Ben Stiller left his honeymoon early just to make fun of Tom Cruise right in front of him

You have to be able to prioritize in life, and for Ben Stiller, that apparently meant abandoning his honeymoon in order to meet up with Tom Cruise and take the p*ss out of him.

It might not be the choice everyone would make, but it at least made for a very funny video.

It all went down back in 2001, after Cruise had returned to the role of Ethan Hunt to star in the 2000 movie Mission: Impossible II.

The film earned nominations for Best Male Performance and Best Action Sequence at the 2001 MTV Movie Awards, and in honor of the ceremony, MTV Movie Awards producer Joel Gallen wanted Cruise to get involved.

Speaking to MTV, he explained: "I very much wanted Tom Cruise to be on the Movie Awards. But then he realized he had already committed to be at the [Mission: Impossible II] premiere someplace in Korea, so there was no way he could be at our show that night."

Tom Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible II.

Paramount Pictures

With Cruise out of town, the producers decided to ask him to create a short film which they could air at the ceremony. The movie would also involve Stiller, but there was just one issue - Stiller had just got married to his wife Christine Taylor and the couple were on their honeymoon.

Obviously he wouldn't abandon that to come back and work, would he?

Gallen recalled: "I wrote Ben an e-mail: 'I know it's your honeymoon and everything but what if you came back two days early? What do you think?'"

Stiller had been parodying Cruise for ages, but had never before had the opportunity to do it to his face. As it turned out, the chance to take the p*ss out of Cruise was too good to resist.

Ben Stiller parodied Tom Cruise for the short film.

MTV

"I really do want to do this film," Stiller replied.

He and Taylor packed up and headed back to the US a day early, embarking on a 15-hour flight to get to the shoot in time.

In the short, Stiller starred as Cruise's loyal stuntman, Tom Crooze, even going as far as to dress up as the star.

"I never had the experience of actually doing him to his face, and he was sitting at the monitor and he started cracking up watching and I knew it was OK," Stiller recalled. "The part where we're both laughing is kinda real, because we're both laughing at the absurdity of the moment."

And fans of the short are still loving the parody more than two decades later, with one fan commenting: "The gestures, the laugh, the slap on the back... Ben Stiller is a legendary comedic actor."