hollywood actor tom cruise

Actor Tom Cruise is the star of several box-office hits, including Risky Business , A Few Good Men , The Firm , Jerry Maguire , and the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Who Is Tom Cruise?

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, better known as Tom Cruise, was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, to Mary and Thomas Mapother. Cruise's mother was an amateur actress and schoolteacher, and his father was an electrical engineer. His family moved around a great deal when Cruise was a child to accommodate his father's career.

Cruise's parents divorced when he was 11, and the children moved with their mother to Louisville, Kentucky, and then to Glen Ridge, New Jersey, after she remarried. Like his mother and three sisters, Cruise suffered from dyslexia, which made academic success difficult for him. He excelled in athletics, however, and considered pursuing a career in professional wrestling until a knee injury sidelined him during high school.

At age 14, Cruise enrolled in a Franciscan seminary with thoughts of becoming a priest, but he left after a year. When he was 16, a teacher encouraged him to participate in the school's production of the musical Guys and Dolls . After Cruise won the lead of Nathan Detroit, he found himself surprisingly at home on the stage, and a career was born.

'Taps,' 'The Outsiders'

Cruise set a 10-year deadline for himself in which to build an acting career. He left school and moved to New York City, struggling through audition after audition before landing an appearance in 1981's Endless Love , starring Brooke Shields. Around this same time, he snagged a small role in the military school drama Taps (1981), co-starring Sean Penn .

His role in Taps was upgraded after director Harold Becker saw Cruise's potential, and his performance caught the attention of a number of critics and filmmakers. In 1983, Cruise appeared in Francis Ford Coppola 's The Outsiders , which also starred Emilio Estevez , Matt Dillon and Rob Lowe —all prominent members of a group of young actors the entertainment press dubbed the "Brat Pack." The film was not well received, but it allowed Cruise to work with an acclaimed director on a high-profile project.

'Risky Business'

His next film, Risky Business (1983), grossed $65 million. It also made Cruise a highly recognizable actor — thanks in no small part to a memorable scene of the young star dancing in his underwear.

In 1986, after a two-year hiatus, the budding actor released the big-budget fantasy film Legend , which did poorly at the box office. That same year, however, Cruise's A-list status was confirmed with the release of Top Gun , which co-starred Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards and Meg Ryan . The testosterone-fueled action-romance, set against the backdrop of an elite naval flight school, became the highest-grossing film of 1986.

'The Color of Money,' 'Rain Man' and 'Born on the Fourth of July'

Cruise followed the tremendous success of Top Gun with a string of both critically acclaimed and commercially successful films. He first starred in The Color of Money (1986) with co-star Paul Newman , and then went on to work with Dustin Hoffman on Rain Man (1988). Cruise's next role, as Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in the biopic Born on the Fourth of July (1989), earned him an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Actor.

'A Few Good Men,' 'The Firm' and 'Interview with a Vampire'

In 1992, Cruise proved once more that he could hold his own opposite a screen legend when he co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the military courtroom drama A Few Good Men . The film grossed more than $15 million its first weekend and earned Cruise a Golden Globe nomination. He continued to demonstrate his success as a leading man with The Firm (1993) and Interview with a Vampire (1994), which co-starred Brad Pitt.

'Mission: Impossible,' 'Jerry McGuire'

Next, Cruise hit the big screen with two huge hits—the $64 million blockbuster Mission: Impossible (1996), which the star also produced, and the highly acclaimed Jerry McGuire (1996), directed by Cameron Crowe. For the latter, Cruise earned a second Academy Award nomination and Golden Globe for Best Actor.

'Eyes Wide Shut,' 'Magnolia'

Cruise and then-wife Kidman spent much of 1997 and 1998 in England shooting Eyes Wide Shut , an erotic thriller that would be director Stanley Kubrick 's final film. The movie came out in the summer of 1999 to mixed reviews, but that year Cruise enjoyed greater success with the release of Magnolia . His performance as a self-confident sex guru in the ensemble film earned him another Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

'Vanilla Sky,' 'The Last Samurai'

Cruise then starred in the long-awaited smash hit Mission: Impossible 2 in 2000, alongside Anthony Hopkins , Thandie Newton and Ving Rhames. In 2002, he starred in Vanilla Sky , his second collaboration with Crowe, as well as Steven Spielberg 's Minority Report . The following year, Cruise traveled to Australia to shoot the $100 million war epic The Last Samurai, which earned him another Golden Globe nomination.

'War of the Worlds'

Cruise proved he remained a top draw by starring in the Spielberg-directed remake of the science-fiction classic War of the Worlds (2005), which grossed more than $230 million at the box office.

His next effort, Mission: Impossible 3 (2006), also scored well with audiences. However, Cruise was faced with a professional setback in August when Paramount Pictures ended its 14-year relationship with the actor. The company's chairman cited Cruise's erratic behavior and controversial views as the reason for the split, though industry experts noted that Paramount more likely ended the partnership over Cruise's high earnings from the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Cruise quickly rebounded and on November 2, 2006, he announced his new partnership with film executive Paula Wagner and the United Artists film studio. Their first production as a team, the political drama Lions for Lambs (2007), proved a commercial disappointment despite a strong cast that included Meryl Streep and Robert Redford .

'Tropic Thunder'

Taking a break from weighty material, Cruise delighted audiences with his performance in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008). Despite his relatively small role in a movie that featured Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller , Cruise stood out by obscuring his trademark good looks to play a balding, obese movie studio executive.

'Valkyrie,' 'Rock of Ages'

In December 2008, Cruise released his second project through United Artists. The film, Valkyrie , was a World War II drama about a plot to assassinate German leader Adolf Hitler . Cruise starred as a German army officer who became involved in the conspiracy.

Cruise returned to one of his most popular franchises in 2011 with Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol . Breaking into new territory, he then starred in the 2012 musical Rock of Ages . Although Cruise received some positive reviews for his performance as a rock star, the movie failed to attract much of an audience.

'Jack Reacher,' 'Edge of Tomorrow'

Returning to his mainstream action roots, Cruise starred in the 2012 crime drama Jack Reacher , based on a book by Lee Child. He then headlined a pair of science-fiction adventures, Oblivion (2013) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Showing no signs of slowing down, the veteran actor in 2015 delivered his usual high-energy performance for the fifth installment of his blockbuster franchise, Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation .

Latest Movies and Familiar Franchises

In 2016, Cruise reprised the role of Jack Reacher for Never Go Back . He then headlined a reboot of The Mummy (2017), which performed respectably at the box office but was savaged by critics, before earning better reviews later that year for the crime thriller American Made .

2018 brought a return to familiar territory for Cruise, who starred in Mission Impossible —Fallout that summer. Prior to its release, he tweeted a photo to mark day 1 of production on the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick , scheduled for a June 2020 release.

Scientology and Personal Life

Cruise married actress Mimi Rogers in 1987. It was through Rogers that the actor became a student of Scientology, the religion founded by writer L. Ron Hubbard. Cruise credited the church with curing his dyslexia, and he soon became one of its leading proponents. However, while his spiritual life flourished, his marriage to Rogers ended in 1990. That same year, Cruise made the racecar drama Days of Thunder alongside Kidman. Though the movie was unpopular among critics and fans alike, the two lead actors had real chemistry. On Christmas Eve 1990, after a brief courtship, Cruise and Kidman married in Telluride, Colorado.

Divorce from Kidman

For much of the 1990s, Cruise and Kidman found themselves fiercely defending the happiness and legitimacy of their marriage. They filed two different lawsuits against tabloid publications for stories they considered libelous. In each case, the couple received a published retraction and apology, along with a large monetary settlement which they donated to charity. The couple has two children, Isabella and Connor.

On February 5, 2001, Cruise and Kidman announced their separation after 11 years of marriage. The couple cited the difficulties involved with two acting careers and the amount of time spent apart while working. Following the divorce, Cruise briefly dated his Vanilla Sky co-star Penelope Cruz , followed by a much-publicized relationship with actress Katie Holmes. A month after his ties to Holmes became public, Cruise professed his love for the actress in a now-famous appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, during which he jumped on Winfrey's sofa, shouting "Yes!"

Marriage to Katie Holmes

In June 2005, after a two-month courtship, Cruise proposed to Holmes in a restaurant at the top of the Eiffel tower. In October, they announced that they were expecting their first child together. The hasty proposal and surprise pregnancy quickly became tabloid gossip. But Cruise made even bigger headlines that year as an outspoken advocate for Scientology. He openly criticized former co-star Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants during her recovery from postpartum depression. He also denounced psychiatry and modern medicine, claiming Scientology held the key to true healing. Cruise's statements led to a heated argument with news anchor Matt Lauer on The Today Show in June 2005, for which Cruise later apologized.

In 2006, Cruise and Holmes welcomed daughter Suri into the world. That year, they were married in an Italian castle, with celebrities Will Smith , Jada Pinkett Smith , Jennifer Lopez and Victoria and David Beckham among those in attendance. However, the storybook romance wouldn't last, and in June 2012, the couple announced their separation.

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1962
• Birth date: July 3, 1962
• Birth State: New York
• Birth City: Syracuse
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Actor Tom Cruise is the star of several box-office hits, including 'Risky Business,' 'A Few Good Men,' 'The Firm,' 'Jerry Maguire' and the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise.
• Astrological Sign: Cancer

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Tom Cruise Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/tom-cruise
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: March 26, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

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• Born July 3 , 1962 · Syracuse, New York, USA
• Birth name Thomas Cruise Mapother IV
• Height 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
• In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history. Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences. With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986) ; The Color of Money (1986) , Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) . By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) , Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996) , for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise. In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom McDonough, Grant failor
• Spouses Katie Holmes (November 18, 2006 - August 20, 2012) (divorced, 1 child) Nicole Kidman (December 24, 1990 - August 8, 2001) (divorced, 2 children) Mimi Rogers (May 9, 1987 - February 4, 1990) (divorced)
• Children Isabella Jane Cruise Suri Cruise Connor Cruise
• Parents Thomas Mapother III Mary Lee Pfeiffer
• Relatives William Mapother (Cousin) Amy Mapother (Cousin) Katherine Mapother (Cousin) Lee Anne De Vette (Sibling)
• Often plays romantic leading men with an edge
• Often plays characters caught up in extraordinary circumstances
• Frequently plays intelligent yet laidback and likeable characters
• Beaming smile and intense eye contact
• Boundless off-stage energy
• His acting idol is Paul Newman . Much to the delight of Cruise, they became good friends during work on The Color of Money (1986) . Newman got him into racing, and Cruise ultimately raced on his team.
• Stopped to help a hit and run victim and paid her hospital bills. The victim was aspiring Brazilian actress Heloisa Vinhas (1996).
• Insists on performing many of his own stunts in his films, including climbing the exterior of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, during the filming of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) , and driving during the car chases in Jack Reacher (2012) .
• Cruise earned roughly $75 million for Mission: Impossible II (2000) . He did this by turning down any upfront salary, for instead taking a back-end deal that landed him 30% of the film's gross for both his producing and acting duties.
• He did not stay for the remainder of the 2002 Academy Awards after opening them because it was his turn to look after his and ex-wife Nicole Kidman 's children. He reportedly left the Kodak Theatre by a back door after opening proceedings and dashed home to watch the rest of the event on television with his kids Connor and Isabella.
• The thing about filmmaking is I give it everything, that's why I work so hard. I always tell young actors to take charge. It's not that hard. Sign your own checks, be responsible.
• [to Jay Leno regarding his topless Vanity Fair cover shoot] I don't drink but I had a beer that night and they only did one setup like that. I'm a cheap date. What can I say?
• [on Eyes Wide Shut (1999) ] We knew from the beginning the level of commitment needed. We felt honored to work with Stanley Kubrick . We were going to do what it took to do this picture, whatever time, because I felt - and Nic [ Nicole Kidman ] did, too - that this was going to be a really special time for us. We knew it would be difficult. But I would have absolutely kicked myself if I hadn't done this.
• I have cooked turkeys in my day but when Mom's around I let her do it.
• I was 18 when I saw Akira Kurosawa 's Seven Samurai (1954) . After about 30 seconds, I realized that this was not just a cultural thing, it was universal. Years later, I read Bushido. It talked about many things that I strive for in my own life: loyalty, compassion, responsibility, the idea of looking back on your life and taking responsibility for everything you've ever done. I'm fascinated by the samurai and the samurai code - it's one of the main reasons I wanted to make The Last Samurai (2003) .
• Mission: Impossible 8 (2025) - $13,000,000 + % of back end
• Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) - $13,000,000 + % of back end
• Top Gun: Maverick (2022) - $13,000,000 + % of back end
• The Mummy (2017) - $13,000,000 + % of gross
• Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) - $12,500,000 + % of back end

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Tom Cruise Turns 61: Inside His $10 Billion Career and Being 'Hollywood's Last Real Movie Star'

Inside tom cruise's rise to becoming the world's biggest movie star, cardi b recalls 'freak accident' paralyzing her, causing miscarriage scare, remembering robin williams: sally field reveals touching moment from 'mrs. doubtfire' set, how shaun white is helping girlfriend nina dobrev recover from severe bike injury, travis kelce 'concerned' for taylor swift after concert terrorist plot uncovered (report), blake shelton says 'it's about damn time' after landing las vegas residency, deadpool and wolverine 'crash' green day concert and shock billie joe armstrong, michelle pfeiffer officially joins 'yellowstone' spinoff 'madison': what we know, 'seal team' david boreanaz dishes on physical challenges for final season, ariana grande shares secret behind 'break free' that she originally hated, taylor swift fans gather in vienna for sing-along after terror threat cancels eras tour dates, watch hoda kotb's emotional reunion with her daughters after returning home from olympics, colin jost exits olympics correspondent gig after multiple injuries and illnesses, how bill lawrence's daughter charlotte secretly auditioned for dad’s 'bad monkey' series (exclusive), vince vaughn gives update on 'dodgeball' sequel as bad monkey comes to tv (exclusive), 'saturday night' trailer no. 1, 'reasonable doubt' season 2 first look: morris chestnut joins the courtroom (exclusive), ‘the braxtons’: toni afraid to share her health concern with family (exclusive), tamron hall's 5-year-old son uses her phone to order 75 onions, nina dobrev praises ‘amazing’ shaun white for dropping everything to take care of her after accident, 'big brother’: tucker and makensy shock houseguests twice during power of veto ceremony, the 'top gun' star has built a reputation for box office success -- and he's not slowing down anytime soon.

Tom Cruise turns 61 on Monday, marking more than four decades since he broke on to the Hollywood scene and started his ascension to the mega-famous movie star we know today.

Born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, Cruise got his start in bit movie parts before a breakout year in 1983, in which he starred in All the Right Moves, The Outsiders, and his breakthrough hit, Risky Business.

But it was in the 1990s when Cruise began to hit his stride as box office magic. From 1992-96, he made history when he starred in five consecutive movies that grossed $100 million or more in the United States: A Few Good Men, The Firm, Interview With the Vampire, Mission: Impossible and Jerry Maguire .

His starring role as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible has also been a blockbuster boon. So far, the franchise's six films have grossed over $3 billion worldwide, with the seventh --  Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One -- coming to theaters July 12.

"It's unbelievable," Cruise told ET while premiering Dead Reckoning in Rome last month. "I do pinch myself every day.... It's something that I've never taken for granted ... I just feel very privileged."

And then, of course, there's Top Gun. The   iconic original flyboy flick was the highest-grossing domestic film in 1986, and when Cruise returned to the role of Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell last year for Top Gun: Maverick, it was a triumph in more ways than one. The film became Cruise's first to earn over a billion dollars worldwide and was a major success for movie theaters just starting to dig their way out of COVID shutdown difficulties.

"I make movies for audiences," the actor told ET. "I work so hard and I think about them the whole time and when you see how excited they are and how much they appreciate it - it's just beautiful."

In total, the man often referred to as "the last true movie star" has made himself a $10 billion career so far -- and he doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

However, despite the money, and despite the moniker, for Cruise it's all about the craft.

"It's not about being a movie star," he insisted. "It's about being an actor and concentrating on that and finding roles that are going to be a challenge for me... Movie stardom can come and go, but your craft within, you can work forever if you keep working hard at that."

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TOM CRUISE is a global cultural icon who has made an immeasurable impact on cinema by creating some of the most memorable characters of all time. Having achieved extraordinary success as an actor, producer and philanthropist in a career spanning over three decades, Cruise is a three-time Oscar® nominee and three-time Golden Globe Award® winner whose films have earned over $10 billion in worldwide box office—an incomparable accomplishment. Eighteen of Cruise’s films have grossed over $100 million domestically, and a record 23 have made more than $200 million globally. His latest film, Mission: Impossible – Fallout has made over $775 million worldwide becoming Cruise’s most successful film to date.

