CRUISE CONTROL
How Tom Cruise reclaimed movie throne with Top Gun: Maverick after PR disasters, Scientology scandal and chat show spats
IT’s a big week for Tom Cruise.
After a PR blitz that has seen him dazzle Cannes, walk the red carpet with Wills and Kate and almost overshadow the Queen, it’s time for paying punters to give their verdict on his latest blockbuster.
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Sequel Top Gun: Maverick hits cinemas on Wednesday backed by almost universal critical praise.
No wonder the 59-year-old’s trademark smile has beamed out for every TV, newspaper and website for what seems like months.
It is a moment of triumph for the man whose bizarre behaviour once threatened to derail his career.
As one source put it: “Tom is feeling on top of the world. It was a gamble to revisit a classic film like Top Gun but it looks like it’s paid off.”
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So how has Cruise regained his crown as Hollywood’s golden boy?
For starters the reviews for Top Gun: Maverick have given this never shy and retiring actor some much-needed rocket fuel.
Movie experts Boxoffice Pro are predicting it will be in the summer’s top five blockbusters, with takings of more £300million for the follow-up to 1986 classic Top Gun.
Cruise, who has been divorced from third wife Katie Holmes, 43, for a decade, also appears bitten by the love bug once again.
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As we revealed last week, he is back with British actress Hayley Atwell, 40, going as far to take her along to last week’s London premiere of the Top Gun sequel.
A nine-month romance with his MI7 co-star fizzled out in September but the pair are said to be “getting close” again in recent weeks.
Cruise’s appearance has also returned clsoer to the handsome face that adorned many a teenager’s bedroom wall in the 1980s, suggesting he is in a better place.
Outlandish claims about Scientology
Fans had voiced concerns that he seemd to have gone under the knife too many times after displaying a swollen and puffy face.
But perhaps one of the key things to have changed in Cruise’s public profile is his relationship with Scientology.
For years he was closely associated with the controversial church.
At one point he was even said to be its number two in command behind David Miscavige, who was best man at Cruise’s 2006 wedding to Holmes.
But his links to it are now unclear and there are questions over whether he has ditched it altogether.
When filming in England he had previously stayed at the church’s British HQ — Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead — and was heavily involved in an expensive renovation of the site in 2015.
But speculation has been rife he has pulled away from the church after he opted to stay at a rented flat in central London and a secluded house in Kent while filming Mission Impossible in 2021.
An on-set source told The Sun that Tom had “become withdrawn” as the pressures of working on Mission Impossible 7 stacked up, adding: “He’s really keeping ¬himself to himself, but something seems to have changed.
“He has the helicopter so he can go anywhere very quickly, but he hasn’t been to East Grinstead at all.
“A number of us wonder if the Covid situation and his religious beliefs are pulling him in different directions with so much pressure involved in getting this film finished.”
Introduced to the controversial religion — which believes humans are reincarnations of aliens and has been compared to a cult — by first wife Mimi Rogers, 66, whom he divorced in 1990, Cruise’s A-list status made him a valuable asset and leading advocate for the movement.
Second wife Nicole Kidman, 54, whom he wed in 1990, initially threw herself into the religion, taking daily lessons in its teachings.
But when she became disillusioned and tried to pull him away, leader Miscavige allegedly hatched a plot to split the couple up.
Before Cruise fell for third wife Katie Holmes in 2005, four years after divorcing Kidman, it was claimed the church had been auditioning possible partners for him and that it approved of the Batman Begins star because she was 16 years younger and could attract a new generation of recruits.
The Church of Scientology “categorically denied” that Miscavige or anyone in the church was involved in the break-up from Kidman, and dismissed claims of an audition for partners as a “false piece of gossip”.
Just a month after Cruise met Holmes, he appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show to promote his movie War Of The Worlds, but instead created one of the most bizarre episodes in talk show history.
After gushing about his new romance and declaring “I’m in love”, he hopped on the sofa and started jumping up and down in a manic display of unbridled glee in front of a clearly alarmed Oprah.
In the same year, he got into a heated debate with chat show host Matt Lauer over actress Brooke Shields revelation she had taken antidepressants to combat depression after giving birth.
Cruise slammed prescription drugs and hit out at the practice of psychiatry, which he called a “pseudo-science”.
He ranted: “Here’s the problem: you don’t know the history of psychiatry. I do,” he ranted. He later admitted that his conduct came across as “arrogant”.
As a result, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone cancelled Paramount’s 14-year-relationship with Cruise’s production company, Cruise/Wagner.
“As much as we like him personally, we thought it was wrong to renew his deal,” he said at the time. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount.”
