It’s been 24 years since NASCAR-based movie Days of Thunder came out, and many of the players involved are still around in the movie industry.
I was always a big fan of the Sports Illustrated issue that’d come out maybe once a year, where they’d do a “WATN” (Where Are They Now?) feature on various sports icons from throughout the years.
I figure it’d be cool to do this on occasion for this Reel Racing article series. I’ll start with Days of Thunder, because why not? We’ll focus on the main cast of characters and where they ended up after the film.
It’s also relevant, because guess where star of the movie Tom Cruise was on Sunday (Aug. 11)? Where else but helping finish off the 2024 Olympics’ closing ceremonies and pass the torch to Los Angeles for 2028.
Tony Scott (Director)
As per my Tony Scott-centric article a few weeks back, y’all know how much I adore his filmography … and Days of Thunder was only his fifth feature film of an eventual 16 movies.
Scott’s first five movies, briefly summed up, run like this:
- Vampire romance with David Bowie in old-age makeup
- Military planes going fast, piloted by Tom Cruise
- Eddie Murphy’s cop sequel
- Really depressing Kevin Costner romantic thriller
- Stock cars going fast, driven by Tom Cruise
The man had range behind the camera, what can I say?
Scott followed up Days of Thunder with The Last Boy Scout a year later, a notorious mess of a production, and then clocked back in in 1993 with True Romance — one of my favorite films ever made, hands down.
He kept the thriller theme rolling with more straightforward fare, like the excellent Crimson Tide and the underrated Robert De Niro flick The Fan, later getting more into the spy/surveillance genre around the turn of the century. After first working with Denzel Washington on Crimson Tide, Scott paired up with him for his final four films.
This began with Man on Fire in 2004 and eventually concluded with Unstoppable — for my money, one of the best and tightest action movies in recent memory — in 2010.
On Aug. 19, 2012, Scott committed suicide by jumping off of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles. He’d reportedly been scouting locations for a Top Gun sequel days prior, and even his brother (and accomplished director) Ridley didn’t know why he took his own life.
There’s nobody doing it now like Tony Scott did, with his frenetic, quick-cut style. He’s missed.
Tom Cruise (Cole Trickle)
I won’t even try with this one, man. Cruise’s career continues to roll on, and his legend continues to expand, so it’s kind of hard to write a blurb on it.
He already had one Academy Award nomination under his belt that same year (for Born on the Fourth of July) but still had three more in various capacities (for Jerry Maguire, Magnolia and Top Gun: Maverick) ahead of him. He won the Golden Globes for the first two of those three films, respectively, and six years after Days of Thunder came out, Brian De Palma brought him into the world of Mission: Impossible.
Those movies are still going — and getting better as they go — after seven installments. He was, of course, the star of the universally-hailed Maverick, and has several projects, including a World War II movie and a possible Edge of Tomorrow sequel, ahead of him.
Robert Duvall (Harry Hogge)
This man is 93 years old and still going.
Duvall already had four Oscar nominations behind him when he starred in Days of Thunder and has received three additional nods since. His notable roles in things since 1990 include Falling Down, Sling Blade and The Road, but he also re-teamed with Cruise in 2016 for Jack Reacher.
Of late, Duvall had a couple years with no credits to his name, but he’s recently showed up in Steve McQueen’s (not that one, the director) Widows alongside Viola Davis and Elizabeth Debicki, as well as in Hustle with Adam Sandler.
Nicole Kidman (Dr. Claire Lewicki)
Five Oscar nominations have come Kidman’s way since 1990. We’re three-for-three so far on people involved in the movie being nominated for the biggest award in entertainment before or after the fact.
Kidman was certainly already established in the industry, and she and Cruise married the same year that Days of Thunder came out (and divorced a few years after they co-starred in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut).
She was cast as Poison Ivy in Batman Forever, but her career felt like it didn’t fully take off until the turn of the century, when Moulin Rouge!, The Others and back-to-back Oscar noms came her way.