Cruise has starred in numerous legendary films such as Top Gun, Jerry Maguire, Risky Business, Minority Report, Interview with the Vampire, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Rain Man, Collateral, The Last Samurai, Edge of Tomorrow, The Color of Money and the Mission: Impossible series, among many others. Combined, the Mission: Impossible franchise has brought in over $3.5 billion since Cruise conceived the idea for a film adaptation of the classic television series and produced the first in 1996. He is currently in production on the long-awaited sequel to Top Gun.

A consummate filmmaker involved in all aspects of production, Cruise has proven his versatility with the films and roles he chooses. He has made 43 films, contributing in a producing role on many of them, and collaborated with a remarkable list of celebrated film directors including Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollack, Neil Jordan, Brian De Palma, Cameron Crowe, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ed Zwick, Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, J.J. Abrams, Robert Redford, Brad Bird, Doug Liman and Christopher McQuarrie.

Cruise received Academy Award® nominations for Best Actor for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire. He was a Best Supporting Actor nominee for Magnolia and won Golden Globes (Best Actor) for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire, in addition to a Best Supporting Actor prize for Magnolia. He also received Golden Globe nominations for his roles in Risky Business, A Few Good Men and The Last Samurai. Cruise has earned acting nominations and awards from BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild, the Chicago Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review.

Cruise’s previous few films include the critically acclaimed American Made, The Mummy, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Oblivion and the suspense thriller Jack Reacher, which earned $218 million worldwide. Prior to that, he made a memorable appearance in Ben Stiller’s comedy smash Tropic Thunder, as the foul-mouthed Hollywood movie mogul Les Grossman. This performance, based on a character Cruise created, earned him praise from critics and audiences as well as his seventh Golden Globe nomination.

Cruise has been honored with tributes ranging from Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Man of the Year Award to the John Huston Award from the Artists Rights Foundation and the American Cinematheque Award for Distinguished Achievement in Film. In addition to his artistic contributions, Cruise has used his professional success as a vehicle for positive change, becoming an international advocate, activist and philanthropist in the fields of health, education and human rights. He has been honored by the Mentor LA organization for his work on behalf of the children of Los Angeles and around the world. In 2011 Cruise received the Simon Wiesenthal Humanitarian Award and the following year he received the Entertainment Icon Award from the Friars Club for his outstanding accomplishments in the entertainment industry and in the humanities. He is the fourth person to receive this honor after Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra. Empire magazine awarded Cruise its Legend of Our Lifetime Award in 2014. Most recently, Cruise was the first actor to receive The Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation’s Pioneer of the Year Award in 2018.

• Top Gun: Maverick (2021)
• Mission: Impossible Fallout (2018)
• American Made (2017)
• The Mummy (2017)
• Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
• Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015)
• Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
• Oblivion (2013)
• Jack Reacher (2012)
• Rock of Ages (2012)
• Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
• Knight and Day (2010)
• Valkyrie (2008)
• Tropic Thunder (2008)
• Lions for Lambs (2007)
• Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)
• War of the Worlds (2005)
• Collateral (2004)
• The Last Samurai (2003)
• Minority Report (2002)
• Vanilla Sky (2002)
• Mission: Impossible 2 (2001)
• Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
• Magnolia (1999)
• Jerry Maguire (1996)
• Mission: Impossible (1996)
• Interview with the Vampire (1994)
• The Firm (1993)
• A Few Good Men (1992)
• Far and Away (1992)
• Days of Thunder (1990)
• Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
• Rain Man (1988)
• Cocktail (1988)
• The Color of Money (1986)
• Top Gun (1986)
• Legend (1985)
• Risky Business (1983)
• All the Right Moves (1983)
• The Outsiders (1983)
• Losin’ It (1983)
• Taps (1981)
• Endless Love (1981)

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Mtv vma nominations: taylor swift leads with 10, followed by post malone, ariana grande, eminem, sabrina carpenter, what makes tom cruise’s star shine so brightly directors share their insights – cannes disruptors.

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Top Gun : Maverick ’s Cannes Film Festival premiere marks another high point in the movie star career of Tom Cruise . The actor turns 60 on July 3, and unlike most leading men of that age who become quicker to call for the stunt double, Cruise shows little evidence of slowing down after 43 films. If anything, his Mission: Impossible stunts seem to grow more ambitiously dangerous, not to mention the fact that he and director Doug Liman will become the first to actually shoot a space film in space for real—aboard one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX crafts with the cooperation of NASA.

So how does Cruise continue to carve such a path?

“I’ve gotten to work with a number of actors who’ve had great success and long careers, Tom being at the top of the heap,” says Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. “He approaches every day with the enthusiasm that it’s his first movie, and at the same time puts the effort into it like it’s his last movie. That’s a good attitude to have; never take it for granted, give 110 percent every single day. Constantly push the crew and yourself to achieve excellence. I’m amazed by that, that he’s 40 years in and still loves what he does and isn’t slowing down at all. It seems like he’s accelerating, which is pretty amazing.”

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Top Gun & Top Gun: Maverick

“Tom was our first and only choice for Top Gun , that’s who Tony Scott liked, and Don and I really pursued him,” recalls Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the original hit with late partner Don Simpson. “I don’t think he was a pilot back then, but he just had the charisma and we loved what we saw in his film career. You could tell he was a terrific actor and that is so much of what it is all about.”

It was to become Cruise’s signature immersion into the process of preparation. “He went down to Miramar in advance and hung out with a lot of the pilots, found out what they liked and why they did what they did. He just cares so much, and not only about his character but the whole movie. A lot of actors walk into a role and just worry about themselves and how they’re perceived. Never Tom. That was the way he was back in ’85 when we made the first one, and he showed it again this time.”

On the first film, Cruise was the only cast member who didn’t lose his lunch while filming dialogue scenes inside those roaring jets. Mindful of that unpleasant experience, he made it his mission to make sure the new crop of actors playing Top Gun pilots in the sequel fared better.

“We learned on the first one,” Bruckheimer says. “He was the only one we got good footage on; we couldn’t use the footage on the other actors because he was the only one who didn’t throw up. So, Tom designed a flying program for all the actors this time. It took months to do this. First, they went up in a single engine prop plane, just to get a feel for flying. Then, an aerobatic prop plane, and then a jet, and once they were comfortable in that jet, he put them in the F-18. Tom designed [the process] himself to acclimate the actors to the G forces they would experience.”

Kosinski previously directed Cruise in the 2013 sci-fi film Oblivion . In the Top Gun sequel, the director says Cruise put so much into mentoring the young actors on set who were in awe of him. “Tom is an actor that, if you can get him interested in your project, then you can do almost anything,” Kosinski says. “When you combine that with something beloved like Top Gun , it becomes an unstoppable force when you go to make it. We needed that on this movie because what we were doing was very intense and there were a lot of things that hadn’t been done before. Having Tom there to push through the ideas and techniques we were going to use was really helpful. Tom knew just how difficult capturing those images would be, just how physically grueling it would be for the actors.

“I remember one day on the carrier, when Tom was sitting with these young actors, most of them just starting their careers,” Kosinski adds. “Miles Teller has a lot under his belt, but the rest were new. For them, every day was like a master class, and he would make time for them every day. He would sit down and have these impromptu sessions with the actors, either to talk about the scenes we were shooting that day, the technical aspects of shooting an aerial sequence, or broader advice, like how to build a career. I remember Tom asked Glen (Powell), what kind of career do you want? Glen said, ‘I want your career, Tom.’ So, Tom said, ‘How do you think I got that?’ Glen said, ‘By choosing great roles.’ And Tom said, ‘No. That’s not how I did it. I did it by choosing great films. Then, I took the roles and made them the best I could.’ That advice blew Glen’s mind. If you look at Tom’s career, that’s exactly what he did. He chose great films and directors he admired. Regardless of the size of the role, especially on a movie like Taps . And then he created something with it, made the role his own. That’s something these younger actors hadn’t thought about and can only get from someone who spent 30 years as a movie star. I thought it was really interesting to watch.”

Jerry Maguire

Cruise’s turn as the star sports agent who loses his throne after an existential crisis would mark his second Oscar nomination and one of his best-remembered performances.

Cruise shows a different side in the romantic comedy. Writer-director Cameron Crowe wrote many lines that were execution-dependent, that would be the difference between heartwarming and cringe-worthy, and Cruise embraced all of them. That includes the climactic scene, when Maguire pleads with his estranged wife (Renée Zellweger) to give him another chance, a plea delivered in a crowd of pessimistic women who’ve all had their hearts broken by cads.

“Oh, Tom couldn’t wait for that scene,” Crowe says. “I was a little nervous about some of the lines, like, ‘You complete me.’ It’s a slippery slope; if you lean wrong into a line like that, it’d probably be the first thing you cut. But he said, ‘I want to say I love you in this movie, and I want to say it with that line.’ And by the time he got to it, it was two in the morning, at the end of a long week.

“Tom surprised the women because we didn’t tell them that he would be there to do the scene with them that day. In he comes, and in the most loving way, this heavyweight was ready for the knockout. He gently crushed it. The ladies were crying. The crew members were crying. And Renée was a mess. He just took great pleasure in being able to deliver a line that he knew I was on the fence about. He’d said, ‘Just give me a shot, man. You’ll see if I got it, or if I didn’t.’ And, you know, I’m still just so proud of it.”

Crowe recalls other ways that Cruise endeared himself to those around him, from one late night when an In-N-Out Burger truck showed up, courtesy of the actor, or the way he handled the first young actor who pulled out of the precocious child part that eventually went to Jonathan Lipnicki.

“Tom stayed in touch with the mother of the kid who had asked to be replaced,” Crowe says. “Tom wrote him and called and sent him stuff. I only knew this because his mother called to say, ‘Thank you for everything Tom Cruise has done to make my son feel good about even being in the movie and working with him as much as he did.’ I went to Tom on the set and said I couldn’t believe what he’d done, spending the last few weeks making sure his spirits were high. Tom just said, ‘Well, I just don’t want that guy growing up, looking at movies and feeling disappointed about what happened. I want him to love movies.’ Wow.”

When Russell Crowe changed his plan from playing the assassin who conscripts a cab driver to drive him to a series of murders in Collateral , director Michael Mann went right to the doorstep of Cruise, even though it would be a decided departure from the actor’s résumé of hero roles.

“In Tom, I saw Lee Marvin,” Mann says. “When Tom zeroes into a certain kind of person, if they are far enough away from him so that it’s a turn-on for a man of adventure, to be on some kind of a frontier with a character he can get to know but is very different from him, I could tell that within him it becomes a real adventure. To play Vincent, this solipsistic sociopath, who has all the f*cking answers and is so methodical and good at what he does, it felt like Tom was a perfect fit. He’s a perfectionist about knowing how to do the things he is supposed to do, which is why he does his own stunts in Mission: Impossible . The sociopathy of this guy was so unique, in his cosmic indifference and outrageous statements that still crack me up when I see some of the scenes with Jamie Foxx in the taxi cab. ‘You ever hear of Rwanda? So, what do you care about one fat guy who gets thrown out the window?’ Or answering Jamie’s accusation of ‘you killed him’ with, ‘I didn’t kill him. The bullets killed him and then he fell out the window.’ The flat irony of Tom’s delivery on those lines is so perfect. It was a very different character for him, and I knew Tom would throw himself into whatever I needed to take him through to become that assassin.”

When I mention the memorable shootout scene in the nightclub and that Cruise’s proficiency with weaponry is reminiscent of the acumen shown by Keanu Reeves in the John Wick films, Mann is quick to correct the record.

“ John Wick’ s are not real techniques,” he says. “What Tom did, those are real techniques and there was a lot of training with my friend Mick Gould, who was the head of close-quarter combat training for the British SAS. The scene in the alley, there’s no cut in that scene… It came down to doing the work. There was nothing he was doing that wasn’t established close-quarter combat moves that came from months of training. That included blending in. Obviously, people know Tom, but I wanted him to feel what it would be like to blend in, to mix with people and have conversations. He went to Central Market and trained to be a FedEx delivery guy. He said to me, ‘They’re gonna know it’s me.’ I said, ‘No, they’ll see the sign that says FedEx, and you’ll wear sunglasses and a cap and carry that portable computer that drivers used to have when they made deliveries.’ Tom went in and delivered something to a liquor stand and sat down and struck up a conversation with a couple people and insinuated himself into the lives of others. There was a lot of psychological training he did. Tom is a dream. He sees the adventure in what we do, just the way I do, and I imagine other directors do. He just goes for it.”

Mission: Impossible

After scripting the Cruise World War II thriller Valkyrie , Christopher McQuarrie became the actor-producer’s creative partner on the Mission: Impossible franchise with 2015’s Rogue Nation , 2018’s Fallout , the recently completed Mission: Impossible –  Dead Reckoning Part One and the eighth installment currently in production. Cruise had stepped up his commitment to outrageously ambitious stunts right before McQuarrie got there, when Brad Bird directed Ghost Protocol , and Cruise scaled the glassy exterior of the world’s largest skyscraper in Dubai, 123 floors up. But it was on McQuarrie’s watch that Cruise hung from the exterior of a flying Airbus A400M in midair for Rogue Nation , and when Cruise broke his ankle after a leap during a chase in which he crashed into a wall. It was a rare mishap, and McQuarrie feels that Cruise is so meticulous in his stunt prep and so confident in his ability to walk away unscathed, that the director swallows hard and says yes.

“I was asked once by a film student: ‘How do you know when you’ve made it?’” McQuarrie says. “I said, ‘You don’t make it. You’re making it. Actively. All the time. May you never make it. May you always be making it. May you look back one day on all you’ve made and go right on making more.’ Tom embodies that. There is no finish line, no pinnacle, no summit. He applies all he’s learned to something new, then studies it with brutal honesty: Where did we go wrong? Where did we go right? How do we apply it to the next thing? How do we push the limits of what is possible? How do we create the most immersive, engaging experience for the widest possible audience? How do we do all that with an emphasis on character and story first? Tom’s not still here by accident.”

McQuarrie could not recall a stunt Cruise insisted on doing that the filmmaker tried to talk him out of. “I get asked that a lot,” he says. “Honestly, no. Is there anything I wish I hadn’t suggested? Absolutely. When I’m sitting in an A400M with the engines running and my friend is strapped to the fuselage, I’m thinking, Maybe I should have kept this one to myself. The truth is, that stunt seems tame now. What we’ve done since, I still can’t believe. If my hair could get any whiter, it would… Tom understands how all of the individual parts function. His level of preparation is exceedingly present and aware. The bigger the stakes, the higher the awareness. That awareness is contagious and enormously clarifying.”

J.J. Abrams made his feature directorial debut on Mission: Impossible III , the one in which Phillip Seymour Hoffman went mano a mano with Cruise after kidnapping the agent’s wife (Michelle Monaghan). Abrams says the stunts weren’t as eye popping as the ones in the films directed by McQuarrie and Bird (Abrams is a producer of all of those films). While Abrams was a hotshot TV director and showrunner with Alias , Cruise pushed for him to direct, despite his being untested on the big screen.

“I blame Tom Cruise entirely on my having a career,” Abrams says. “He did all the impossible heavy lifting I don’t think anyone could have done to give me a shot. I will be forever grateful for everything he did.”

They met when Cruise and Steven Spielberg wanted Abrams to script War of the Worlds (scheduling didn’t work) and they cooked up a Mission: Impossible movie different from the one Paramount thought it was going to make. “While I was shooting the Lost pilot, Tom watched Alias and asked if I would be interested in Mission: Impossible . They were meant to shoot that other version of Mission . Steven was meant to shoot Munich and then War of the Worlds , and somehow Tom convinced both Steven and the studio, and it seemed like a herculean task only Tom could do, but he managed to reorder the films. Steven agreed to do War of the Worlds first, and Mission: Impossible got moved to after. What I remember is that I had a meeting with Tom and Sherry Lansing, who was high on this other version of the movie. I remember Tom basically saying, that he and I were going to do Mission: Impossible together. I remember Sherry saying she liked the other script and Tom saying, ‘This is the one we’re going to do.’ And she said, ‘OK.’ I’m sitting there, watching him take a wild chance on someone who had never directed a feature before, and I couldn’t believe it was me. I came to learn that kind of thing is a normal Tuesday for Tom.”

Any fear Abrams had that the film’s star and producer would impose himself on a young director was quickly allayed. Abrams says Cruise had a clear understanding of the lanes each occupied, and that he relied on good directors to push him to do his best work.

“Any first film is a surreal experience,” Abrams says. “To have it be something where the first day you are filming in Rome with Tom Cruise on a Mission: Impossible set, now that is incredibly surreal. On the second film I directed, which was Star Trek in 2009, I remember getting to the set the first day and feeling the palpable sense of the absence of Tom Cruise. Which is to say, I had only known shooting a movie with Tom, which was a kind of gift you can’t find anywhere else. You have someone who you always know is working as hard — if not harder — trying to make something work, and he is number one on the call sheet. It’s an incredible rarity.”