The star’s fall from grace coincided with a rise in superhero movies which relied on CGI and special effects, rather than Cruise’s trademark spectacular stunts.
The damage was compounded in 2008, when a nine-minute video of his speech to a Scientology gathering was leaked on the internet.
Recorded in 2004, it showed Cruise making outlandish claims about the followers of the religion, including: “Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident it’s not like anyone else.
“As you drive past, you know you have to do something about it because you know you’re the only one that can really help.”
He also claimed Scientology would eventually take over the world and SPs - Suppressive Persons (critics of the religion) - would be consigned to history.
He ended by calling Scientology a ‘blast’ and laughing maniacally. The church claimed the clips were heavily edited.
Scientology allegedly contributed to the split from Katie Holmes in 2012, after six years of marriage. Although the couple have never talked about the divorce, friends have claimed Holmes wanted to protect daughter Suri, now 16, from an upbringing in the church.
By then his star was back in the ascendant, with a brilliant cameo as the dancing studio boss Less Grossman in Tropic Thunder regaining a legion of fans and a return to the Mission Impossible franchise, with the 2011 movie Ghost Protocol - which grossed £550million at the box office - signalling a renewed relationship with Paramount.
With many cinema-goers growing critical of the CGI superhero blockbusters, Cruise’s stunt-laden action genre was beginning to enjoy a resurgence, and he went on to star in Jack Reacher, two more Mission Impossible films and Edge of Tomorrow.
But there were to be more embarrassing incidents - most notably the expletive-strewn lockdown rant on the set of Mission Impossible 7 last year, when he told crew they would be “f***ing gone” if they broke guidelines again, adding: “We’re not shutting this f***ing movie down.”
Cruise later defended the outburst, which came after two Covid shutdowns had caused horrendous delays and spiralling production costs.
“There was a lot at stake at that point,” he told Empire magazine. “I was thinking about the people I work with, and my industry. And for the whole crew to know that we’d started rolling on a movie was just a huge relief.”
Despite the frustration at the hold-ups, lockdown seems to have given him time to refocus on his career.
A less controversial profile is no doubt more palatable to Hollywood bigwigs.
Now firmly back in the Paramount fold - with both Top Gun: Maverick and two Mission Impossible films to follow – execs can breathe a sigh of relief and start counting the spoils.
Because one thing that is beyond doubt is that when Tom Cruise is on form, there is a lot of money to be made.
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Over a career spanning four decades, Cruise’s blockbuster movies - including Top Gun, Jerry Maguire and Born on the Fourth of July - have made over £8 billion at the box office and he is one of the highest paid actors of all time.
And with Top: Maverick, he is flying high once more.
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EIGHTIES STAR STILL SHINES
EVERYTHING you want Tom Cruise to be, he is. When you meet him you can’t quite believe he looks so good, but he does.
You really don’t imagine he’s going to be that nice, but he is. And he can’t possibly be funny too, can he? Well, yes, he’s funny too.
Because what Cruise has is a keen sense of who he is in the world, as well as an acute sense of what it takes to maintain that image.
I’m not suggesting the image is fake or insincere, but all famous people develop a slightly exaggerated version of themselves for public consumption.
And Cruise has a secret weapon – focus. When he’s talking to you, he’s really talking to you, and no one else.
I met him a few years ago at a meet-and-greet at his hotel when he was working in London on one of the Mission: Impossible films, and for the five minutes I was with him I felt like the most important person in his world.
When Cruise focuses on you, everything else in his world, and yours, momentarily disappears.
Many stars have this. Sure, it’s a bit disconcerting at first, you don’t understand why you’re the beneficiary, but you’re soon swept up in the moment.
George Clooney has it, Mick Jagger has it, and David Bowie had it in spades, as did Beatles producer George Martin.
But Cruise is probably better at it than anyone else.
And that focus goes far beyond just interviews.
Who else could revive a role like Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and get away with it? Who else could have steered a franchise like Mission: Impossible through so many iterations?
And who has the dedication to look almost as good now as when he first experienced fame, in the Eighties?
The public fell in love with Cruise for his charm and drive, which is why it was tragic to see him entangled in bitter spats over Scientology, and dropped by Paramount over conduct that didn’t reflect well on him or the industry.
But he has been a public figure for so long that he is not just used to trial by media, but also by his own high standards.
He is able to take a hard look at himself. And it seems he did that over lockdown. Where other stars may have lost their shine, Cruise remains a phenomenon.
His work ethic makes him a force of nature.
And he’s still pretty damn good-looking and athletic, which is why so many still watch his films.
Cruise has respect – for his craft, his industry, his audience and himself. He takes himself and his work seriously.
The man is that rarest of breeds – a genuine movie star.
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