Over the last decade or so, she’s ventured into the wonderfully irreverent world of director Yorgos Lanthimos with The Killing of a Sacred Deer, tacked on some more blockbusters with both Aquaman films and also played a role in Robert Eggers’ excellent Viking period piece The Northman.
Cary Elwes (Russ Wheeler)
Between Duvall, Kidman and Elwes, we’re also three-for-three on actors who eventually reunited to work with Cruise again. Elwes showed up in the latest installment of the possible-mission series in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.
He’d already made a name for himself in The Princess Bride and Glory, but more recognition came via things like Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. Six years after Days of Thunder, Elwes played a similarly douche-y role in Twister, and then eight years after that he played one of the two (let’s face it, three) lead roles in the original Saw.
Since then, he’s chalked up a role in Stranger Things as well as multiple collaborations with Guy Ritchie and more.
Michael Rooker (Rowdy Burns)
Rooker’s that guy you always know when you see him … even if it’s kind of weird seeing him with hair in Days of Thunder.
He’d already been in stuff like Eight Men Out and started his career with the well-received Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. In the years following his turn as Rowdy Burns, Rooker showed up in huge productions like JFK and Tombstone and is perhaps best known for his stint on The Walking Dead.
He settled into the role of a character actor and worked with James Gunn quite a bit, including Slither, The Suicide Squad and all three Guardians of the Galaxy installments. He’s worked with NASCAR on promotional material and such in recent years. He also played a racing-adjacent role in F9 back in 2021, wearing a City Chevrolet hat as a nod to Days of Thunder.
This year, you can find him in Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter One, plus the yet-to-be-released Chapter Two, which I finally caught up on recently. I can happily report that I was locked in for the entirety of the three-hour western and could’ve watched hours more.
John C. Reilly (Buck Bretherton)
The obvious mention here is that Reilly also played a role in Talladega Nights in 2006. And he also re-teamed with Cruise for Magnolia later in the 1990s.
Days of Thunder was one of Reilly’s first few roles, but he was later cast in three Paul Thomas Anderson films (including Magnolia and Boogie Nights), as well as Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York and The Aviator. He also notched an Oscar nomination for Chicago in the early 2000s, showed up in The Perfect Storm and eventually made his way back to the racetrack.
After that, his comedic status skyrocketed, from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story to Step Brothers, and he also had the hysterical turn as that dang Dr. Steve Brule on Adult Swim.
Reilly’s been pickier of late, presumably not overloading his calendar and such. He was in Kong: Skull Island in 2017 and then the (both-well-received) Stan & Ollie and The Sisters Brothers the next year. Paul Thomas Anderson cast him in a very small bit role in Licorice Pizza in 2021 as well.
So, between these select few cast members from Days of Thunder, we have four Oscar nominees, actors who are all still acting and several people who eventually worked with Cruise another time (or more) after the 1990 release.
Not bad.
Adam Cheek joined Frontstretch as a contributing writer in January 2019. A 2020 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he covered sports there and later spent a year and a half as a sports host on 910 the Fan in Richmond, VA. He's freelanced for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and also hosts the Adam Cheek's Sports Week podcast. Adam has followed racing since the age of three, inheriting the passion from his grandfather, who raced in amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s.
“It’s been 24 years since NASCAR-based movie Days of Thunder came out”
No, its been 34 years.
“She was cast as Poison Ivy in Batman Forever,”
No, that was Uma Thurman.
Uma Thurman played Poison Ivy in the movie Batman & Robin, not Batman Forever.
I looked it up again. Kidman was Dr. Chase Meridian in Batman Forever. Uma Thurman was Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin.
I have the 4 or 5 plastic\die cast from Hardees. Appear to be worth about $50. Also this author(Adam Cheek) had this article on Frontstretch a while back. Reel Racing: ‘Days of Thunder,’ 30 Years Later (frontstretch.com)
I love the movie.
Thanks, Adam! Tony Scott is indeed deeply missed.