American Made

Doug Liman, who directed Cruise in the fact-based American Made , the sci-fi Edge of Tomorrow and the upcoming film they’ll shoot in outer space, got to see more than most filmmakers what it is that makes Cruise tick.

“I lived with Tom when we made American Made ,” Liman says. “When you work with Tom, it’s a seven-days-a-week job. No matter how hard a worker you are, and I consider myself that, it’s nothing compared to Tom. After 40 or 50 straight days, we were coming up on July 4 weekend. It happens his birthday is July 3 and I’m thinking that since his birthday happened to fall on a holiday, maybe Tom will want to have a long weekend off to celebrate his birthday somewhere. I mention to Tom, ‘Are you thinking of going away for your birthday?’ Tom says, ‘No. I was thinking since we have the day off on July 3, we can use that time to have the eight-hour aviation meeting that we’ve been having trouble scheduling.’ I am beyond tired and I’m like, ‘You want to have an eight-hour meeting on your birthday?’ He said, ‘Yes, that’s what I want for my birthday. I want to be making a movie. That’s the best birthday present.’ There was no blowing out candles, either.”

“Cake? No, Tom doesn’t eat cake. You don’t get to look the way he looks, by eating birthday cake. You have to make a life choice there. You know the suit of armor, the exoskeletons he wore on Edge of Tomorrow ? They were extremely heavy, cumbersome, took 10 minutes to get on and off and was too heavy for him to sit in between takes. He would get out of the armor and go, we’re wasting all this time, me getting in and out of this suit. So, Tom gets this idea that, between setups, it would save time if, instead of getting in and out of his suit, we converted a child’s swing set into something with hooks that he could hang from, in between setups.”

For the result, picture the gangster Carbone, hanging from a meat hook in the freezer truck in Goodfellas .

“Yeah, that is the visual,” Liman says.

“Living with Tom on American Made , I came to the conclusion that it would be like if you imagined a premise for a high concept movie, where you got to wake up and be Tom Cruise for the day. He gets up with so much energy. He was a real taskmaster when it came to chores in the house. We didn’t have a housekeeper, for security reasons, and we had to clean the house. He would constantly pull out a pot that I had already cleaned and put back, and say, ‘This is not clean.’”

Liman is circumspect about timing and the story he and Cruise will film in space, but not the intent. “The thing both of us have in common is, we’re not interested in the gimmick of shooting a movie in outer space,” he says. “For Tom and me, it’s a challenge to make sure we make a movie that is so frigging good it can survive the inevitable criticism, ‘Did they really have to go into space to shoot that?’”

Barry Levinson, who directed Rain Man with Cruise, saw the film win Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman’s turn as the autistic savant. Cruise wasn’t nominated for playing Charlie Babbitt, the hustler who kidnaps his brother Raymond and drives him to L.A. to claim an inheritance, but in Levinson’s mind, “Tom had the harder job,” he says. “It was a difficult role because he basically had to drive the movie. Otherwise, Raymond would just be content to sit in a motel. His obligation is to continually drive it and push him, and at the same time not exhaust the audience with a one-beat, ‘C’mon, we’re going.’ It was a very hard role, and he never got the credit he deserved for that film.”

Levinson got the job after Martin Brest, Spielberg and then Sydney Pollack were in and then out because of the tricky nature of the material. Levinson says they found the movie while shooting on the road trip, and what surprised him was Cruise’s skill in improv, and willingness to try most anything they could think of.

“When Sydney dropped out, we were seven weeks out from shooting and we hit the road and kept working on dealing with the relationship between the two of them as we went along,” Levinson says. “We did an extensive amount of ad-libbing and improv work for that film, and Tom jumped in there and ran with it. It was at that point very different for him, not only to be that type of character, but also because the movie was a two-hander. It’s just these two guys basically, and they’ve got to carry the movie. Tom was never resistant to the idea of, well let’s just see what happens if we do this. I said to him once, ‘Let’s get in a car, I wonder if the audience is thinking, the brother hasn’t done anything for Raymond. I think he needs to do something so at least he has made an attempt to deal with him.’ He said, ‘Well, what about if I gave him fresh underwear? That will lead to an argument. Raymond can’t wear that because he gets his underwear in Cincinnati.’ That was the basis of the idea to just have a little something, riding in the car. The two worked really well with each other. I know it sounds like it can’t be true, but it was as good a relationship between the two guys and in terms of what we were trying to accomplish. They were both contributing, and Tom was the one who had to push this movie all the time and I think Dustin would acknowledge that. You keep slowly seeing the changes, as he becomes more emotionally attached to his brother.”

A Few Good Men

To A Few Good Men director Rob Reiner, there is just about nothing Tom Cruise can’t do as an actor, and so he was not at all surprised by the way he went toe-to-toe with Jack Nicholson in his prime during that electric courtroom scene.

“I’ll tell you something. He’s a great actor,” Reiner says. “I know in the last many years he has been doing his Mission: Impossible movies and different things. It seems every really good actor, whether it’s Chris Evans or Mark Ruffalo, they are all in these big action pictures. The thing Tom used to do is, he used to balance that out. I would love to see him do some things that aren’t the franchise films. I’d seen him do things like Taps , Risky Business , and I never worried about him going up against Nicholson because Tom has an incredible work ethic. At that time, I’d never met a young actor with as much dedication as he had to the process. He worked his ass off in rehearsals. He was not only on time, but early every day, and always had his lines nailed. Never had I seen a young actor with a work ethic like this guy. He may tell you behind the scenes that he was intimidated by Jack, but I never saw it.

“When Jack came and we had the first reading of the script, he came fully loaded to work, with a performance at the table. In a table read, you’re usually just kind of marking it. And when Jack got into his performance, it just sent a message to every other young actor. Kiefer Sutherland, Tom, Demi (Moore) and Kevin Bacon and Kevin Pollack, everybody involved knew, you better step up here. We’re not messing around. Tom was always right there with it. I would love to see him play more complex characters than the ones he’s doing now because people don’t realize how great an actor this guy is.”

The Outsiders

When Francis Ford Coppola adapted the S.E. Hinton novel The Outsiders , he wound up with a cast filled with the most promising young actors in the business, from Patrick Swayze to Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio and C. Thomas Howell. Cruise’s role was smaller by comparison, but Coppola had an inkling he might be special based on how the rest of the cast buzzed about how it was Cruise who got the starring role in Risky Business , while the rest of them were confined to ensemble work.

“It’s hard for me to remember that time since I was so focused on casting all of the boys’ roles, of which there were many,” Coppola says. “In those days, I was very experimental about the way I handled auditions. I felt strongly that everyone who showed up be given a chance to show their strengths, so we held them in an open arena where everyone was able to watch the other actors’ auditions for the same roles. The method was as new to them as it was for me. Through that process, I discovered a wealth of talent from which to choose. It’s the luck of the draw I guess, but certainly Tom more than justified his promise. Risky Business was a great showcase for him, and as I recall, he left our set a few days early in order to begin production on that film.”

What stood out to Coppola was the young actor’s openness to messing with what would become his signature thousand-watt smile, to fit the character.

“I was impressed by his willingness to go to extremes in creating a character,” Coppola says. “If the role called for a chipped tooth, he would willingly chip his tooth. He is also very athletic, which you can clearly see in the scene where he backflips off a car. He did not go light or easy in his commitment. I liked his look, and I liked his performance in Taps . He might have been suitable for the older brother role, except he was a little young compared to Patrick Swayze.

“I can’t say that I would have predicted [what was to come for Cruise] at the time, but back when we worked together, he did impress me as a very committed actor with many gifts. Certainly, the incident of the self-inflicted chip in his tooth is an example of his whole-hearted commitment to character.”

Born on the Fourth of July

Oliver Stone badly wanted to tell the story of wounded Vietnam vet Ron Kovic’s transformation from gung-ho soldier to anti-war protester, and each time the film faltered, he could feel it crush the film’s subject. “I had written it with Al Pacino in mind,” Stone says. The movie fell apart when Pacino dropped out, and the project languished for years. Until Cruise sparked to it. The actor was coming off a string of hits that included Risky Business , Cocktail , Top Gun and Rain Man . He was the brightest young superstar in the business and used that clout to empower a picture that allowed him to test his acting mettle in a new way.

“I was broken hearted, and Ron was a basket case,” Stone says. “I said to Ron, ‘If I ever get the chance, I’ll come back and do it.’ Platoon opened up the world for me, and it was either Charlie Sheen or Paula Wagner who suggested Tom Cruise, who was her client. I had met with Tom, and he liked Platoon so much. Maybe no one was going to give the performance as Kovic that I’d seen Al Pacino do in rehearsals, but Tom had other qualities. He was the right age, he looked far younger [than Pacino] and he worked his ass off prior to rehearsal. He hung out with Ron Kovic for a few weeks, going around L.A. in a wheelchair and getting the moves down, getting the mentality down. Ron was such an enthusiastic teacher and Tom took everything he could and kind of fell in love with Ron in a way that he absorbed him into his performance. And they stayed in touch for many, many years.”

Stone says the shoot was grueling, but Cruise was game. “We started the film overseas in the Philippines, where Platoon was made, and for Tom and everyone else, it was a very tough shoot because of the subject matter. I remember the scenes in the hospital being especially difficult, but Tom stuck through it. I was not surprised because I saw his dedication. Tom is a person with a tremendous willpower and once he committed to the role, he really committed.”

Stone says he wondered if Cruise was saying yes to anything the director asked. “In the early scenes, I was worried because I hadn’t seen him wrestle,” Stone says. “He tells me, ‘I can wrestle.’ Well, I’ve been told that kind of thing by a lot of actors, and when you get there on the day of the shoot, when you have no f*cking time to adjust, you find out they can’t wrestle. So, I’m worried. He said, ‘Just trust me. Don’t put pressure on me, I put pressure enough on myself.’ And sure enough, he actually wrestled very well. So never doubt Tom Cruise, I suppose is the lesson.”

Minority Report

For a young actress playing a difficult role as a precognitive woman in the Spielberg-directed Minority Report , measuring up in a blockbuster can be a daunting task. For that reason, Samantha Morton says she often thinks of how much easier a difficult shoot became because of the film’s star.

“I suppose I didn’t fully appreciate how rare Tom was, but now having been in the industry so long, he’s incredibly rare,” Morton says. “Not only is he unbelievably professional, and at a time when a lot of very famous men around me were not being very professional, he was unbelievably generous to me as an actor and as a creative person in that space. And it wasn’t fake or false in a kind of job way. He is genuinely one of the nicest, kindest people I’ve ever worked with, and I cherish those memories of that experience because the job itself was very tough.”

“Mr. Spielberg was incredibly kind and supportive and they made me raise my game because they believed in me. When an actor of his caliber is on set, oftentimes those individuals can be all about the self, and here’s the opposite of that. Because of (Tom), it was, ‘What do we need to make us better?’

“I was 22 when I worked with him, and I didn’t have a huge wealth of knowledge in regards to his cinema history at the time, and I was just there to get my job done. I’ve since seen how exceptional his body of work is. He’s insanely talented and continues to be so, and I have more praise for him as the years go by. He wasn’t being like that because he had to, back then, it was just how he is.”

Morton mentions Cruise sending a coffee truck on a particularly trying day. “People do that now, but nobody did that stuff back then,” she says. “My character was always very emotional and vulnerable. And maybe I was being a bit too method for my own good at the time. But there were scenes where the character couldn’t walk, and he physically carried me all through this shopping mall because I wasn’t taking my own weight. I said, ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry,’ after I don’t know how many takes of the scene. He just smiled. A lot of other actors would have moaned, said something to the director who would have come back and said, ‘Is there any way Sam can just walk on this take?’ Not Tom. And I can tell you, his generosity and exuberance were contagious.”

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How Tom Cruise — and other Hollywood actors — have become heroes in real life

By Albert Nerenberg, Host/Director, You Are What You Act

In 1998, Rita Simmonds was violently attacked by two men as she sat in her car on a London street. She screamed as they ripped jewellery from her fingers and ears. Tom Cruise, who just happened to be down the street with his bodyguards, ran over. The muggers took off when they heard the actor’s footsteps. “Tom was brilliant,” Simmonds later told the press. This wasn’t the first time Cruise was a real-life hero. He’s sprung into action many times before; he came to the aid of a Santa Monica woman after a hit and run , he helped rescue a family from a burning boat in the south of France and he even rescued a man who had fallen down and was being crushed by his own paparazzi.

I can’t say I’m a Tom Cruise fan. But it’s hard not to be impressed by his involvement in many heroic rescues since he starred in the action-based Mission Impossible series.

Tom Cruise isn’t the only Hollywood star to become a hero in real life.

Harrison Ford came to the rescue of a stranded hiker in his helicopter — twice. Clint Eastwood saved a golfer from choking on a piece of cheese. Kate Winslet helped drag Richard Branson’s mother out of a burning building after it was hit by lightning. Jamie Foxx smashed a window and pulled a man out of a burning overturned truck when it caught fire in front of his home. Ryan Gosling saved a British tourist from being run over by a cab in New York City. 

If you’re in trouble, you might just want an actor nearby.

Of course, regular people perform rescues too. They just don’t have publicists to broadcast it to the world. Newspaper accounts suggest that off-duty firemen, cops and paramedics rescue a disproportionate number of people. And the reason why is simple: because they practice. In their jobs, they move towards danger, where most of us might go the other way.

Could the same principle apply to actors? And, if so, can anyone become more heroic through practice?

MORE: Happiness, love, confidence: Can you act your way to a better life? “I can make just about anyone fall in love,” claims American psychologist

During my research for the documentary You Are What You Act , I learned that while many movie stars play heroes, only some perform heroic acts in public. It turns out that actors, like Cruise, Ford, Winslet and Gosling, who perform real-life rescues do their own stunts on the set.

There’s an emerging field of science, called embodied cognition, that might explain why. The theory suggests that acting can prime the body for certain behaviours. Acting brave might cause someone to be more likely to become brave in real life.

American psychologist Philip Zimbardo recently coined the term “heroic imagination.” People who have an image of what they can do in a crisis are more likely to take action when a situation demands it.

There’s another factor that may separate these actors from the rest of us — they are “embodied”. They work by day with their bodies: They run.  They work out. They emote. It might be that just the act of using their bodies is empowering.

So, if courage can come with practice, what about other states like confidence, happiness and even love? You Are What You Act explores all of these possibilities.

One night last January in Montreal, I left the edit suite with my mind swimming with scenes from the documentary. The sky was black and just as rush hour hit, rain began to pour.

I arrived at an intersection when I saw two women struggling to cross the street against rain through chaotic traffic. Suddenly a white SUV veered around the corner and rammed into them. The car threw them across the pavement onto their backs.

Suddenly I found myself out of the car and standing in the rain. I was the first to arrive. One lady, in her 70s, was lying in the middle lane of the boulevard and as I looked down the road I could see bus barreling towards us.

“Are you ok?” I yelled over the angry honking of cars.  “I think so,” she said.

You can’t stay here,” I heard myself say. In the darkness, the visibility was poor.

She nodded. “Are you ok to get up?” I asked watching the bus get closer.

“Yes,” she said. Another person arrived and within seconds we had carried her to the sidewalk. Her companion bundled her up just as the ambulance was arriving.

I’m not sure why I acted. I could have stayed in my car like most people at that intersection that night. But it might have had something to do with the pictures in my head.

Learn more, watch You Are What You Act.  

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You Are What You Act

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Tom Cruise facts: Top Gun actor's age, films, marriages, children, net worth and more revealed

4 May 2023, 13:45

Tom Cruise has been one of Hollywood's leading names for over nearly forty years.

Tom Cruise is an American actor who is the fifth-highest-grossing (as of 2023) film actor of all time as well as one of the highest-paid actors in cinema.

He has appeared in some of the biggest film franchises ever like Top Gun and its sequel Top Gun: Maverick (which is his highest-grossing film to date), the Mission Impossible film series, as well as other blockbusters such as Jerry Maguire , Minority Report , Interview With A Vampire , A Few Good Men , The Last Samurai , War Of The Worlds, Days Of Thunder, Cocktail and Jack Reacher .

• Tom Cruise fought for 'wingman' Val Kilmer to star in Top Gun sequel after his battle with cancer
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Cruise became a Hollywood lead during the 1980s with stand-out performances in films like Rain Man , The Color Of Money , and Born on the Fourth of July .

Although he is well-known for his roles in action movies, Tom Cruise has also been nominated for four Academy Awards throughout his career, though he hasn't won any.

Cruise has been a member of the controversial Church of Scientology since converting in the 2000s, and has advocated for the organisation as it helped him to overcome his dyslexia.

Risky Business Original Glasses Dance Scene (Mandela FX)

How old is Tom Cruise and when was he born?

Tom Cruise was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York. In 2023, he will turn 61 years old.

