Miles Fisher is a 39-year-old American actor. More than as an actor, however, he made himself felt through a certain resemblance to his better-known colleague Tom Cruise. For about a year, Fisher has been using his physical appearance to create the TikTok profile “deeptomcruise” — thanks to the technical assistance of a special effects expert — in which he posts short videos parodying Cruise, to whom he even accompanies can resemble more thanks to the technology behind the “deepfake”, which uses artificial intelligence to change faces.
Fisher — whose TikTok profile is followed by over 3 million users and whose short videos have often surpassed 10 million views — opened up about how he became the “fake Tom Cruise” in an article for The Hollywood Reporter.
Fisher had realized that he resembled him during his years studying English literature at Harvard, and he tells the Hollywood Reporter that he was rather disappointed to learn that he had been chosen to give an important graduation speech in front of thousands held by more people for this resemblance and for merits of a different kind.
“‘Did they ever tell you that you looked like Tom Cruise when you were young?’ Yes they told me Every day someone tells me most of the people who notice are glad they noticed and don’t care much what it might have meant to me. All my life I’ve lived in fresh start mode, every day with someone telling me how much I look like the most famous actor in the world. They tell me that all the time and it’s always a slap in the face.”
In short, Fisher was long annoyed by this resemblance. But eventually he started taking advantage of it. For example, in 2008 he played Cruise in the spoof film Superhero – The Most Gifted of Superheroes while attempting to carve out a career despite the resemblance, with partial success. Over the years, she has starred in an episode of Mad Men, an episode of Gossip Girl, and the movie Final Destination V.
He then had other roles, smaller ones but definitely in films starring great actors: “I got to work with Leonardo DiCaprio, Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie,” he wrote, “I improvised with Vince Vaughn, Laurence Fishburne and Keegan-Michael Key and played serious roles alongside Elisabeth Moss, Courtney Vance and Owen Wilson ». All people, Fisher wrote, “who have told me how much I look like Tom Cruise.”
Unable to break free of that comparison (“believe me, I’ve tried,” he wrote), Fisher attempted to ride it on YouTube, where he created a channel in which various off-topic parodies joined Tom Cruise’s , in which he imitated the actor. In the most successful, he played Cruise, who was determined to run for the 2020 US presidential election.
This video was viewed and edited using Deepkafe technology by Chris Umé, a Belgian special effects expert living in Thailand at the time. Umé made a deepfake version of the video, superimposing the real Tom Cruise’s face over Fisher’s.
Fisher saw this video (“I will never forget this moment: the light was not uniform and there were defects in the eyes, but the effect was still surprising”), he asked Umé to explain how he did it and complimented him. The two stayed in touch and after some time, Umé told Fisher that he could make more videos relatively easily if he ever wanted to. That’s how “Deeptomcruise” came about, with this 15-second video that Fisher says was created in two days.
@deeptomcruise
Sports!
♬ Original sound – Tom
“In less than two days, it was 4 million views,” Fisher wrote, “there were tens of thousands of comments, and almost everyone was convinced that really was Tom Cruise,” an actor who, incidentally, is particularly reluctant to share his life in the social media.
However, Fisher points out that this is not only thanks to the technology, but also to his ability, honed over the years, to imitate Tom Cruise. Whenever Cruise speaks, it seems to him that he is implicitly asking for the viewer’s attention. Over time, Fisher realized that it was best to avoid doing too much and making too many micro-expressions that would have been overkill along with deepfake technology.
Continuing with the tendency for Cruise not to have private pictures on social media, Fisher also chose to base his TikTok profile’s videos on shared and daily activities and never crack jokes about Cruise’s privates, family, or religion. In other words, to parody the character rather than the person.
Thanks to the success of the TikTok profile, Fisher — who never met or knew Cruise — says he’s made peace with his counterpart and says it’s now common for someone to stop him in the street and ask him if he can that of being “deep cruise”. Meanwhile, in his latest video, he appeared with Paris Hilton, apparently the real one.
@deeptomcruise
@parishilton and I #sliving our best life 🍾🤍
♬ Aesthetic – Tollan Kim