How Hollywood agents had to cajole resistant stars into taking their most famous roles: Tom Cruise in Top Gun, Nicole Kidman in The Hours and Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller (he didn't want to talk to the camera!)

A big part of the role of Hollywood agents is convincing their famous clients to actually do their jobs. 

Agents have to cajole and sometimes bully their actors and actresses into taking roles - sometimes with spectacular results.

Top Gun, for example, would be unthinkable without Tom Cruise, while The Hours won Nicole Kidman an Oscar. 

Yet both actors had to be persuaded to take their respective starring roles in those movies, according to a new book.

In Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists' Agency, Nicole Kidman admits that she did not want to do The Hours, the 2003 drama which earned her the Oscar for Best Actress.

She says that she was in Australia with her parents at the time and ‘couldn’t find the strength’ to do it.

Tom Cruise made his name in iconic 80s movie Top Gun. CAA also persuaded Nicole Kidman to star in The Hours although the actress at first 'couldn't be bothered'

She said: ‘At the time I was having this weird relationship with my own drive and my own ambition. Part of me just couldn’t be bothered and I know that’s almost blasphemous to say’.

Kidman called her agent at CAA and said: ‘I can’t do it. I’m sort of depressed and I’ve got to just say here’.

The response was: ‘You make that plane, you get over there now and you do this role’ - so she did.

Kidman said: ‘Thank God he talked to me like he did because I would have just curled up in bed and stay there...I need tough love sometimes’.

Former CAA partner Rick Nicita says that the key to getting actors to commit was ‘constantly not letting them bail out, not getting near the exit door’.

When he was trying to get Al Pacino to commit to the 2003 spy thriller The Recruit, Pacino kept saying: ‘I’m not so sure, maybe yes, maybe no’.

Nicita says that he told Pacino on the phone: ‘I am going to hang up on you and I’m going to call and accept the role’. Nicita hung up, called and accepted the role on Pacino's behalf and then told the actor what he had done. Pacino replied: ‘Thank you, thank you Rick’.

When Naomi Watts was offered the lead role in the 2002 horror The Ring, Nicita refused to get off the phone until she said yes.

Watts said: ‘Uh….’ and Nicita said: ‘Yes, say yes’. He said: ‘And she goes: "Uh…..yes"’.

And Matthew Broderick admits that he initially did not want the lead role in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the 80s comedy which made him a star.

Near misses: Matthew Broderick, right, at first was unconvinced by 80s comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 

Power players: A new book reveals what it takes to run CAA, one of Hollywood's most powerful talent agencies

He says that he had just done two Broadway shows in which he spoke to the audience and felt wary of doing the same thing on camera, as happens in the film.

Broderick says: ‘And I thought: ‘I’m always going to be this comedian who talks to the camera. I have to get a real part’, or some stupid idea like that.

‘So I wasn’t sure about Ferris, thought it wasn’t right and I should do something dramatic’.

CAA became one of the biggest agencies in the world with a galaxy of stars on their books after being founded by Michael Ovitz and Ron Meyer in 1975. 

Powerhouse also reveals the tactics that agents used to lure in clients, including Paul Newman who did not even want to be represented.

Realizing how important he was to CAA, Ovitz did an ‘incredible full-court press to sign him’, according to the book.

For CAA he was the ‘big one’ and, knowing he was a car fanatic, Ovitz went out and bought a Ferrari and ‘made himself into his best friend’.

The book says that one day Ovitz called everyone into the conference room at CAA and told them how he and Newman had been racing cars and that the actor loved it.

The entire company was told to go to one of the races at the Malibu raceway and Ovitz sent round an email saying: ‘You will come and you will have fun’. It worked and he signed.

CAA wooed racing enthusiast Paul Newman with a Ferrari. The initially reticent actor was eventually signed to their books

CAA's influence was not confined to Hollywood - it extended to the White House too. It was some time after Bill Clinton had been elected to his first term that Michael Ovitz got a call from the President.

The conversation quickly turned to money - and how much Ovitz could help raise for the Democrats.

Clinton was startlingly frank about his need for cash.

‘I need a favor,' said Clinton. ‘The DNC (Democratic National Committee) is running out of money. Can you raise us some money?’

Ovitz could not exactly turn the president down.

Clinton said: 'You have three weeks.'

‘You have to be kidding,’ Ovitz replied. But Clinton said, ‘No, I’m dead serious’.

Three weeks later Clinton appeared at the CAA office in Los Angeles where stars had lined up for photographs with the president - for a price.

Ovitz raised $600,000 for the Democrats. 

From left, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Ovitz, Al Gore and Bill Clinton in 1996. Clinton drew on Ovitz's Hollywood connections to raise $600,000 in just three weeks: 400 guests paid upwards of $1,000 a head and celebrities queued to have their photo taken with the president

The 400 guests paid $1,000 each and another 80 people paid $2,500  for one-on-one photo opportunities with Clinton in the conference room of the CAA office in Los Angeles.

Among those who turned up were Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Costner, Warren Beatty and Alec Baldwin.

Sally Field was so desperate to attend she got out of her limo six blocks from the CAA office and ran the rest of the way because the Secret Service had shut down the roads for cars.

Glenn Close rushed over in full makeup from the play she was doing on Sunset Boulevard.

To counter the perception that Clinton was too close to Hollywood, he gave a speech criticizing the use of violence in films - although he singled out gang drama Boyz N The Hood for praise for its realism. 

That's nice! Katie Couric fought for her colleagues not to be fired from CBS News, agreeing to take a $1 million hit from her reported $10 million-a-year salary on the proviso that the deal was kept a secret and the money went straight to staff 

The book also contains revelations about the goings-on at celebrity parties.  

On one occasion, according to a CAA Agent, Meryl Streep emerged from a bathroom laughing uncontrollably because Carrie Fisher had shouted through the locked door about her ‘horse stream’ of urine.

Producer Barry Josephson reveals that when he was making the 1994 drama The Professional, a young Natalie Portman who starred in the film had ‘the biggest crush’ on Johnny Depp.

Josephson told Depp’s agent that it was Portman’s birthday and asked if he could show up - so he did.

It's not all about landing roles - the agencies also have to grapple with issues that arise some time into the job.  

CAA client Katie Couric for example took a  pay cut in 2009 during her third year as the anchor on CBS Evening News, when she and her agent learned of upcoming layoffs including several members of the CBS Evening News team.

The staff due to be fired included senior producers and young associate producers who were vital to the running of the show.

Couric decided to ‘take matters into her own hands’ and voluntarily agreed to cut her annual salary from a reported $15 million by $1 million.

The two conditions Couric attached to it were that the money be used directly on staff and that nobody could know. 

Such a sacrifice would have been easier for Couric given her salary, which meant she was the highest paid journalist in the world. The presenter is currently paid a reported $10 million a year by Yahoo, where she is the global news anchor.