His father Thomas Cruise Mapother III was an electrical engineer and his mother Mary Lee was a special education teacher. They both originated from Louisville, Kentucky so Cruise and his three sisters (Lee Anne, Marian, and Cass) were brought up as Catholic.

One of his cousins, William Mapother is also an actor and has appeared alongside Cruise in five of his films.

He once described his father as "a merchant of chaos" as he was a violent bully who would beat Tom Cruise and his siblings.

How did Tom Cruise get his start in acting?

Tom Cruise moved around frequently during his youth due to his father's work, and attended 15 different schools in 14 years.

After falling in love with acting during his youth, Cruise eventually moved to New York City to pursue a career in the profession, then onwards to Los Angeles.

He was cast in several small roles shortly after his move, but it wasn't until he was cast in Francis Ford Coppola's 'Generation X' cult classic The Outsiders (which featured young stars like Patrick Swayze , Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Emilio Estevez) that he began gaining notoriety.

His big break came when he was cast in the iconic comedy-drama Risky Business which subsequently became a cult phenomenon and surprise box office hit, which is still regarded as one of the defining films of the 1980s.

What are Tom Cruise’s biggest films?

Top Gun (1986) Official Trailer - Tom Cruise Movie

- Mission Impossible (series)

- A Few Good Men

- Risky Business

- The Last Samurai

- Jerry Maguire

- The Color Of Money

- Born on the Fourth of July

- Top Gun: Maverick

Is Tom Cruise married?

Tom Cruise is not currently married. He divorced his third wife Katie Holmes in 2012.

He was also married twice before, first to actress Mimi Rogers from 1987-1990, and then to actress Nicole Kidman from 1990-2001 who he appeared alongside films like Days Of Thunder and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut .

Does Tom Cruise have any children?

Tom Cruise has three children. He shares his only son Connor and eldest daughter Isabella with his ex-wife, Nicole Kidman who adopted the pair when they were married.

He also has a biological daughter, Suri, who he had with ex-wife Katie Holmes.

Cruise is notoriously private about his children and his relationship with them, although it's been repeatedly reported that he is estranged from his three kids.

What is Tom Cruise’s net worth?

JERRY MAGUIRE - Show Me the Money - MATHEMATICS in the MOVIES

Tom Cruise's reported net worth is $620 million.

Are there any other facts we should know about Tom Cruise?

Tom Cruise loses his mind on Oprah - Original Video - Hilarious!! - Celeburbia.com

The Hollywood action hero got his Hollywood teeth before he became a leading man, getting braces fitted before his career properly kicked off after being cast in Ridley Scott's fantasy film Legend .

Cruise was reportedly touted to play Neo in The Matrix film franchise before it went to Keanu Reeves , and similarly with the role of Iron Man before Robert Downey Jr was cast as the lead.

Executives at Disney wanted to likeness of Aladdin to resemble Tom Cruise as they said it'd make the character more likeable.

After his turn in Risky Business (and the iconic improvised dance scene) Cruise was credited with saving the sunglasses brand Ray-Ban from going under due to the renewed popularity the film gave the frames.

He participates in most of - if not all of - his stunts in movies, and has a gruelling regime to keep him prepared. When asked about how he keeps fit Cruise replied with: "Sea-kayaking, caving… fencing, treadmill, weights… rock-climbing, hiking… I jog… I do so many different activities."

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The Untold Truth Of Tom Cruise

When Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , as his folks called him, appeared alongside fellow young guns Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, and Ralph Macchio in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Outsiders" in 1983, few would have earmarked the 21-year-old for world-beating success. His bit part as greaser Steve Randle was pedestrian at best. Yet in his next film, "Risky Business," Cruise pulled out all the stops in his first lead role. This laid the foundation stone for a career that would see him take off into the stratosphere like an F14 Tomcat. Three years later, Cruise became a household name thanks to his career-defining role as the troubled but lovable rouge Maverick in "Top Gun." A star was born and it's been lighting up the hills of Hollywood like a champagne supernova ever since.

Fast forward to three Golden Globes, three Academy Award nominations, and a portfolio of record-breaking blockbuster films later, and one of the world's highest-paid actors is pretty much in cruise control. Yet behind that dazzling smile of porcelain perfection, the trademark shades, and the happy-go-lucky demeanor, there's always been a lot more to Cruise than meets the eye. His relationship with Scientology and his more bizarre public outbursts may have ruined a lesser celeb, but with Cruise, they just serve to make him more star-like. If you're going to go Mach 2 with your hair on fire, you might as well do it in style. It's time to throw caution to the wind, buzz the tower, and fly right into the calm at the center of the storm that is the untold truth of Tom Cruise.

Cruise attended a lot of different schools and was bullied regularly

Starting a new school is a big deal for any young and impressionable kid. Learning to cope in a new environment, making new friends, fitting in, sussing out the bullies, and assessing the lay of the land is pretty exhausting stuff. Yet imagine having to attend 13 different schools when growing up? Tom Cruise did and all that adapting to being the new kid on the block must have left its mark on his character! In an interview with Roger Ebert , Cruise confessed that his early life lacked stability. He was born in Syracuse and lived in various cities in America and Canada. During third, fourth, and fifth grade, he attended Robert Hopkins Public School in Ottawa. His time in sixth grade was spent at Henry Munro Middle school where his resilience, determination, and competitive character manifested themselves in his talent for floor hockey and athletics.

He later became a football linebacker in high school but, after he was caught downing beer before a game, the coach called time on his burgeoning career. Cruise has revealed that his family's financial status and habit of continually relocating led to him being bullied when young. He said that he was mocked by the other kids because of his accent, his shoes, and pretty much everything else. After a stint at seminary school in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cruise finally graduated from Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey, with a strong interest in acting that had been blossoming like a promising bloom since the fourth grade.

He was diagnosed as a dyslexic aged 7

When Cruise finally closed the door on his academic life in 1980, according to People , he described himself as a "functional illiterate." Cruise explained, "When I was about 7 years old, I had been labeled dyslexic. I'd try to concentrate on what I was reading, then I'd get to the end of the page and have very little memory of anything I'd read. I would go blank, feel anxious, nervous, bored, frustrated, and dumb. I would get angry." Throughout school and well into his career, Cruise said he felt like he was harboring a secret. He explained how his head ached and his legs hurt when he attempted to study and was desperate to keep his dyslexia hidden with every new school he attended.

As an aspiring actor, Cruise's frustration with his condition reached boiling point. Reading scripts and memorizing lines was the bread and butter of his craft, but it was something his dyslexia prevented him from mastering. Cruise compensated for his inability to read scripts cold at auditions by getting the director to talk about the character and winging it. "I got pretty good at ad-libbing," he revealed. Yet he could only carry on flying by the seat of his pants for so long because in his own words, "the trapdoor was going to open up and that would be it." Cruise credits his introduction to Scientology during the release of "Top Gun" in 1986 as the remedy to his dyslexia. He states he finally learned to read through Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's Study Technology learning method.

Cruise described his dad as an abusive bully

Tom Cruise told Parade (via the Irish Examiner ) that his father, Thomas Cruise Mapother III was a "bully and coward" and "a merchant of chaos." Cruise added that his father, who was an electrical engineer, caused him a great deal of anxiety during his formative years. He explained, "He was the kind of person where if something goes wrong they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life — how he'd lull you in, make you feel safe, and then, bang."

Cruise states he grew up not trusting his father and treading extremely carefully around a guy he thought had something wrong with him. In 1974, when Cruise was 12, his mother Mary Lee divorced his dad. Cruise's mother and her children left Canada and returned to the United States, where she married Cruise's stepfather Jack South. Cruise didn't see his father again until 10 years later, when the man was dying of cancer in the hospital. The elder Cruise would only meet his son on the provision that the younger Cruise didn't ask him anything about the past. The actor agreed and recalled, "When I saw him in pain, I thought, 'Wow, what a lonely life.' He was in his late 40s. It was sad."

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services .

Tom's world-famous teeth have their own story to tell

If there's one thing Tom Cruise is famous for, apart from his acting chops, it's his teeth. Cruise's pearly whites aren't that of the average Joe — they have a life of their own in their dazzling, world-conquering brilliance. However, according to Closer , if you study photos of Cruise's teeth closely, you'll notice they are not perfectly aligned with the center of his face. His right front tooth juts out of position somewhat and is often branded his "middle tooth."

Not that this imperfection will bother Cruise any. The actor messed up his front tooth in high school when it chipped during a hockey match from a wayward puck. He later removed the cap for his part in "The Outsiders" to portray a character with a less than a wholesome smile. Yet according to co-star Patrick Swayze (per Stuff ), Cruise was extremely self-conscious about his teeth at the time, to the point he turned down magazine photoshoots. Whatever concerns Cruise may have had about his teeth were laid to rest for good in 2001. In the wake of his split from Nicole Kidman, Closer reports that Cruise decided to fix his overbite and misalignment issues with some braces.

He once wanted to be a priest

Father Tom has something of a ring to it, and perhaps some amongst us would be confessing our sins to Priest Mapother IV if Cruise has followed his first calling and become a man of the cloth. Yet God's loss is Hollywood's gain. According to  The Daily News , Cruise applied to attend Cincinnati's St Francis Seminary School on the advice of Father Ric Schneider, who explained, "With his parents going through a divorce, it was tough on him, that's maybe one of the reasons why he came here." The teenage Tom scored 110 on the IQ entry test and just gained admission by the skin of his teeth. Cruise showed particular promise in the school's drama club, but according to his friend Shane Dempler, the pair of them both heard the spirit calling and were preparing for a life in the priesthood.

Dempler told The Daily News, "We thought the priests had a great lifestyle and we were really interested in the priesthood." Yet the hand of the unseen works in mysterious ways and although he possessed a strong Catholic faith, Cruise was a teenage boy and prone to all the antics that attract teenagers like honey to bees. Drinking alcohol and cutting loose wasn't exactly condoned by the school. Subsequently, when Cruise and his mate stole some booze from the monks and made merry, it didn't sit well with the powers that be. Dempler alleges that the seminary asked their parents to withdraw them both and the dream of becoming priests turned to dust.

His acting career was born from a wrestling injury

After deciding that saying "Hail Mary" a lot, continually crossing himself, and rocking a predominantly black wardrobe wasn't for him, Tom Cruise appeared to decide that rolling about on the floor and grunting a lot was where it was at. In other words, he became a wrestler. The Daily Mail reports that during his tenure at New Jersey's Glen Ridge High School, Cruise earned a solid rep as a teenage wrestler who could grapple, pin, and showboat with the best of them. Cruise is renowned as an action man who likes to get stuck in and it all began on the wrestling mat. His former wrestling captain, Tom Jarret aka TJ, explained that Cruise had a tough time arriving at the school from Kentucky as a fresh-faced 15-year-old, and so he channeled his aggression into wrestling.

TJ told The Daily Mail, "He had times when he was struggling to be accepted. With wrestling, you made your own mark. He deserves all his success. He was always a real go-getter, but a good guy. I've not got a bad word to say about Tom." Interestingly, TJ's father didn't have a good word to say about Cruise and once told his son, "Stop hanging out with that guy. He's not doing anything with his life." It was whilst recovering from a wrestling injury that Cruise decided to take a punt on an audition for "Guys and Dolls." Cruise landed a key role in the high-school musical and it convinced him that religion and sport were all well and good, but it was on the stage where his true destiny lay.

He performs his own stunts

When it comes to playing men of action, such as special agent Ethan Hunt from the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, Cruise likes to walk it like he talks it and go all in. Leaping through plate glass windows and riding motorcycles off cliffs is all in a day's work for Cruise, who loves performing his own stunts. The thought of not going out on a limb is more terrifying than breaking one for Cruise, who busted up his ankle performing an action sequence on the set of "Mission: Impossible — Fallout." As a huge box-office draw who also does his own stunts, Cruise is the last of a dying breed. Cruise's stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood told Men's Journal  that the actor relishes the role because, "He loves making these films, and he wants the audience to love them as well."

Eastwood explains that, although many actors will brag about how capable they are behind the wheel of a supercar, they fall to pieces once they're in the hot seat and struggle to even shift gears. Yet he believes Cruise was born to live in the fast lane and said, "His skills levels are through the roof. He is incredibly capable. He can do it all. When we are doing these stunts with Tom, we are not just talking about a fast pull away. This is a level that requires a lot of talent, more than I would say any other actor has. He is almost to the point where he is dangerously good."

He strictly forbids Tom Cruise figurines or video games

When you possess the sort of face that is instantly recognizable the world, one capable of selling everything from souvenir china to novelty t-shirts, it's only natural that people will want to exploit your likeness for a quick buck. Yet, don't expect that to happen on Tom Cruise's watch. The actor with the face that has launched multi-million dollar box office successes in succession is allegedly strictly adamant that his likeness will not appear in any video games. Nor will he allow it to appear on the tiny and somewhat unsettling faces of figurines that come in plastic packaging.

MTV News reports that the NES "Top Gun" game released in 1987, and the "Mission: Impossible" game were created without Cruise's likeness in pixels or on the cover art. In the "Minority Report" game released in 2002, Cruise's character is blond and looks a million miles removed from the actor. The reason why Cruise has not capitalized on his world-famous looks has never been properly explained. His agent has always declined to comment on his client's decision and Cruise has learned long ago that the motto of "never apologize, never explain" carries its own weight in free publicity. So if you're holding out for a Tom Cruise doll this holiday season, forget about it!

In Japan, they have a Tom Cruise Day

You know you've finally arrived on the world stage when a country names a day in your honor. It's the sort of accolade that money just can't buy, but being a Hollywood actor definitely can, just ask Tom Cruise! Hollywood.com reports that "The Last Samurai" star was awarded his special day in Japan because of his close ties and long-term affection for the country. Cruise has visited the Land of the Rising Sun more than any other actor and always ensures he has time to share with his legion of adoring fans. Digital Spy reports that The Japanese Memorial Day Association chose to allocate October 10 as "Tom Cruise Day" in 2006 because of the actor's "love for and close association with Japan."

According to the Filipino Japanese Journal , Cruise made his 23rd visit to Japan in 2018 to promote "Mission: Impossible — Fallout." At a press conference, he revealed the love Japan has for him is no one-way street. He enthused, "It's so great to be back in Japan. It's just amazing to me. I feel very at home here. It's always fast (my trips) but thank you for the warm smile this evening, for the lovely gifts, and always for the wonderful conversations. I'm very honored. Thank you."

Cruise allegedly uses a strange concoction for his youthful good looks

He once played immortal bloodsucker Lestat de Lioncourt in "Interview With The Vampire." However, Tom Cruise's secret behind his permanently youthful good looks isn't the drinking of blood. He has extremely focused nutrition and training plan — with, allegedly, a little help from a good old-fashioned bird droppings.  Men's Health reports that Cruise credits weightlifting, sea-kayaking, treadmill, rock-climbing, caving, and a whole host of other activities to stay in shape and keep the ravages of father time from his door. Sports scientist Anne Elliott explained, "Regularly switching up cardio and strength work with something like fencing or climbing – like Cruise – maintains flexibility and balance: the first two things that give your age away."

An anonymous source supposedly near Cruise told NOW Magazine (via  The Daily Mail ) that the secret to Cruise's glowing complexion and radiant skin is an expensive spa treatment that has its origins in nightingale droppings. The source claims that Cruise shuns botox and surgery, but he does have a soft spot for natural treatments, like the kind that can be found in the excrement of our feathered friends. Adherents of the unusual treatment claim that it works as an exfoliant to extract the dirt and leave one's face feeling shiny and bright.

Cruise is a real-life Maverick

Looking effortlessly cool on a Kawasaki Ninja ZX900, and giving the 'bird' to a MiG whilst flying inverted are just some of the reasons why audiences fell in love with Tom Cruise's character in "Top Gun." His manifold issues with authority, terrible karaoke performances, and flair in a cockpit won a watching world over. "Maverick" is a larger-than-life character who knows his way around a joystick-like nobody's business. Yet there is more than just a dash and splash of Cruise in this fictional hero of the skies.

The actor has been in love with the idea of flying jets since he was young, but it wasn't until he appeared in "Top Gun" in 1986 that he gave serious thought to getting his pilot license. In 1994 he received his wings and in a subsequent interview with Wired revealed he was a multi-engine instrument-rated commercial pilot. In plain speak that means Cruise could legally fly you anywhere in the world in a plane or helicopter. In "Top Gun: Maverick," Cruise lives the dream and flies some of the jets in the movie. Yet it's not the first time Cruise has been airborne on the big screen. In "American Made," and "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" he does some crazy things in a helicopter. According to World War Wings , Cruise also owns a World War II fighter, P-51 Mustang a $20M Gulfstream with its own jacuzzi and movie room. Beat that, Mav!

