While promoting the DVD release of 2007′s Mr. Art Critic, Bronson Pinchot (a.k.a., Balki Bartokomous of “Perfect Strangers”) gave a curiously informative interview with A.V. Club, in which he describes his experience of filming 1983′s Risky Business and, in particular, his impressions of Tom Cruise:

BP: We didn’t know it was going to be a big hit. We thought Tom [Cruise] was the biggest bore on the face of the Earth. He had spent some formative time with Sean Penn–we were all very young at the time, Tom was 20, I was 23. Tom had picked up this knack of calling everyone by their character names, because that would probably make your performance better, and I don’t agree with that. I think that acting is acting, and the rest of the time, you should be you, but he called us all by our character names. He was tense and made constant, constant unrelated homophobic comments, like, “You want some ice cream, in case there are no gay people there?” I mean, his lingo was larded with the most… There was no basis for it. It was like, “It’s a nice day, I’m glad there are no gay people standing here.” Very, very strange.

Years and years later when people started to torment him with that, I used to think “God, that’s really fitting, because he tormented a lot of people as a 20-year-old.” He made such a big deal about it.

AVC: Do you think he was just insecure? Or that he was young?

BP: I really don’t know. It is what it is; there’s nothing I can add to it. If someone’s 20 years old and every third line out of their mouth is anti-something specific, then draw your own conclusion. I thought it was very weird. Similarly, there’s a certain type of middle-aged woman that will tell you within 20 seconds of meeting you that she can’t find anyone to take her to bed. And that really strikes me as strange, too, like, “Why are you telling me that?” I don’t like any kind of conversational agenda; it makes me uncomfortable. I just think it’s weird. Unless you’re with your very best friends and you’re being silly. Then you can do whatever you want.

AVC: Did you have a sense that even though Tom Cruise was boring and unpleasant, he would be exciting onscreen?

BP: Oh, no. I thought the movie would disappear. It just goes to show you, I obviously don’t have the antennae for that. I didn’t see it at all, but neither did any of the actors. All of the actors who talked about him were like, “What is this guy all about?” And you know, honestly, I never got it, and I don’t get it to this day. But it was his breakout film. He always talked about himself like he was a mega-superstar; that was weird, too.

It sure sounds like Cruise has always been terrified of gay people, and this very well could be a massive case of repression. Enough about him though, for Pinchot also has a pretty cool story about what happened during the production of 1993′s True Romance. It’s something about Quentin Tarantino, a blowjob, a bunch of coke, and an insane cackle of joy… Go read the rest.