You probably remember the trailers. High-octane jet fuel, shiny silver flight suits, and a soundtrack featuring Incubus. When Stealth hit theaters in 2005, it had everything—a massive $135 million budget, the director of The Fast and the Furious, and a lead actor fresh off an Oscar win. But then, it became one of the biggest box office "bombs" in cinematic history.
Looking back, the cast of Stealth is actually a wild time capsule of mid-2000s Hollywood. It’s a mix of rising stars who would later dominate the industry and veterans who were likely wondering how they ended up in a cockpit with a talking AI drone. Honestly, if you watch it today, the talent on screen is way better than the script they were given.
The Trio of Pilots: Gannon, Wade, and Purcell
The movie centers on three elite Navy pilots chosen for a top-secret program involving an autonomous jet. They were meant to be the "best of the best," basically the Top Gun vibe but with more CGI.
Josh Lucas as Lt. Ben Gannon
Josh Lucas was being positioned as the next big leading man back then. He played Ben Gannon, the "gut-feeling" pilot who doesn't trust machines. Before Stealth, you’ve probably seen him in Sweet Home Alabama or A Beautiful Mind. In this movie, he’s the moral compass. He’s the guy who spends half the movie trying to save his teammates and the other half arguing with a computer.
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Jessica Biel as Lt. Kara Wade
Fresh off The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and 7th Heaven, Jessica Biel was trying to pivot into hard-hitting action roles. As Kara Wade, she holds her own, though the script famously puts her through the ringer—crash-landing in North Korea and having to survive a solo trek across enemy lines. It’s a physical role that showed her potential as an action star long before her acclaimed turn in The Sinner.
Jamie Foxx as Lt. Henry Purcell
This is the weirdest piece of casting in retrospect. Jamie Foxx signed onto the cast of Stealth before he won the Academy Award for Ray. By the time the movie actually came out, he was an Oscar winner.
Watching an Academy Award winner play a wisecracking pilot who (spoiler alert) doesn't even make it to the third act is... a choice. Foxx brings his usual charisma, but you can kind of tell his character was designed to be the "fun" one before things get grim.
The Voice and the Villains
While the pilots got the posters, the supporting cast and the "voice" of the movie are where the real deep cuts are.
- Wentworth Miller (Voice of EDI): Long before Prison Break made him a household name, Wentworth Miller provided the voice for the AI jet, EDI (Extreme Deep Invader). It’s a cold, calculated performance that slowly gains "emotion" after a lightning strike.
- Sam Shepard as Capt. George Cummings: Having a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and legendary actor like Sam Shepard play the "evil" commanding officer is a flex. He brings a level of gravity to the movie that it probably didn't deserve. He plays the classic military man who prioritizes the mission over human life.
- Joe Morton as Capt. Dick Marshfield: You know him as Rowan Pope from Scandal or Miles Dyson from Terminator 2. He’s the "good" captain here, the one who actually cares about the pilots.
- Richard Roxburgh as Dr. Keith Orbit: He plays the eccentric creator of the AI. Roxburgh is always great at playing slightly unhinged geniuses (think Van Helsing or Moulin Rouge!), and he’s the only one who seems to be having real fun with the sci-fi tropes.
Why the Cast of Stealth Faced an Uphill Battle
The talent wasn't the problem. The problem was timing and a script that felt like it was written by an early version of the AI it was trying to warn us about.
Critics at the time, including Roger Ebert, pointed out that for a movie about "stealth," it was incredibly loud and messy. The cast of Stealth did the best they could with lines about "quantum processing" and "fuel-air explosives," but the movie struggled to find its identity. Was it a techno-thriller? A buddy-pilot movie? A survival horror? It tried to be all of them.
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Surprising Facts About the Production
- Real Aircraft Carriers: The production actually filmed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Carl Vinson. The actors were literally walking among active Navy personnel.
- The "Talon" Jets: The planes in the movie look cool because they were designed by the same people who worked on Minority Report. They weren't real, obviously, but they were built as full-scale models that cost millions.
- Financial Fallout: The movie only made about $79 million against its $135 million budget. That’s a massive loss for Sony, and it’s a big reason why we didn't see many high-concept "original" sci-fi blockbusters for a few years after.
What You Should Do Next
If you’re a fan of the actors involved, don’t let the 13% Rotten Tomatoes score scare you away completely. It’s a fascinating look at what Hollywood thought "the future" looked like twenty years ago.
- Watch for the Chemistry: Despite the weak plot, the chemistry between Lucas, Biel, and Foxx in the first thirty minutes is actually pretty solid.
- Appreciate the Practical Sets: In an era of "green screen everything," the physical cockpits and carrier decks in Stealth look better than a lot of modern CGI-heavy films.
- Spot the Future Stars: Look for Ebon Moss-Bachrach (now famous for The Bear) in a small role as a technician named Tim.
If you’re looking for a serious exploration of AI, this isn't it. But if you want to see a pre-fame Wentworth Miller voice a killer robot while Jamie Foxx flies a jet, it's a wild ride for a Friday night.
To dig deeper into this era of film, check out the careers of the lead trio—specifically how Josh Lucas moved into character acting and how Jessica Biel transitioned into producing high-end TV drama. Their trajectory since 2005 says a lot about how the industry has changed.