Cruise once saved a woman from being mugged in London

It must be hard for actors to live up to some of the heroic characters they play on the big screen. Yet Tom Cruise came close to being a real-life Ethan Hunt when he chased down a gang of muggers who were in the act of trying to part a lady with $153,000 of her jewelry. The Scottish Daily Record reports that when Cruise's neighbor, Rita Simmonds, arrived outside of her $8 million London home she was approached by two unsavory characters. They pulled the door of her Porsche open and attempted to drag her to the curb in front of her two-year-old daughter Sophie, who was sitting in the back. One of the assailants screamed, "Give us your jewelry, or we will kill you." The man then proceeded to beat her, whilst the other attempted to rip the jewelry from her person.

Rita Simmonds cried for help, and her pleas caught the ears of none other than Cruise who dashed out of his Regent's Park apartment. Flanked by his bodyguards, Cruise charged down the road, chasing off the muggers and saving the day. Rita Simmonds explained, "Tom was brilliant. He rushed down the road with his bodyguards and chased the attackers away." When asked about the mugging, a spokesperson for Cruise explained, "He does not want to talk about this. He does like to help people but he likes to keep it quiet."

Cruise almost played Iron Man

Visualizing anyone else in the role of Tony Stark whose name isn't Robert Downey Jr seems like blasphemy. It's not easy to be cool and witty whilst flying around in a constricting tin suit but Robert Downey Jr does it with aplomb and a flair that's tough to beat. Nevertheless, it would have been interesting to see what dynamic Tom Cruise would have brought to the role of the billionaire arms dealer with questionable facial hair. The Indian Express reports that Marvel Studios had earmarked Cruise as the first choice to play Iron Man. They believed he was a lot more of a box-office draw than Downey Jr. Yet Cruise turned down the opportunity to ignite the Marvel cinematic universe because he didn't think the role would work.

Cruise explained, "If I commit to something, it has to be done in a way that I know it's gonna be something special. And as it was lining up it just didn't feel to me like it was gonna work." Cruise later added that no one but Downey Jr could have done the character justice. "Iron Man" director Jon Favreau battled studio executives hard for Downey to play the role, claiming the actor would effortlessly connect with a character who shared a similar redemption story.

Disney used Cruise's image as the prototype for Aladdin

Tom Cruise's portrayal of Maverick in "Top Gun" made such a powerful impression on many in the audience that it led to an upsurge in recruitment for the U.S. Navy. It also triggered a massive 40 percent sales increase for Aviator sunglasses . Yet perhaps its strangest legacy was how the character of Maverick was the inspiration for Walt Disney's animated version of "Aladdin." People report that Disney president Jeffrey Katzenberg was so taken with Cruise's portrayal of the charismatic pilot with attitude that he urged his animators to capture the essence of what made him tick and bring it to life in Disney's forthcoming cartoon.

Photos of Cruise were draped everywhere in the studio for illustrators to take inspiration from. Animator Glen Keane explained to The Los Angles Times , "In all Cruise's poses, I noticed there was a confidence, a look in the eyebrows, that gives him intensity and at the same time a smile that has a kind of impish look like he's got something up his sleeve." In tribute to Cruise, Aladdin was blessed with a "straight-off-the-forehead nose."

He gives chosen celebs a Cruise Cake every Xmas

Being a good pal of Tom Cruise might get you a white chocolate coconut bundt cake delivered by private jet every Christmas. Yahoo! reports that close friends of the big-hearted actor can expect a little something extra in their stocking and it's full of creamy goodness and very nice to eat. Chosen celebs who receive the signature item from Doan's Bakery in Woodland Hills, California, are unanimous in singing its praises. Jimmy Fallon brands it "unbelievable." Henry Cavill positively gushes when he calls it, "the most decadent, the most amazing cake." And Kirsten Dunst wastes no time in calling it "one of the best cakes I've ever had." Such is the power of the "Cruise Cake," celebs fall over one another to stay on Tom's nice list.

Cruise rarely consumes sugar himself and so, "I send cakes to everyone and I wait for the calls." When the recipients call to express their delight, Cruise said, "I'm like: Tell me about it!" According to The Guardian , Cruise was introduced to the cake by Diane Keaton. He was instantly converted. Having once spent three days straight eating chocolate cake as a young actor until he was violently sick, Cruise is partial to a nice sponge, but the white chocolate coconut bundt was like nothing he had ever experienced before. It was kind of an eureka moment, and for years he has made it his business to spread the word and send them to famous faces all over the world.

When each one of Tom Cruise's three wives turned 33, he left them

The innocence of chance and the fickle hand of fate land lead to some strange symmetries in everyone's life. Take Tom Cruise and the number 33 for example (via MammaMia ). When Katie Holmes, Nicole Kidman, and Mimi Rogers's marriage with Cruise came to an end, why were they all 33-years-of-age? Is it a bizarre coincidence or intriguing conspiracy? That's the question that has plagued Cruise fans for many a moon. Showbiz CheatSheet notes that Cruise's first wife, Mimi Rogers was responsible for introducing him to Scientology, and rumors abound that the Church of Scientology has been an unseen and silent bedfellow in the break-ups.

There's a theory noted by The Daily News that Cruise's divorces all have their basis on Scientology, which is not a rabbit hole we any sane person would wish to disappear into. Nevertheless, conspiracy theorists insist that because the number 33 has such a deep significance in Scientology, the age of each of Cruise's three wives at the time of their divorce cannot be ignored.  They also point out that Phoenix, Arizona, where the first Church of Scientology was founded, lies on a circle of latitude that lies 33 degrees from the Earth's equator and has been called the 33rd parallel. At best it's a loose connection, but it remains one of intrigue for those who delight in playing "connect the dots."

Cruise once lost it big time on the set of Mission: Impossible

Tom Cruise's no-holds-barred COVID-19 safety rant on the set of the seventh "Mission: Impossible" movie was a welcome slice of behind-the-scenes Hollywood honesty. As anger-fueled rants that could turn the air blue with their sheer savagery and cuss words, it was right up there with Christian Bale's torrid dressing-down of the director of photography on the set of "Terminator Salvation." Only the hardest heart would not find a sliver of joy in listening to an A-Lister having a huge meltdown on the job. It demonstrates quite poignantly that behind the most polished PR job and promotional campaign lies a human heart that beats with the same frustrations and foibles as the rest of us.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Cruise barked, "I am beyond your apologies" to a few members of the crew he thought were violating COVID-19 protocols. He snarled, "We are not shutting this f****** movie down. Is it understood? If I see it again, you're f****** gone. And so are you." Some criticized Cruise for what they perceived as an exploitation of his power and for coming across as a control freak. Cruise later clarified that he was "very emotional" at the thought of the film's production being shut down again. He told Empire Magazine, "I said what I said. There was a lot at stake at that point. All these emotions were going through my mind. I was thinking about the people I work with and my industry."

Cruise has been accused of attempting to convert other celebs to Scientology

The New Zealand Herald reports that Cruise credits his success in Hollywood to Scientology . He told ITV in 2016, "It's something that has helped me incredibly in my life; I've been a Scientologist for over 30 years. It's something, you know, without it, I wouldn't be where I am. So it's a beautiful religion. I'm incredibly proud." The church was founded in the 1950s by sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard. It believes that individuals are not just the product of their environment or genes, but immortal spiritual beings with unlimited capabilities and experiences above and beyond a single lifetime.

Tom Cruise has long been a vocal advocate of Scientology. By at least one telling, Cruise attempted to convert Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen to the cause. Rogen recalled in an interview with Howard Stern (per Far Out Magazine ) that during a meeting with Cruise, Cruise said, "If you let me just tell what it was really about, if you let me, just give me like 20 minutes to really just tell you what it was about, you would say 'No f****** ing way." Feeling uncomfortable, Apatow managed to steer the conversation toward movies, and their conversion was forgotten.

Cruise isn't a big fan of antidepressants

As a Scientologist, Tom Cruise subscribes to a philosophy that frowns upon prescription pills and chemical substances that alter the brain's chemistry. People report that in 2005 this belief saw him lock horns with Brooke Shields over her use of antidepressants. In the aftermath of giving birth to her daughter Rowan in 2003, Shields battled with postpartum depression. She documented the struggle in her book "Down Came the Rain."

Although a fan of Shields, describing her as "an incredibly talented woman," Cruise criticized the actress for her assertion that antidepressants cured her. He branded it as "irresponsible," and said, "When someone says medication has helped them, it is to cope, it didn't cure anything. There is nothing that can cure them whatsoever." Shields begged to differ and hit back at Cruis by stating, "Tom should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them."

His nice-guy image isn't just a solid PR campaign

Tom Cruise often comes across as the nice guy's nice guy. His everyman and easy-going demeanor almost appear too good to be true. Is it a bulletproof PR job or is Cruise actually one hell of a great guy? It's actions and not words that make a man, and judging by the long list of "Cruise to the rescue" stories in circulation, the guy is indeed, one rocksteady dude you'd want in your corner when things go south. Vulture reports that Crusie's good deeds are legion.

For example, Cruise one invited Zac Efron to his house just to teach him how to ride a motorcycle. Efron said, "It's just so cool he gave a s***, the fact that he cared at all. No one else did." Cruise also invited "Mummy" co-star Jake Johnson to his gym, the "pain cave," and got him in shape. 

Yet that's just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone who works with Cruise on set sings his praises. Stanley Kubrick once said, "You've never seen an actor more completely subservient and prostrate themselves at the feet of a director." It's not just other celebs he helps out. He once came to the rescue of a family whose sailboat went up in flames, and he paid the medical bills of an aspiring actress who was involved in a hit-and-run. 

Last but not least, no matter how busy he is on set, Cruise will always take his kids' calls, even if it means breaking from character.

Screen Rant

14 best tom cruise action movies (that aren't mission impossible), ranked.

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As the face of two of Hollywood's biggest franchises, Tom Cruise is one of the most prolific action movie stars in cinematic history. Cruise's recently released Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One became the highest-rated movie of the celebrated franchise which surprisingly seems to get better with each new film. Cruise has starred in 44 feature films to date since his career began with 1981's Endless Love . The upcoming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two will be the eighth film of Cruise's longest-standing franchise and will mark his 45th performance in a feature film.

Cruise has been in dozens of iconic movies from The Color of Money and Rain Man to A Few Good Men and Jerry Maguire but has surprisingly not won an Academy Award despite four nominations. Cruise even starred in Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut and Paul Thomas Anderson's cult classic Magnolia . Cruise has proven throughout his more than 50-year career that he is much more than an action franchise hero and was even credited by Steven Spielberg as the savior of Hollywood in 2022. At 61, the death-defying Cruise shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Here are his best action movies ranked from worst to best.

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14 The Mummy (2017)

The Mummy was bogged down by an uninspired screenplay and hollow action sequences generated by sloppy CGI, ultimately disappointing fans and critics alike. Not even Cruise's trademark charisma could bring The Mummy to life, which had meant to be the first installment of another major action franchise for Cruise. The 2017 version of The Mummy feigned in comparison to the over-the-top but enjoyable Branden Fraser movies and a rebooted franchise never found its footing.

13 Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)

The sequel to Christopher McQuarrie's 2012 Jack Reacher was under new direction with Cruise still in the leading titular role. Never Go Back technically makes the Jack Reacher movies collectively Cruise's third active franchise (fourth if you consider the potential of an Edge of Tomorrow 2 ). The Jack Reacher sequel is a solid action thriller that is arguably lacking in originality of character and plot, but fans of Cruise will find the film's flaws easy to overlook.

12 Knight And Day (2010)

Knight and Day combines elements of action, comedy, and romance and is held up by the onscreen chemistry of Cruise and costar Cameron Diaz. With a surprisingly stacked cast including Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis, Gal Gadot, and Paul Dano, the potential for this film is seemingly sky-high but ultimately results in an inflated and lukewarm movie. Despite its stylish aesthetic, Knight and Day is ultimately a little too brainless and surface-level to elicit a positive response.

11 Days of Thunder (1990)

Days of Thunder stars Cruise as a NASCAR racer in an apparent attempt to bring his Top Gun energy into a new playing field under director Tony Scott. Paired with Hollywood heavy hitters Robert Duvall, Nicole Kidman, and John C. Reilly, Cruise is given all the fuel he needs to make another great protagonist worth rooting for. Despite suffering from a factory-setting screenplay, Cruise and Co. deliver high-octane energy that offers plenty of fast-paced thrills.

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10 Jack Reacher (2012)

The original Jack Reacher featured the directorial efforts of Christopher McQuarrie before he and Cruise paired up for the latter installments of the Mission: Impossible franchise. Jack Reacher is thoughtfully constructed and paced in what in many ways feels like a trial run of Rogue Nation and Fallout . Fans of the recent Mission: Impossible movies will likely find merit in the mystery action thriller.

9 Oblivion (2013)

What Oblivion lacks in identity, it makes up for in gorgeous cinematography and cinematic atmosphere. Backed by a cerebral dreamlike score by M83, Oblivion struggles to present itself fully, weaving in between moments of sci-fi action tropes and beautifully poetic visual storytelling. The stunning aesthetic alone makes Oblivion a fan-favorite for some who are drawn to the fantasy elements of the dystopic world.

8 The Last Samurai (2003)

The Last Samurai is one of Cruise's better action films in the truest sense, full of intensity in both emotion and adventure. The Last Samurai possesses a full-bodied approach that ultimately becomes an epic by veteran action-war director Edward Zwick. Zwick directed large-scale war films such as Glory , Legends of the Fall , and Courage Under Fire before The Last Samurai , one of Cruise's more serious drama films.

7 American Made (2017)

American Made feels like Cruise's contribution to a post- The Wolf of Wall Street Hollywood, placing it in a similar category as War Dogs and Billionaire Boys Club . Even with American Made claiming to be based on a true story, Cruise is able to make it a fun and slick action movie that is full of original twists and the actor's signature charm. American Made has a similar lightheartedness to Edge of Tomorrow , which Doug Liman also directed.

6 Top Gun (1986)

What more can be said about Top Gun that already hasn't been? It's perhaps the most famous Tom Cruise film ever made despite its handful of flaws and stereotypes. The movie is full of legendary moments and one-liners, cementing itself as one of the most quintessential American movies of all time. It's a relatively plotless movie that somehow works on many levels that are difficult to explain other than it's just extremely immersive and fun.

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5 War of the Worlds (2005)

War of the Worlds is one of Spielberg's best sci-fi action movies and one of his more gritty and bleak films. Both he and Cruise fully commit to the scale of the original story written by H. G. Wells which doesn't allow much room for their usual bag of tricks, making it an intensely compelling and at times terrifying film. Cruise is reduced to playing a helpless person rather than his typical action star, twisting the genre on its head and ironically producing one of Cruise's better action movies.

4 Minority Report (2002)

Minority Report was the first movie that Spielberg directed Cruise in, bringing the action star into a fictional future for the first time onscreen. Minority Report brings Cruise to new heights on several levels and largely acts as an evolution in his career into becoming a bonafide action star. Spielberg's direction legitimized Cruise as a dramatic actor with a complexity outside of his typical stuntwork and mannerisms, making it a classic in his filmography.

3 Collateral (2004)

Collateral is a sharp and mysterious action thriller that is built upon its great dialogue and the onscreen dynamic between Cruise and co-star Jamie Foxx. The Michael Mann-directed film is seeped in neo-noir influences and is masterfully paced, making Collateral an easy film to revisit for a guaranteed thrill. Cruise atypically plays a villain in the film, giving Collateral another reason why it's one of the actor's best in the genre.

2 Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

After one of the most confusing marketing campaigns in recent memory that made many believe the film's title was "Live. Die. Repeat.", Edge of Tomorrow emerged as one of the most original and enjoyable Tom Cruise action films. The Groundhog Day scenario is given a compelling update in this easily consumable sci-fi movie that was an unlikely action-mystery film disguised as a major blockbuster.

1 Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

After the enormous impact of Top Gun: Maverick at the 2022 box office, there's little question that it is Cruise's best action movie ever. While some of the latter installments of the Mission: Impossible franchise are certainly on par with the scope and scale of Maverick , the Top Gun sequel not only outperformed the original by a long shot, but it was also a better movie in just about every way. Top Gun: Maverick could have been a total letdown but ultimately delivered exactly at the right time, making it Tom Cruise's best action film.

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The Golden Age of the Aging Actor

Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ isn’t the exception—he’s the rule. There’s long been anecdotal evidence that top-line actors and actresses are getting older. Now, The Ringer has the data to back it up.

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Like its predecessor, Top Gun: Maverick is a movie about sweaty beach sports , awkward sex scenes , and dogfights with enemies of uncertain national origin . More so than the original, though, it’s also about aging. Maverick, a trainee in Top Gun , is now an instructor, regarded as a fossil, an old-timer, the last of his kind. Tethered to the past, he’s told that he’s going to get grounded as the guard changes not just to the next generation of pilots, but to uncrewed drones. He teaches his students that “Time is your greatest enemy,” a lesson hammered home by his old frenemy Iceman’s struggle with cancer. “It’s time to let go,” Iceman informs him. “I don’t know how,” Maverick replies.

