community. Things take a turn for the unexpected when this INFP butts heads with his coach and gets blacklisted by recruiters, forcing him to adapt when his long-term goals are threatened.

As idealistic as most INFPs, Stefan wants a life that balances his loyalty to his team and his hometown with one that offers him better opportunities. The same instincts and flexibility that let him see all possibilities in a game also make him curious about life beyond high school football, and he’ll become aggressive when his values are compromised.

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg (Valkyrie) – ISTP

Colonel Claus looks out of a window in Valkyrie

Though he begins Valkyrie as a loyal German officer with great faith in the altruism of is country, Col. Claus von Stauffenberg soon loses heart when he realizes Hitler will be its downfall. He swiftly organizes a group of high-ranking men with similar fears, organizing what will ultimately be the most daring attempt to uphold liberty Germany has ever known.

RELATED: 10 Underrated Tom Cruise Movies You’ve Probably Never Seen

Aames exhibits ISTP tendencies as he tries to find workable solutions to eliminating Hitler as a threat, analyzing what methods will work and what won’t in the heat of the moment. He’s able to work extremely effectively under pressure, cementing the necessary logistics of the plan while valuing the efficiency of his comrades. After his debacle, he’s an ISTP who contemplates cause and effect through an entirely different lens and set of principles.

Maj. William Cage (Edge Of Tomorrow) – INTP

Edge of Tomorrow (Reviews) Starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt

Playing a military figure of authority is something that tends to happen in every Cruise movie, but Maj. William Cage is of a different ilk than some of his more valorous roles. Here, he’s a man who’s never seen combat but is somehow expected to stop an invincible alien invasion, all while caught in a time loop that causes him to die and resurrect until he can succeed.

Cage is a true INTP, forced to develop theories of applicability each time he respawns, learning to focus and adapt so that he grows stronger and smarter with every new chance. His ability to be skeptical of known quantities, like every plan of attack that’s failed before, coupled with his ability to think outside the box, gives him the analytical edge of tomorrow’s victory.

John Anderton (Minority Report) – ISTJ

Tom Cruise using precog tech in Minority Report.

Based on the novel by Philip K. Dick of the same name, Minority Report is a movie that eerily predicts the future, in which Cruise plays a man obsessed with stopping crime before it occurs. Even as the head of the Precrime unit, he’s accused of murdering a man he’s never met and must race against time to clear his name.

John Anderton behaves like a typical ISTJ, the sort of serious-minded and thorough person who isn’t easily distracted and ideally suited to be in charge of preventing future murders. Responsibility, organization, and dedication are foundational principles in Anderton’s life, and he needs all of them in order to prove his innocence.

Mitchell McDeere (The Firm) – ISFJ

Mitch sitting at desk

The Firm features Cruise as a naive lawyer who believes in justice and truth, except that the prestigious law firm he works for only pretends to. When the FBI starts getting suspicious about the money laundering and criminal negligence of his colleagues, he must decide whether he has the courage to stick to his convictions, even if it means losing the career he worked so hard for.

Committed and steadfast, Mitchell “Mitch” McDeere is like many ISFJ, applying his conscientious nature to understanding the law. His attention to detail, and painstaking accuracy with legal documents and jargon, is what gives him the upper hand when revealing the moral decrepitude of his law firm.

NEXT: The MBTI® Of Leonardo DiCaprio Characters

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About The Author

Kayleena Pierce-Bohen
(1385 Articles Published)

Kayleena has been raised on Star Wars and Indiana Jones from the crib. A film buff, she has a Western collection of 250+ titles and counting that she’s particularly proud of. When she isn’t writing for ScreenRant, CBR, or The Gamer, she’s working on her fiction novel, lifting weights, going to synthwave concerts, or cosplaying. With degrees in anthropology and archaeology, she plans to continue pretending to be Lara Croft as long as she can.

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