Netflix
Pat McAfee got acting advice from Tom Cruise
Pat McAfee is about to make his acting debut in a feature film. To prepare, he got some advice from Hollywood icon Tom Cruise.
Speaking on the red carpet for The Mosquito Bowl, Pat McAfee explained how Tom Cruise helped him prep for his first acting role. According to McAfee, Cruise had only just learned about the part when he appeared on The Pat McAfee Show, so McAfee asked him for advice. Cruise told him to research everything he could about the role and the World War II era,” which is when the former Colts punter realized he was in “very, very deep waters.”
Pat McAfee revealed that Tom Cruise gave him acting advice ahead of making his feature film debut in Peter Berg’s The Mosquito Bowl
“He started laying it all out for me,” McAfee explained, saying that he walked away from the experience with a “blueprint” for what he needed to do.
The film comes from director Peter Berg, who co-wrote the screenplay, and is based on Buzz Bissinger’s 2022 book The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II. Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson and Tom Francis lead the cast, with McAfee playing a Marine drill instructor.
McAfee said he spent a week at the Marine recruit training site on Parris Island, South Carolina, and called himself “scared to death.” Berg also said that McAfee received secret acting coaching from Bradley Cooper.
Sports analyst Pat McAfee on how Tom Cruise helped coach him for his first acting role in “The Mosquito Bowl”: “He started laying it all out for me. I realized I was in very deep waters, but I had the blueprint on what I needed to do.” https://t.co/wyB50oMPe7
— Variety (@Variety) October 23, 2026
“It was a mind blowing honor to be asked to represent the toughest of the tough and the greatest of the great. The true pinnacle of a badass. What I learned was that a DI in the Marine Corps is the actual keeper of the Marines culture,” McAfee tweeted about the role.
“They mold boys and girls into war ready men and women. I did not take any of it lightly. It was an honor of a lifetime to learn about the Corps and tried my best to do these super human’s justice.”
On Christmas Eve 1944, 65 Marines from the 4th and 29th Regiments of the 6th Marine Division played a football game on a rough field on Guadalcanal, before shipping out for Okinawa. Fifteen of those players were later killed in the Okinawa campaign..
The Mosquito Bowl hits theaters October 30 before premiering on Netflix November 25.