All of this seems to make the movie a metaphor for film stardom. Tom Cruise, who first played Maverick when he was 23 and reprises the role in his late 50s, is a household name who hails from an era when there was such a thing, and when people, not IPs, were the biggest box-office attractions; he’s “Hollywood’s Last Real Movie Star,” as a recent New York Times feature dubbed him, or “The Last Action Hero,” as Ringer contributor Noah Gittell did . It may be true that Cruise’s kind of big-screen (or any -screen) star is “headed to extinction,” to borrow a phrase from Maverick’s boss, rear admiral Chester Cain (Ed Harris). But even if, as Cain says, “the end is inevitable,” Hollywood hasn’t let go of aging actors just yet. In fact, it’s clinging ever more tightly to them.

In the past 20 years—and particularly the last 10 to 15—the average age of actors appearing toward the top of the bill in film and TV projects has risen significantly. Whereas the star, or the top two or three stars, of the typical movie or TV series released in the closing decades of the 20th century was typically in their late 30s—several years older than the median age of the United States population at the time—today’s average actor age has reached the mid-40s and is steadily climbing toward 50. Actors who became fixtures on big screens and small in previous decades haven’t given way to new blood as quickly as was once customary. As a result, Hollywood’s leading men and women of today bear a strong resemblance to the leading men and women from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s after a trip to the beach from Old —except, of course, for the fact that actors like Cruise (who’ll turn 60 next week) don’t always look their age. The graying of actors—the ones with their natural hair colors, at least—appears to be the product of a confluence of factors that reflect the fracturing of culture in the post-monoculture age, the industry’s gravitation toward franchises and sequels, shifts in audience demographics, efforts to promote more inclusive casting, and a growing range of options for maintaining a more youthful appearance.

Top Gun: Maverick features 50-somethings Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, and Jon Hamm; 62-year-old Val Kilmer; and 71-year-old Ed Harris. The movie also makes space for a smattering of 30-somethings, led by Miles Teller, Glen Powell, and Jay Ellis (who turned 40 after filming finished), but the oldsters are the stars. Audiences have happily turned out to see them: The movie opened big at the box office over Memorial Day weekend, and its appeal has proved resilient in subsequent weeks. The movie has surpassed a cumulative gross of $500 million domestically and $1 billion worldwide, and although COVID concerns kept many older film watchers away from theaters during the peak of the pandemic, 55 percent of people who bought tickets to Top Gun in its opening weekend were over 35.

In this era, the average age of Top Gun ’s top two actors hardly stands out. Consider the duos associated with other recent, high-profile releases such as Coming 2 America (Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall) or Only Murders in the Building (Steve Martin and Martin Short); the aged (and sometimes digitally de-aged) ensembles of The Irishman or the just-concluded Grace and Frankie ; or the leads of Star Trek: Picard (Patrick Stewart) or Hacks (Jean Smart). The Taylor Sheridanverse that’s taking over TV features lead actors who range from their 50s to their late 70s: Kevin Costner, Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Renner. Heck, an increasing percentage of movies have had “Old” in their titles: Not only Old , but also All of the Old Knives , The Old Way , and Old Henry , just since the start of 2021. On TV, there’s the almost too on-the-nose The Old Man , the new FX/Hulu series featuring 72-year-old Jeff Bridges and 76-year-old John Lithgow.

Granted, aged actors gracing the screen is not a new phenomenon, and neither is naming movies and TV shows with the word “Old.” (Old Yeller was only five years old , but the Grumpy —and Grumpier —Old Men were getting up there.) However, our analysis of IMDb data shows that this apparent aging of actors isn’t just anecdotal. The graph below displays the average age (at time of release) of the top-listed actor, top two listed actors, and top three listed actors in movies produced since 1980 that have garnered at least 1,000 IMDb user ratings (a really low bar cleared by 3,000 to 4,000 movies per year worldwide, including streaming releases).

The same pattern appears in all three, as it does if we focus on more exclusive samples of movies with at least 10,000 IMDB user ratings (roughly 200 titles per year) …

… or non-animated movies released in theaters …

… or non-animated movies that made at least $10 million at the box office …

… or the top-grossing movie of each year.

As the average age of actors with prominent parts has soared, the fraction of movies in which at least one of the top two listed actors is over 60, and the fraction in which at least one is under 30, have correspondingly increased and declined, respectively:

And while the aging of male action stars—the Cruises, Craigs, Keanus, Neesons, and Stallones—is among the most visible manifestations of the trend, it seems to span multiple genres.

Recent releases have more missing birthdates on IMDb, as do younger actors, but that can’t skew the stats enough to account for these visuals. Essentially, actors who rose to prominence in past decades have yet to retire or be vaudeville hooked out of the frame, and the youngsters and understudies who might have been expected to succeed them haven’t really arrived the way their predecessors did. The chart below, a kind of aging curve for actors, shows how prolific actors born in each of the 20th century’s five 20-year buckets collectively were as they aged. The most recent cohort, which would be in its early 20s to early 40s now, is on a much less productive trajectory than the generations born between 1940 and 1960 or between 1960 and 1980. (For reference, there are more movies made than ever now, across all platforms and even after limiting to 1,000 or more IMDb ratings, though there’s been a decrease in theatrical releases over the past decade, which began prior to the pandemic.)

The top two actors from the top-grossing movie of each year of the 1990s went on to appear in 185 movies from 2000 to 2009, and 129 from 2010 to 2019. The top two actors from the top-grossing movie of the 2000s went on to make only 101 movies from 2010 to 2019. So not only did the ’90s stars nearly double the next-decade output of the 2000s stars, but the ’90s stars were still more active two decades after their box-office heydays than the 2000s stars were one decade later. “There’s just greater longevity, frankly, of the people who are acting,” says Bruce Nash, founder of movie-industry database The Numbers . The most bankable actors, per his site’s current ranking , are Robert Downey Jr. and Sandra Bullock, both 57. But which is driving the trend: movie stars, or the movie business? Not to quash the suspense, but you know the drill: The answer is always “a bit of both.”

Ask industry sources, and you’ll get little pushback on the finding that lead actors, on average, are older than they used to be. (And not just in the sense that everyone who’s still living is older than they once were.) “People in Hollywood talk about this all the time,” says Matthew Belloni, founding partner and entertainment reporter at Puck (and host of Ringer show-business podcast The Town ). Nash adds, “It does certainly feel as though we do have that trend.” Casting director Mike Page confirms, “It definitely does track.” And Joshua Lynn, president of Piedmont Media Research , says, “It’s definitely true, you see the same names now that you did 15-to-20-plus years ago on the list of bankable stars.” The question is why this has happened—and on that topic, you’re liable to hear a range of responses.

One common hypothesis pins the blame for younger actors’ failure to reach the same heights of bankability on the decline of the monoculture. “The fracturization of the culture means it’s much more difficult to launch stars,” says Belloni. “You look at what’s going on with the Top Gun guys right now. In a previous generation, Miles Teller, Glen Powell, maybe Jay Ellis, those guys would all be stars that could be the center of their own movie now. But now, not really.” (Unless, that is, it’s a Marvel movie—but we’ll get to that.) As Page puts it, “It’s harder to establish these megastars now, because so few people are viewing the exact same content.”

In other words, actors of Cruise’s vintage, who came of age as actors and celebrities in a pre-internet age with fewer entertainment options and less siloed media diets, attained a level of cultural penetration that would be far more difficult for any actor to replicate now. Members of that generation who built their public profiles in a more fame-friendly era may be better positioned to cut through the static of competing people and products than those who didn’t debut or break big early enough to establish that foothold. Consequently, the former may be more able—or perceived as more able—to attract an audience on the strength of their reputation, which would make them more in demand. “You’ll keep seeing the same names over and over, because they happened to exist at a time when ‘movie stars’ were a more important thing to our culture than they are now,” Lynn says. Whether you noticed or not, Neeson has pumped out 24 action movies since starring in Taken in 2008, when he was 55. Another ’90s star, Adam Sandler, has made 22 non-animated movies since the start of 2008—including more comedies than he had in his whole career up to that point—most of which were part of lucrative Netflix deals .

Some sources suggest that somewhat paradoxically, the greater ease of access to celebrities today may diminish their movie-star cred. Jeff Bock, senior media analyst for Exhibitor Relations Co. , says, “Part of the mystique of being a larger-than-life movie star resides in the exclusivity of engagement with audiences. … Even though fans have more access [to younger stars], oftentimes it diminishes that unique bond one forms with consumers.” Belloni echoes that sentiment. “We can see Miles Teller all over his wife’s Instagram every day. And we can see him tweeting about the Phillies, and we can see him in all the paparazzi shots and on our TikTok feeds. And there’s nothing special about seeing Miles Teller in a movie anymore. Whereas … there [were] only a couple places to see Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Tom Cruise … or any of these guys that are considered action stars still today.” The social-media-driven “commoditization of actors,” Belloni believes, has “really, really diminished the ability to create new stars.”

Perhaps that’s partly because the current up-and-comers who might be movie-star material are less likely to inspire, or even aspire to inspire, the same sort of fandom as stars in previous eras. “There is a rising generation—more than one, really—of entertainment consumers that isn’t as committed to narrative entertainment as the generations before them,” says film historian and author Mark Harris . “Maybe they’re gamers, or maybe what they really enjoy is TikTok, or maybe it’s something else, but a generation can’t generate stars if it doesn’t really love the medium that creates and accommodates stars.” At the very least, the strain of stardom that newer media spawns may not look like yesterday’s flavor; the modern model may be closer to Kardashian than Cruise.

Even so, some actors still covet Cruise-ian cachet. (Per the Times , Powell told Cruise, “I’m trying to be you.”) They may just lack the avenues to achieve it, thanks to what Nash identifies as a “gap between the regular movies and the big blockbusters,” the latter of which are dwindling in number The remaining few, he adds, “come in, increasingly, the same mold. Really, what you’re seeing are superhero movies, [and] there’s not a lot of opportunity for people to become superhero movie stars.”

That increasing emphasis on franchise-based blockbusters has come at the expense of some of the old pathways to prominence. “There [are fewer] studio movies now than ever before, and the indie movie scene is pretty small and not as significant to Hollywood as it used to be, which allowed exciting new faces/voices into the mix,” Lynn says, adding, “There are just [fewer] opportunities for new people to suddenly emerge and lead a major film and then become stars, leading to more opportunities to lead other films subsequently.” To return to Teller: “In a previous generation, he would have the opportunity to do a mid-budget studio thriller, rom-com, something that would test his allure as a movie star and the ability to open a movie,” Belloni says. “And those movies are just not happening.”

Now, Lynn says, there are at most three routes to traditional movie stardom. You can rise from obscurity to star in a film from a respected studio director who became a big name in the ’80s or ’90s; you can earn critical acclaim from a series of smaller movies and then make the leap to Marvel, Star Wars , or another sci-fi tentpole; or you can cross over from a huge hit on TV, though it’s getting harder to have a Game of Thrones – or Stranger Things –level smash as streaming segmentation intensifies. Oscar Isaac, the Chrises , and Adam Driver, all now in their late 30s or early 40s, needed boosts from major genre movies to reach a new stardom stratosphere. As those movies make up a bigger proportion of the thinner studio release schedule, Lynn says, “You see the same people over and over again in those movies playing the same parts.”

Film data researcher Stephen Follows, who has also observed a 21st-century trend toward older actors, suspects that the thirst for reboots and sequels accounts for some of the aging trend, because recycling material leads to recycling stars. “It’s about films having the same people in them, and people sticking around for longer,” he says. “And therefore, by definition, they’re aging one year a year.” (Cruise, for instance, appears almost exclusively in sequels these days.) F. Andrew Hanssen, an economics professor at Clemson who detected early signs of a widespread aging of actors in a study published a decade ago, notes that whereas during the days of the studio system, studios would spend substantial sums on building up new stars, “The trend of paying large sums of money to relatively unknown actors to appear in a series of films (as Captain America, say)” may have “created an ‘anti-studio’ situation, in which the incentive to develop new actors except in this narrow capacity has become even weaker.”

Of course, the explosion in sequels, prequels, reboots, and remakes—not only in movies, but in other media, giving rise to what researcher Adam Mastroianni has labeled a “ pop oligopoly ”—stems in part from the fretting about breaking through in a crowded culture, which leads studios to default to the same old names. “The name above the poster is a rarity these days, and because the cost to green-light a blockbuster is an enormous risk for studios, these companies often lean on what has worked previously—sequels and big stars,” says Bock. Last month, Top Gun: Maverick producer Jerry Bruckheimer said as much, remarking , “I still get the same list of 10 men the studios want in a movie. You still get Tom, Leonardo [DiCaprio]. Get one of these big names and you’ve got a good shot at getting a movie made.” Asked for other names, he listed Brad Pitt, who at 58 just related that he’s on the “last leg” of his career; pressed for someone who wasn’t famous last century, he allowed that Hemsworth has “broken through.”

Which isn’t to say that things have to work that way. “Bruckheimer is not wrong in that there are a limited number of actors who can ‘carry’ a movie,” Belloni says. “But I think Hollywood is a little bit to blame here for being risk-averse and not trying certain actors in these roles. … A lot of it is fear that there is such a splintered culture.” Follows also attributes part of the aging effect to “the risk-averse nature of the people commissioning” blockbusters, though he notes that the evidence of actor aging even outside of theatrical releases from major studios “does suggest that it is more of a cultural trend than just the conscious or unconscious decision of 20 people.”

What else could be contributing to that cultural trend? For one thing, this situation isn’t the inverse of Wooderson’s line from Dazed and Confused , in which the actors get older while the audience stays the same age. The audience is getting older also, along with the U.S. population, whose median age is up 8.5 years since 1980. Consequently, catering to middle-aged spectators and senior citizens is more rewarding for the makers of movies and TV. “Older audiences are fueling moviegoing right now,” Belloni says. In 2019 , people 60 or older accounted for more tickets sold than any other age group except 25 to 39. And as younger viewers cut the cord and churn through streaming services , cable-connected and deeper-pocketed viewers are making their preferences felt on TV, too.

“You do have to target the older audiences, because they are the ones that are still paying,” Page says, adding, “They’re probably looking more for content and lead characters, lead actors, that are relevant and reflect their lives and experience.” Although Follows has found that the impact of actor age on audience turnout may be overrated, the perception of a link influences studios. “I probably would be more inclined to see Liam Neeson in an action movie, given my age, than Tom Holland,” says Nash, who’s 54. “You see that in romantic comedies as well. It’s not people in their early 20s anymore. It’s people in their 40s, sometimes, and the second chances at romance, and so on, tends to be a little bit more the prevailing force.”

Older characters require older actors—and like Cruise, those actors may seem to defy the ticking clock that Maverick warned about, especially compared to the chain-smoking stars of old (and old-looking) Hollywood. “Actors look young for longer, thanks to advances in exercise and diet (not to mention cosmetic surgery), and can credibly play action heroes or romantic leads at older ages than in the past,” Hanssen says. ( Physique-enhancing drugs may play a part, too.) Plus, there’s always the option of airbrushing. “Between both modern medicine and what they can do with digital makeup and things like that in post, you can have stars that are aging out, but you still pretend that they’re age appropriate,” Belloni says. And an aging audience might have an evolving definition of “appropriate.” Page points to a “societal expansion of what sexy is, what vitality is, and getting to see that there’s not necessarily an expiration date at 50, at 60, at 70.” (Which is the theme of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande , a movie released last week that stars the 63-year-old Emma Thompson and includes a much - discussed nude scene.)

Actors aren’t alone here: By historical standards, today’s top politicians , top touring musicians , top tennis players , and top quarterbacks are ancient too. It’s the era of presidential runs by Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders; pricey, sold-out concerts by Paul McCartney, Elton John, and the Rolling Stones; unprecedented title totals by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic; one-two MVP finishes by Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady . Just as new racket strings and slower playing surfaces have helped venerable tennis stars stay at a higher level for longer—and, for that matter, as improvements in manufacturing have kept cars on the road for record durations —tuneups to actors’ exteriors have helped them stay on screens and win Oscars at more advanced ages. Jessica Daniels , a Casting Society of America board member and the VP of casting for Walt Disney Television, says, “60 years old now doesn’t look like 60 years old did 20 or 30 years ago, and people are living longer, and so just by virtue of that, I think that we’re all adapting.”

