Tom Cruise was rejected from fan favourite role on US soap opera Days of Our Lives

Days of Our Lives star Kristian Alfonso has revealed that Tom Cruise was once turned down for a key role on the popular US soap opera.

The Mission: Impossible star, 61, apparently auditioned for the role of Bo Brady, an anti-hero character who would go on to become a fan favourite.

Bo was primarily played by American actor Peter Reckell. While Reckell would step away from the series several times down the years, he has portrayed the character on and off since 1983. From 1992 to 1995, the character was played by Robert Kelker-Kelly.

Alfonso, 60, played the role of Bo’s wife Hope Brady on Days of Our Lives, with the couple’s relationship being a major source of interest among fans.

Speaking on an episode of the podcast Hey Dude…The 90s Called!, Alfonso revealed that she had been cast in the show before the role of Bo was filled, and had performed screen tests with “five or six” actors as part of a “final test” to find her screen partner.

She also recalled an encounter Cruise had on a plane with her late Days of Our Lives co-star Frances Reid, in which Cruise told her he had “tested for the role of Bo”.

Cruise would enjoy his big-screen breakthrough in 1983, with the teen sex comedy Risky Business. Over the next few years,

Set in the fictional town of Salem, Illinois, Days of Our Lives ran on NBC from 1965 to 2022, and is one of the longest-running TV series in the world. It currently streams on the US platform Peacock.

Cruise most recently starred in the action sequel Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, the seventh film in the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Speaking about the forthcoming Dead Reckoning Part Two, the film’s director Christopher McQuarrie revealed that Cruise had been unhappy with certain aspects of past Mission: Impossible films.

“Tom and I are constantly re-evaluating our own work and asking ourselves how we could have done it better,” the filmmaker remarked. “We’ve done underwater sequences previously. We’ve worked underwater in Edge of Tomorrow, and we worked underwater in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, and we left very dissatisfied with those sequences.

“And we analyse why we were dissatisfied. What were all the factors working against us? The biggest being, not having real knowledge in that area. Everything you’re looking at in Dead Reckoning is the application of knowledge from previous sequences.”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is available on demand now.