It's very difficult to imagine the original choice for the Paul role, Timothy Hutton, playing this role. It's impossible to imagine him doing the Paul Seger music video, (that whole thing was almost entirely improvised by Cruise anyway). It's also impossible to imagine him luxuriating in Ray Ban aviator sunglasses; or blasting around Chicago's Lake Shore Drive in a Mercedes-benz; or making mad and brutal love to Lana out in the open on an El train; those scenes just wouldn't have worked.