Another factor fueling that change is anti-ageism advocacy by organizations such as the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. Although in theory the extended tenures of legacy stars could prevent a group of more diverse actors from seizing the spotlight, studies show sweeping improvements in representation, at least in front of the camera. “It feels like the industry is … moving in the right direction as far as diversification in many areas, and I think age is one of those,” Page says. Historically, female actors have faced severe age discrimination , and that problem persists; Bruckheimer, when asked to list female counterparts to his bankable Brads, Toms, and Leos, said, “Women are harder. It’s just not that strong a list yet.” However, the trend toward older actors holds true for both men and women, and the age gap between them has seemingly started to shrink (though Top Gun costar Kelly McGillis attributed her absence from the sequel to her age and appearance).

“I definitely think, specifically in television, we are breaking a lot more barriers,” Daniel says. “I think that there is so much more room for not only a diversity and inclusivity of experience, but I do think that there’s an audience that does want to see not only beloved actors that we’ve loved for years, but also just wants to see this experience, wants to see these stories being told.” Although the lines on that graph aren’t close to converging, Nash notes that there’s “not necessarily so much of a bias as there might once have been.”

For the foreseeable future, those “average age” lines may continue their ascent. “With YouTube getting more interest among kids than the state of the Academy Awards, and with streaming fracturing the landscape as we speak even further, I honestly don’t see that changing anytime soon,” Lynn says. The question confronting Hollywood seems similar to the question confronting the ATP Tour as Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic finally age out : Who’s next? “Beyond [Timothée] Chalamet, Holland, and Zendaya, name a movie star under 30.” Belloni says. “It’s tough.” Letitia Wright, Florence Pugh, Hailee Steinfeld, and (soon) Sydney Sweeney may make the most of their Marvel exposure, but in the absence of a deep pool of marquee talent, Page says, “Everybody clamors for the short list of the recognizable names.” Al Pacino anointed Chalamet as his pick to play Vincent Hanna in a potential Heat 2 , and Sony sold Uncharted to audiences using Holland’s post-Spider-Man star power, even though his older costar, Mark Wahlberg, was the one whose name helped get the movie made. (Wahlberg, now a fanatically buff 51, embodied the older-actors hegemony when in 2012 he replaced the 15-years-younger Shia LaBeouf as the face of Transformers .) But Holland and the Dune duo can act only so much.

Cary Grant, who retired at 62, supposedly said , “Hollywood is very much like a streetcar. Once a new star is made and comes aboard, an old one is edged out of the rear exit. There’s room for only so many and no more.” But what if the old stars won’t relinquish their status until they’re elderly enough for riders in real life to offer them seats? The star of Top Gun: Maverick has two more Mission Impossible movies on the way, but Chester Cain wasn’t wrong; Cruise can’t act forever, and by the time that second flick comes out, he’ll be pushing 62 himself. “There is not going to be another Tom Cruise,” Belloni says. “That era is over.” But the era of old actors has no end in sight.

Rob Arthur is a Chicago-based freelance journalist and data science consultant.

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Tom Cruise reportedly to end Paris Olympics with epic stunt to pass the torch to L.A.

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Tom Cruise will take a page out of his “Mission: Impossible” playbook for the Olympic closing ceremony.

The 62-year-old actor is reportedly planning an epic stunt that will unfold as Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo hands over the Olympic flag to L.A. Mayor Karen Bass at the Aug. 11 celebration, TMZ first reported. And he pitched the idea to the International Olympic Committee himself.

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The alleged plan is to have Cruise start by rappelling from the roof of the Stade de France to the stadium’s field, Olympic flag in tow. (There are also reports that Cruise may use a stunt double for this portion, but nothing is confirmed yet.)

The broadcast will then cut to a pre-recorded segment that shows the Academy Award nominee skydiving down to the Hollywood sign. There, he’ll pass the flag to athletes, including a cyclist, skateboarder and volleyball player, as they wave it around the host city for the 2028 Games.

The Hollywood sign sequence was filmed in March, according to TMZ, but given Cruise’s penchant for near-lethal stunts, his dive raised little alarm. Similarly, sightings of the star speeding around Paris earlier this year were dismissed given “Mission: Impossible 8” was filming in Europe.

Representatives for Cruise did not reply immediately Friday to The Times’ request for comment.

2024 Paris Olympics

Most picturesque Olympics ever? Paris venues will offer ‘phenomenal backdrop’

The 2024 Paris Games are a made-for-TV Olympics with the Eiffel Tower, Château de Versailles, the Seine, and the Grand Palais each hosting events.

July 24, 2024

With Paris 2024’s artistic director Thomas Jolly at the helm, the closing ceremony — dubbed “Records” — is poised to rival the drama of a Cruise film.

The Stade de France will be “transformed into a gigantic concert hall,” the official Olympic website reads, where more than 100 performers, acrobats, dancers and circus artists will “take spectators on a journey through time, both past and future.”

“It’s a very visual, very choreographic, very acrobatic show with an operatic dimension to give a great visual fresco and say goodbye to athletes from all over the world,” Jolly said. “Together, let’s make this evening a memorable and conscious celebration, honouring the past and embracing the future.”

“Expect a major Hollywood production,” a source told Deadline .

Cruise, who in 2004 helped carry the Olympic torch in L.A. as it made its way to Athens, cheered on Team USA during the first week of the Paris Games, attending women’s gymnastics and swimming events.

“It’s awesome,” the “Top Gun: Maverick” star told Reuters . “Great stories, great athletes. It’s incredible what they have to do, the sense of accomplishment.”

More to Read

Olympics 2024: Celine Dion closes dazzling opening ceremony atop the Eiffel Tower

July 26, 2024

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Malia Mendez began writing for the Los Angeles Times in 2023. A previous summer intern on the Entertainment and Arts Desk, she graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s in journalism. Mendez got her start in journalism at the Stanford Daily, where she worked as managing editor of the newspaper’s Arts & Life section. Her byline can be found in Los Angeles Magazine, the Orange County Register and the Peninsula Press. She is from Irvine.

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Tom Cruise Was ‘Protective’ of Gina Gershon While Filming Her First Sex Scene, Even When She ‘Kneed Him’ in the Face: ‘I Just Broke His Nose’

By Zack Sharf

Digital News Director

• Tom Cruise Was ‘Protective’ of Gina Gershon While Filming Her First Sex Scene, Even When She ‘Kneed Him’ in the Face: ‘I Just Broke His Nose’ 5 hours ago
• Ryan Reynolds Considered Bringing Nicolas Cage Back as Ghost Rider for ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’: It ‘Came to a Conversation for Sure. But No’ 6 hours ago
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Gina Gershon appeared on “Watch What Happens Live” and was asked by host Andy Cohen if she ever hooked up with Tom Cruise . The two actors starred together in 1988’s “Cocktail,” where Gershon remembered nearly breaking Cruise’s nose during the filming of a sex scene. The moment just so happened to be Gershon’s first time shooting a love scene in a movie. The actor said Cruise “totally” took care of her while filming.

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Gershon, meanwhile, was more of a newcomer to Hollywood movies at the time. Her fame increased in the 1990s with acclaimed performances in “Bound,” which Gershon recently revealed she was told not to do as the movie centered on a lesbian relationship. The actor said on the  “It Happened in Hollywood” podcast that her agents told her specifically that she “can’t play a lesbian” because it would tank her Hollywood career.

“It was a great script and I could tell they were incredible directors, but my agents were like, ‘We will not let you do this movie. You are ruining your career. You will never work again,’” Gershon said, adding that her agents said they could no longer represent her if she took the part.

Watch Gershon’s full appearance on “Watch What Happens Live” in the video below.

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Why Hollywood Can't Stand Tom Cruise

Over the course of more than 35 years, Tom Cruise has evolved from a floppy haired heartthrob into one of the most powerful and polarizing figures in Hollywood. He flew straight into the hearts of female viewers the world over as Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in aerial romance Top Gun (1986), and he won the male vote as Ethan Hunt in the stunt-laden Mission: Impossible franchise (1996-), gradually building a reputation as one of the film industry's genuine megastars. But somewhere along the way, the love Cruise had grown accustomed to began to fade, and the public's perception of him changed drastically. Once the man that every guy wanted to be and every girl wanted to be with, the name Tom Cruise has since come to mean something completely different on both sides of the gender divide, but why? This is how Cruise became so hated in Hollywood.

People grew skeptical of his beliefs

Acting aside, Cruise is best known for his passionate advocacy of the Church of Scientology. He credits the faith with helping him overcome dyslexia and plays an active role in the controversial church. Cruise was introduced to Scientology by his first wife, actress Mimi Rogers, whose father, Phil Spickler, was a prominent member of the movement.

According to a Radar Online interview with ex-member Nancy Many, Cruise was targeted by the church. "I knew some of the people who kid-gloved him into becoming a member," she said. "The manipulation is often unseen or unnoticed by the person being manipulated."

While no sane person will hate someone based solely on their faith, Cruise's perceived hypocrisy when it comes to Scientology often grinds people's gears. The A-lister made headlines when he tried to have an official video of him ranting about the privilege he felt as a Scientologist removed from YouTube.

He started getting involved in politics

Despite Rogers and Cruise separating in 1990 after three years of marriage, his dedication to Scientology continued to intensify. Cruise's fervent beliefs transformed him into an international lobbyist, spearheading the church's drive to become a recognized religion in Europe with little success. According to the Irish Examiner , leaders in Paris came to an agreement in 2005 not to make him an honorary citizen because of his affiliation with the church.

Cruise's mission didn't fare much better in Germany. The BBC reported in 2007 that the country was refusing to allow World War II thriller Valkyrie (2008) to be shot on its military sites because of the Hollywood star's affiliation with Scientology. While the government did finally soften its stance and allow the production access, German religious leaders were not so welcoming, with a chief spokesman from the Protestant Church comparing Cruise with Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Spokesman Thomas Gandow claimed Valkyrie would "have the same propaganda advantages for Scientology as the 1936 Olympics had for the Nazis."

He's been divorced three times

Not long after splitting from Rogers, Cruise tied the knot with Days of Thunder (1990) co-star Nicole Kidman. That duo became the Hollywood power couple of the '90s, but when their union ended after 11 years, it marked the beginning of the end for Cruise's untarnished public image.

After his brief relationship with Vanilla Sky (2001) co-star Penélope Cruz , the Church of Scientology allegedly launched a secret auditioning process to find Cruise a new wife. According to Vanity Fair , English-Iranian actress Nazanin Boniadi was selected as a suitable match, but then reportedly booted months later in favor of actress Katie Holmes. The Dawson's Creek (1998-03)star became Cruise's third wife, marrying him in a fairy-tale ceremony in a 15th Century Italian castle, and thus, TomKat was born. Less than six years later, Holmes filed for divorce, with the Daily Mail reporting she feared their daughter, Suri, would be brainwashed by Scientologists if she didn't end her marriage and get her kid out while she still could.

He developed a reputation as a control freak

Persistent rumors that Cruise is controlling behind closed doors have followed the actor for years. Us Weekly reported that Kidman often lived in the shadow of Cruise. "We would go to the Oscars and I would think, I'm here to support him," the Australian stunner said. "I felt it was my job to put on a beautiful dress and to be seen and not heard."

In an interview with David Letterman not long after their divorce, Kidman joked that she was now able to wear high heels again (Kidman is several inches taller than Cruise), though her ex's behavior at the end of their marriage was no laughing matter. Alex Gibney's documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015) alleges Cruise had members of the church wiretap Kidman's phone so they could keep tabs on her and manipulate divorce proceedings.

According to the Daily Mail , Cruise became even more controlling in his next marriage, reportedly telling Holmes exactly what she could wear and who she could see. As if to show solidarity with Kidman, one of Holmes' first public appearances after her separation from Cruise was in a pair of 4-inch heels .

His controls issues extend to the set

Cruise's alleged control over his exes pales in comparison to claims of his disastrous micromanagement of his films. As Variety reports, Curise's reboot of The Mummy , which they claim has gotten "brutal" reviews, is the latest of his films to be negatively impacted by his interference. According to insiders, Cruise revamped the entire script, heavily influenced the direction, editing, and even marketing of the film, which produced a dismal $32 million dollar domestic opening weekend . International returns have been better, though insiders still doubt the film will recoup its combined production and marketing costs.

And The Mummy wasn't the first film tainted by Cruise's obsessive meddling. According to actor R. Lee Ermey, collaborator and friend to the late director, Stanley Kubrick, the failure of Eyes Wide Shut was also due to the star's ego-tripping. Ermey told Radar Online (via The Guardian ) that Kubrick had confided in him that he felt the film was "a piece of s**t," because "Cruise and Kidman had their way with him."

He's lost the female fan base

Telling women what they can and can't wear is one way to make yourself extremely unpopular among the female demographic, but telling them how to give birth is a different kind of insult entirely. When Holmes was pregnant, Cruise was forced to address rumors that he was demanding his wife give birth in complete silence, a practice Scientologists believe prevents permanent psychic scars caused by a negative vibe at birth. According to ABC News , Cruise was even rumored to have had a special pacifier made to keep Holmes quiet during delivery, though the A-lister insisted the church's "silent birth" method isn't as strict as many believe.

It wasn't the first time Cruise stuck his nose into the childbirth debate. He made headlines in 2005 when he openly criticized Endless Love (1981) co-star Brooke Shields for taking medication to help her cope with postpartum depression. Shields responded by telling Cruise that he "should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them."

Cruise's third and final strike came when his alleged on-set infidelity was exposed. Rumors that Scientology big wigs encouraged Cruise to cheat on first wife Rogers with second wife Kidman on the set of Days of Thunder were reportedly confirmed by former senior church executive Marty Rathbun.

Studios got sick of him, too

Cruise's behavior off the big screen eventually began to affect his career. In 2006, Paramount Pictures ended its 14-year working relationship with the actor, fearing his erratic actions were going to negatively impact receipts for the upcoming Mission: Impossible III . Apparently, it wasn't just the actor's affiliation with Scientology that had the studio sweating. Cruise's bizarre appearance on Oprah led many to question his sanity, with viewers watching in disbelief as he jumped up and down on his chair maniacally while declaring his undying love for Holmes.

Redstone was quoted by CNN saying that although "we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

He became one of Hollywood's most overpaid actors

The gender pay gap has been an issue in Hollywood for a long time. According to Tinseltown stalwart Alec Baldwin, the problem is not sexism, but a select few A-listers, such as Cruise, who demand ridiculous pay. In a 2009 comedic monologue, Baldwin cracked (via  E! Online ,) "I believe we can balance the scales if Tom Cruise would lower his quote by a mere $29 million. I realize this may be a bit unfair since he's not here to defend himself and I really don't want to put this all on one man, but if I had to, that man would be Tom Cruise."

Cruise didn't seem to take notice. The Hollywood Reporter revealed in 2016 that Mission: Impossible 6 hit a roadblock in the form of Cruise's hefty wage demands, with disagreements over back-end profit delaying production. It's now scheduled for a 2018 release . In fact, Forbes named him one of the most overpaid actors of 2015, returning just $13.60 for every dollar he was paid that year.

He's become too powerful for his own good

Despite questioning the diminutive star's profitability, Forbes is well aware of the influence Cruise holds, naming him the most powerful actor on a number of occasions. He topped the list in 2006 after War of the Worlds (2005) cleaned up at the box office, and again in 2012 after Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) brought the franchise back from the brink. While most studios strive to get the big names on board, when those egos get too inflated and start calling the shots themselves, it can become a problem.

Cruise's reputation now precedes him, but Cruise has had better luck cracking the increasingly lucrative Asian market. Japan's crush on Cruise exploded into a full on affair after the release of 2003's The Last Samurai, with the country declaring a national holiday in his honor. October 10 was named Tom Cruise Day, a celebration that apparently involves some pretty bizarre Cruise cosplay .

He's tried to convert other celebs

Devoting one's life to a faith created by a science fiction writer is all well and good, but trying to coerce other A-list celebs into doing the same sounds, to many, like propaganda. Former high-ranking Scientologist Gary Morehead told the Daily Mail that Cruise had an unhealthy obsession with David Beckham and viewed the British soccer star as the ideal convert. That conversation never came to pass, but it allegedly wasn't for a lack of trying on Cruise's part.

According to the 2015 report, in an attempt to lure Beckham to Scientology headquarters, Cruise ordered Sea Org members to create a full-size soccer field. It was all for nothing, as Beckham and wife Victoria reportedly pulled a no-show, doing their budding pop star son Cruz Beckham a huge favor in the process—"If Everyday Was Auditor's Day " doesn't quite have the same ring to it as the original .

Did he abandon his daughter?

Cruise has three children: Isabella and Connor were adopted with Kidman during their marriage, and Suri was fathered with Holmes before they split. Eyebrows were raised when Cruise missed his eldest daughter's Scientologist wedding in 2015, though Bella (who now has a child of her own) claims she does keep in contact with her dad. The same cannot be said for Cruise's youngest, however.

According to a June 2016 report from In Touch , Cruise has not had contact of any kind with Suri in years. Cruise has allegedly blamed his absence on a busy work schedule, though the excuses have been supposedly wearing thin with both Holmes and Suri, according to an insider. "Tom eats, breathes and sleeps Scientology," the source told In Touch . "He's disconnected from Katie, and then de facto from Suri, because of her connection to Katie. He hasn't seen her since she was 7." Suri turned 10 in 2016.

