Risky Business in the context of "Tom Cruise"

Sexual comedy (also known as, sex comedy and erotic comedy) is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sexual comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary works such as those of Ovid and Giovanni Boccaccio may be considered sexual comedies.

Sexual comedy was popular in 17th century English Restoration theatre. From 1953 to 1965, Hollywood released a number of sexual comedies, some featuring stars such as Doris Day, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. The United Kingdom released a spate of sexual comedies in the 1970s, notably the Carry On series. Hollywood released Animal House in 1978, which was followed by a long line of teen sexual comedies in the early 1980s, e.g. Porky's, Bachelor Party and Risky Business. Other countries with a significant sexual comedy film production include Argentina (comedia picaresca), Brazil (pornochanchada), Italy (commedia sexy all'italiana) and Mexico (sexicomedias).

Joseph Peter Pantoliano (born September 12, 1951) is an American actor who has played over 150 roles across film, television, and theater. He is best known for portraying Francis Fratelli in The Goonies (1985), Captain Conrad Howard in the Bad Boys film series (1995–2024), Cypher in the Wachowskis' sci-fi action film The Matrix (1999), Teddy in Christopher Nolan's psychological thriller film Memento (2000), and Ralph "Ralphie" Cifaretto on the HBO crime drama The Sopranos (2001–2004), for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

Other notable film credits include Risky Business (1983), Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun (1987), La Bamba (1987), Midnight Run (1988), The Fugitive (1993), Baby's Day Out (1994), the Wachowskis' directorial debut Bound (1996), and Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010). In 2025, he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his performance in The Last of Us.

Tom Cruise is an American actor and producer who made his film debut with a minor role in the 1981 romantic drama Endless Love. Two years later, he made his breakthrough by starring in the romantic comedy Risky Business (1983), which garnered his first nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. In 1986, Cruise played a naval aviator in the Tony Scott-directed action drama Top Gun which was the highest-grossing film of the year, and also appeared with Paul Newman in the Martin Scorsese-directed drama The Color of Money. Two years later, he starred with Dustin Hoffman in the drama Rain Man (1988). His next role was as anti-war activist Ron Kovic in the film adaptation of Kovic's memoir of the same name, Born on the Fourth of July (1989), for which he received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama.

In 1992, he starred opposite Jack Nicholson in the legal drama A Few Good Men, an adaptation of the Broadway play of the same name also written by Aaron Sorkin. Cruise next appeared in The Firm (1993), a film adaptation of the John Grisham legal thriller of the same name, and in the same year, also made his directorial debut by directing an episode of the anthology television series Fallen Angels. Cruise starred as spy Ethan Hunt in the action film Mission: Impossible (1996), the first project of his production company Cruise/Wagner Productions, which he had co-founded with Paula Wagner in 1993. As of 2025, Cruise has appeared in seven more films in the Mission: Impossible franchise: Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), Mission: Impossible III (2006), Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025).