It became popular to hate him

Does Cruise really deserve to be hated in Hollywood and beyond? Some say all this negativity boils down to a simple case of jumping on the bandwagon. For every film fan that harbors a genuine hate for the man, there's another who will avoid his movies based solely on the sway of public opinion.

Still, the old adage "there's no such thing as bad publicity" seems to ring true in this case. Gossip has followed Cruise his entire life, yet his star power has continued to prevail. Despite his questionable beliefs and erratic outbursts, Cruise remains in high demand, reaffirming his position as one of the industry's top leading men. He continues to regularly release blockbusters, and while some have failed to recoup their huge outlays domestically, all have pulled in profits from the worldwide market.

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‘ncis: los angeles’ actor gabriel olds accused of using hollywood success to lure, sexually assault women he met on dating apps.

Hollywood actor Gabriel Olds allegedly raped at least three women who he met on dating applications as police fear there are more of his victims across the US.

Olds, best known for his roles in “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” was taken into custody Monday and charged with seven felony sexual assault charges, according to the Los Angeles Police Department .

Police launched an investigation into the New York native after a 41-year-old woman came forward claiming that Olds had forced himself onto her inside her Los Angeles home.

She filed the report to police on Jan. 19, 2023 while other claims against the actor were made between 2013 and 2023.

Olds, who lives in Los Angeles, Calif., was accused of sexual assault by two other women, and two others reported less violent acts.

Olds was charged on July 19 after the Los Angeles Superior Court issued a warrant for his arrest.

The 52-year-old allegedly used his status as a Yale University alumni and success in the entertainment industry to secure dates with women on dating apps, cops said.

Olds graduated from the private university in 1995.

In May, the actor shared a post on Instagram of himself on the university’s campus with the caption, “Just another day studying at Yale…”

“His victims reported that he used his status as an Ivy League alumnus with success in the film industry to meet women and arrange dates,” the LAPD said.

“Each victim reported that Olds lured them into a false sense of security during their initial encounters, then turned violent without seeking their consent.”

A Special Assault Section supervisor at LAPD, Detective Brent Hopkins, said officials “heard the same story again and again” from the alleged victims.

“Mr. Olds started off as charming, but then used brutal violence to carry out these rapes,” Hopkins said.

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“Some of these survivors suffered in silence for years before finding the strength to speak up. Now that he’s off the streets, we want to make sure everyone has a chance to be heard.”

The Post has reached out to reps for Olds and the LAPD for comment.

Prior to his arrest, the actor has racked up several notable roles in Hollywood.

Olds appeared on shows such as “Six Feet Under,” “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “The Rookie: Feds,” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

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Will Paris Olympics closing ceremony avoid another 'Last Supper' controversy? What to expect

• Scene during 2024 Paris Olympics evoking Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper painting outraged Christians, who saw imagery as mockery.
• Head of Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention public policy arm denounced opening ceremony and asked for review of plans for closing ceremony.
• Aug. 11 closing ceremony to feature Tom Cruise stunt and homage to Ancient Greece.

It’s not a guarantee the 2024 Paris Olympics will end without further outraging religious conservatives. But the mission also isn’t impossible.

The games’ closing ceremony this Sunday, Aug. 11, expected to feature actor Tom Cruise in a stunt performance, will also test whether the International Olympic Committee is responsive to outcry over the July 26 opening ceremony .

A scene during the opening ceremony that evoked Leonardo da Vinci’s "The Last Supper" painting featuring drag queens and a transgender model angered Christian groups worldwide. Among other faith groups, leaders with the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention condemned the moment.

Here's a rundown of the drama and what to expect from the closing ceremony.

Opening ceremony controversy

The scene evoking the Last Supper painting was depicting Greek mythology and the deity of Dionysus, a character played by an actor who was sprawled out on a table surrounded by a feast. Still, many Christians considered it a mockery.

“Southern Baptist men and women watching these Games were highly dismayed that, once again, an event meant to inspire unity on a worldwide stage instead became an occasion to deride and marginalize Christians,” Brent Leatherwood, president of the Nashville-based Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, which is the SBC’s public policy arm, said in a July 29 letter to International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach.

The Vatican issued a similar denunciation in French on behalf of Catholics, saying it was “saddened” by what happened. Leatherwood’s letter to Bach criticized Thomas Jolly, the art director overseeing the opening and closing ceremonies, who said the opening ceremony sought to promote love and inclusion.

“If this is accurate, Mr. Jolly must have somehow calculated that insulting the over two billion Christians worldwide was going to accomplish that objective,” said Leatherwood in his letter. “That is ludicrous.”

Apology and calls for change

Organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics apologized in a July 28 news conference for any offense the opening ceremony caused.

In addition to an apology, Leatherwood’s letter asked organizers for the Olympics to review plans for the Aug. 11 closing ceremony “and remove any overt or inadvertent depictions, language, or actions that would mock the Christian faith or any religious tradition.”

Though organizers for the closing ceremony have not directly addressed whether their plans changed based on last week’s controversy, Jolly said the design of the closing ceremony is “to celebrate, but consciously.”

“Together, let's make this evening a memorable and conscious celebration, honouring the past and embracing the future,” Jolly added in a statement.

What to expect from closing ceremony

Of the limited available details before Sunday’s closing ceremony, the plans appear largely uncontroversial.  

Cruise may rappel down into the Stade de France live, for a broadcast to then cut to a prerecorded video of Cruise flying to Los Angeles and skydiving into the Hollywood sign, according to USA TODAY . Some of that prerecorded footage is from the filming for the next Mission: Impossible movie , reported The Guardian.

As for religious imagery, Sunday’s closing ceremony might include depictions of Greek mythology as part of an homage to the Olympics' origins.

Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] or on social media @liamsadams.

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Tom Cruise's changing face: Hollywood actor, 61, is unrecognisable from his Top Gun days at charity gala with Prince William

By Melody Fletcher For Mailonline

Published: 05:37 EDT, 8 February 2024 | Updated: 06:47 EDT, 8 February 2024

View comments

Tom Cruise lent some Hollywood pizazz to a London charity gala on Wednesday night.

The star was a VIP guest as he joined Prince William at the glittering gala dinner in support of London’s Air Ambulance Charity at Raffles London at the OWO (Old War Office). 

All eyes were on the star, after his noticeably changing appearance over the past four decades.

His latest public appearance saw the movie star sporting longer, flowing locks as he beamed for photos with the Prince of Wales.  

Tom Cruise lent some Hollywood pizazz to a London charity gala on Wednesday night and all eyes were on the star, after his noticeably changing appearance over the past four decades

The star was a VIP guest as he joined Prince William at the glittering gala dinner in support of London’s Air Ambulance Charity at Raffles London

As one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, Tom's career in front of the camera has spanned over four decades. 

After making his breakthrough with roles in Risky Business (1983) and Top Gun (1986), he became a leading actor in the nineties with roles in The Firm (199) and Jerry Maguire (1996). 

As he enters the fifth decade of his career, MailOnline has taken a glance back at Tom's changing look over the years.

1980S - THE EARLY YEARS

Tom was a fresh-faced 24-year-old when he appeared in one of his most famous films: Top Gun.

The actor won the lead role of Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell in the action flick, which became the highest-grossing domestic film of the year with $357million.

The star looked worlds away from his current self during this period, which also saw him appear in films like The Color Of Money (1986) and All The Right Moves (1983).

Tom spoke about his rise to fame during this time, saying it was strange being suddenly recognised in the street.

Early days: Tom was a fresh-faced 24-year-old when he appeared in one of his most famous films: Top Gun (pictured in 1986) and is now in his  fifth decade of fame 

As one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, Tom's career in front of the camera has spanned over four decades

He told Interview magazine: 'I'm really very private, in my own world. Suddenly I was someone walking on the street and people were looking at me and I was thinking, "Jesus, is something hanging out of my nose?"

'It took time to get adjusted to it. It was such a perfect time to do Legend in England. Everyone is looking at you and somehow just moving your hand seems so much more exaggerated.

TURN OF THE MILLENIUM - MOVIE STAR  

Tom was firmly established as one of the industry's biggest stars by this time and had a chiselled look to match. 

The star looked like a male model when he attended the Screen Actors Guild Awards that year where he was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor for his role in Magnolia.

Tom also sported a longer hairstyle during this period, just months before the end of his marriage to actress Nicole Kidman.

This was also the year the Mission: Impossible franchise kicked off in earnest with the release of the first sequel which made over $500million at the box office.

The film star looks worlds away from his current self during the early years of his career, which saw him appear in films like The Color Of Money and All The Right Moves (pictured in 1990)

Tom was firmly established as one of the industry's biggest stars by the year 2000 and had a chiselled look to match

Tom sported a longer hairstyle at the time, just months before the end of his marriage to actress Nicole Kidman (pictured in 2001)

MID-NOUGHTIES - CONTINUED SUCCESS

Tom had gone with a bolder look a few years later, sporting a much shorter crew cut that he would keep for several years.

This decade was one of the busiest for Tom when he appeared in a slew of successful films including The Last Samurai, Collateral, and War of the Worlds.

He was also gearing up for a return to the Mission: Impossible franchise, with the third instalment released two years later.

Tom would soon embark on one of his most highly publicised relationships when he began dating actress Katie Holmes in Apirl 2005 . 

Just a few months later in October, the couple announced they were expecting their first child, Suri, who was born in April 2006.

They married in November of that year, with Katie filing for divorce five and a half years later. 

Tom had gone with a bolder look a few years later, sporting a much shorter crew cut that he would keep for several years (pictured in 2004) 

The noughties decade was one of the busiest for Tom when he appeared in a slew of successful films including The Last Samurai, Collateral, and War of the Worlds (pictured in 2008)

Tom embarked on one of his most highly publicised relationships when he began dating actress Katie Holmes in April 2005 (pictured in 2007)

2021 - TOM'S PUFFY APPPEARANCE RAISES EYEBROWS 

Tom raised eyebrows in October 2021 when he attended a baseball game in San Francisco with a noticeably puffier face.

The father-of-three sparked speculation he had fillers after sporting a fuller face during the LA  Dodgers match.

Dawn Attewell, Registered Aesthetics Nurse at therapyhouse.co.uk told FEMAIL the pictures were a result of 'excessive filler' and 'post-procedure swelling' but he now looks fresher thanks to a 'hair transplant' and 'skin tightening treatments'. 

'In the infamous October 2021 picture, you can see that Tom looked swollen and puffy, which could be due to excessive filler, post-procedure swelling, or weight gain.' 

'Often, surgical procedures such as a platysmal plasty, or neck lift, combined with a mid-facelift could create this type of swelling in these areas.

However, it wasn't long before Tom was back to his old self as he walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2022 with a slimmed down appearance.

Tom raised eyebrows in October 2021 when he attended a baseball game in San Francisco with a noticeably puffier face 

It wasn't long before Tom was back to his old self as he walked the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2022 

PRESENT DAY

Tom returned to the spotlight in 2022 with his first film in four years, To Gun: Maverick.

The film made over $1billion at the box office - the highest grossing film of is career - and many critics considered it to be an improvement over the original. 

Tom has once again been sporting longer locks over the past two years and has been working on his Mission: Impossible franchise.

Tom returned to the spotlight in 2022 with his first film in four years, Top Gun: Maverick (pictured in 2022)

Tom has been busy over the past two years working on his Mission: Impossible franchise (pictured in February 2023) 

Share or comment on this article: Tom Cruise's changing face: Hollywood actor, 61, is unrecognisable from his Top Gun days at charity gala with Prince William

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Tom Cruise Will Skydive Into Olympic Stadium During Closing Ceremonies, Land On Hollywood Sign To Pass Flag To L.A.

T he 2024 Paris Olympics have welcomed an unexpected celebrity guest to hand off the Olympic flag to the next host city – Hollywood star Tom Cruise .

While the actor has been publicly cheered on Team USA, sources reveal that Cruise’s true purpose in Paris is to execute a thrilling, top-secret stunt at the closing ceremony.

According to reports released on August 1, Cruise has worked tirelessly for months to prepare for a skydiving sequence that will see him deliver the official Olympic flag from France to the next host city, Los Angeles, on August 12. The Golden Globe winner will begin his performance with a dramatic swing from the top of the Stade de France before he parachutes onto the field below with the flag in hand.

The ambitious stunt doesn’t end there. The broadcast will then cut to a pre-recorded segment that features Cruise as he travels by airplane to Los Angeles, where he will leap out and land directly on the iconic Hollywood sign to complete the handoff of the 2028 Olympics.

The final plan is said to include Cruise passing the flag to a roster of champion athletes, which will include a cyclist, skateboarder and volleyball player, before he makes his grand entrance in the City of Angels.

Cruise’s involvement in the closing ceremony is no surprise, as the actor has long been a devoted supporter of the Olympic movement. In 2004, he famously carried the Olympic torch through the streets of Los Angeles, spreading the message of peace and friendship that the Games represent.

Cruise has been spotted in Paris at the games this year for the women’s gymnastics qualifiers and the swimming competitions. In March 2024, the actor filmed scenes of the eighth Mission: Impossible installment around Europe. The film is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2025.

It was recently revealed that Cruise has a strained relationship with his daughter , Suri , and hasn’t seen her in years.

Source: uInterview

The post Tom Cruise Will Skydive Into Olympic Stadium During Closing Ceremonies, Land On Hollywood Sign To Pass Flag To L.A. appeared first on uInterview .

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Tom cruise, david zaslav among star-studded crowd watching simone biles’ olympic return.

Lady Gaga, Jessica Chastain, Snoop Dogg, Greta Gerwig, Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Nick Jonas and Anna Wintour were also spotted watching the gymnastics competition in Paris.

By The Associated Press

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When Biles competes, the show is in the stands too. Tom Cruise , more stars attend her Olympic return .

The Palais Omnisports was the place to be on the second day of the Paris Olympics . To watch Simone Biles , of course, and to be seen.

A star-studded crowd attended the return to the Olympics of Biles, the most decorated athlete in the history of gymnastics.

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Snoop Dogg had front-row seats while Greta Gerwig, Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, Nick Jonas and Anna Wintour also attended Biles’ competition.

Snoop Dogg was in a partying mood and danced during the team’s presentations. Cruise was mobbed by fans and agreed to selfies, shaking a few hands.

Biles competed in the team’s qualifying alongside U.S teammates Jordan Chiles, Hezly Rivera, Sunisa Lee and Jade Carey. It was her first competitive appearance in Paris, where she will try to add to her already impressive tally of seven Olympic medals.

Despite discomfort in her left leg, the American gymnastics superstar posted an all-around total of 59.566 and the Americans scored a 172.296, well clear of the field.

Also in attendance were USA snowboarder Shaun White and his girlfriend Nina Dobrev. Athletes across the Olympic spectrum have said they want to make it a point to catch the most decorated gymnast of all time in what could be the final competition of her unparalleled career. Among them: LeBron James and the U.S. men’s basketball team, which was busy Sunday with Olympic qualifying.

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Tom Cruise To Close Paris Olympics With Stunt Performance

Tom Cruise will jump of Stade de France in the 2024 Olympics closing ceremony.

It’s only fitting for action movie star, Tom Cruise to take on the games and perform a stunt.

The 62-year-old actor, known for being his own stunt double in his films, plans to take part in the closing ceremony for the Paris games.

It was reported by TMZ , according to an insider, that Tom will descend from the top of Stade de France, eventually landing in the stadium representing the games with the organization’s flag. It is also said that the stunt may contain some pre-recorded jumps and turns from the Top Gun star.

This is nothing new for Tom, as he is used to performing these tricks in his films. From becoming a fighter pilot to jumping off the stadium where the Olympics are held, he is definitely up for some risky adventures. In Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part Two , he takes on the big stunt of jumping off a cliff on a motorcycle, which he recalled to Fandango , “I spent years preparing for.”

He told the outlet, “It’s not just the years prepping and figuring it out, but I’ve been riding motorcycles since I was a little kid. Parachuting, training, constantly developing knowledge, developing technology on how to shoot these things and really how to tell a story. It’s not just capturing an image but it’s ‘how do we tell a story?’”

“I just try to do everything I can, use every tool that I have to entertain the audience,” he told Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live .

Fans can expect to see the thrill seeker perform more stunts as he partners with Warner Bros. to produce more films for his already extensive franchises. In a statement released by Tom on Instagram , it notes, “Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group’s Co-Chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca & Pam Abdy and Tom Cruise today announced they will jointly develop and produce original and franchise theatrical films starring Cruise in 2024 under a new strategic partnership between Cruise and Warner Bros. Discovery. Cruise and his production company will have offices on the Warner Bros. Discovery lot in Burbank.”