This is Tom Cruise on the June issue of Esquire. Esquire is calling this issues the “How To Be a Man” issue, although I think the piece is actually called “The Making (and Remaking) of Tom Cruise”. I kind of have to hand it to Tom – he’s always really great at selling whatever movie he has, and we can expect to see even more of him as he promotes Knight and Day, that action-comedy he’s got with Cameron Diaz. Esquire hasn’t put up the whole interview, but they did the motherload of interview excerpts online, and it looks like Tom isn’t holding back at all. He talks about the Oprah couch jumping, his father (who abandoned his family when he was very young), Katie Holmes, his kids, and throughout it all, Tom uses what I’m guessing is a lot of Scientology-speak. True, the word “thetan” doesn’t cross his lips, but there are moments where I was like “Oh, I bet that has something to do with Xenu.” Tom actually sounds so good here, I’m wondering if he’s being medicated, which is something I mentioned when he was on Oprah a few weeks ago.
On His Father: “I remember looking at my dad and wanting to understand him. I didn’t want to just write the guy off. He was lost. I can’t speak specifically in terms of why and how he got to where he was — that was his journey. All I can tell you is, he was overwhelmed by life… My mother basically did all the work, and then they got separated and I didn’t see him for a long time. He didn’t try to help the family financially or spiritually, and I lived with the effects of the chaos.”
On the Value of Family: “You hear about people who have lifelong friends. I never was in a place long enough to have them. So that role was filled by my family. If anyone was teasing my sisters, I really felt it… I’d create different characters and ad-lib sketches to make my sisters and my mother feel better. I’d try to make them laugh. I’d do Donald Duck as John Wayne. I’d watch Soul Train and imitate the dancers. I guess you can say that’s where it started. I always had a dream to be in movies, [my family] didn’t say, That’s impossible. They laughed.”
On Knowledge: “Now, I’d ridden bikes a lot. When I was a kid, I’d set up ramps for jumps, like Evel Knievel, and crash all the time. I’d done it all — but never on a minibike. I got on. Of course, all I wanted to do was go fast, so I hit the throttle. I started off by a neighbor’s yard, went past our yard, which had a little hump, and suddenly I was airborne… Rrrrrrrrrrr! The minibike is still going. Oh, no, I’m alive… Okay, I’m alive. The minibike was wedged between the bumpers of the two cars. What a lesson: Know before you go. [You don't] have to curb your enthusiasm. Just fill it in with a little knowledge.”
On His Big Break: “The audition [for Taps] was in New York. I said one line. That was it. I had long hair at the time, so they said, ‘Hold up your hair.’ Then ‘Thank you.’ I don’t know why, but… I thought I’d get it. It wasn’t arrogance. I had a quarter in my pocket — and that was it. I’m telling you: I didn’t have bus fare to get back to where my mom was living in Jersey. I remember… standing outside the Holland Tunnel, and hitchhiking. I walked up the driveway and saw my mother. It was a distance, but I remember her face. She looked at me and I looked at her, and I thought, I got it.”
On Forgiving His Father: “Risky Business had become a hit. I hadn’t seen my father in about ten years. I found out he was dying, and I went to see him in the hospital. He knew that he’d blown it. There was deep regret. I think he was torturing himself. We tend to do that. All I could do was tell him, ‘Look, it’s okay.’ I wasn’t going to live in blame and regret. I wanted to understand what happened. I wanted to understand, so I could answer the question, What can I do to make things better? I looked at my father there dying and thought, How can I not be that guy?”
On the Joy of Work: “We shot [A Few Good Men] in one go. You could sense how it was going to be edited — like butter. At a certain point it goes beyond work, which is when it’s fun. All I can tell you is, I remember being sad afterward that it was over.”
On Being a Father: “I’ll never forget the moment I became a dad. But it’s hard to describe — that level of responsibility, the desire to give such joy. The clarity: Nothing is more important than this. I remember that first night, just staring at Bella. I was checking her every second, just looking at her, feeling that immediate bond. I was probably looking at her so much that I was keeping her up. I made a promise to her: All I can do is the best I can. But I’m not going to say I’m gonna do something and then not do it.”
On Humanity: “I got to talk to an astronaut and I asked him, ‘What’s it like going out into space and looking back at the world?’ He said that it changed his perspective. Looking back at the world, you think, My God, how small it is. What are we doing? We don’t need barriers and borders. But I already understood that. I understood it going from Canada to Kentucky.”
On the Oprah Interview: “What happened, happened… I wanted the audience to be happy just like I wanted to make my sisters and my mother happy when I did those skits as a kid. But I’ll take responsibility for my actions… Afterward, wild things were being said about me, and once they’re in the ether, there’s nothing you can do about it. It felt like being the new kid in the schoolyard again and the other kids are whispering and whispering about you and suddenly you hear what they’re saying, and you think, What? That didn’t happen. Look at the reality of the situation.”
On the Oprah Fallout: “There was a confluence of events. My deal with Paramount was up and it wasn’t extended. At first it was, Huh? I don’t get it. But people have misconceptions about that whole thing, too. Sumner Redstone and I are friends. It’s a business.”
On Katie Holmes: “Because we do live in a cynical world. It’s easy to be cynical. Making the choice not to be cynical is important. You can keep dwelling on what didn’t work, or you can figure out how to fix it. Which is what being a parent is all about. You know, I’m married to such a special woman. Every night before we go to sleep, Kate and I look at each other and it’s like, How’d we do today?”
On Success: “Those are times you learn a lot about life. You’re back to, How do I figure this out? I’d lived through so many different periods in life that I had a good idea. You just get back to work. You move forward. That’s what I did. Here we are today. Mission: Impossible IV.”
On Suri: “It’s come full circle. Now I’ll put Suri on a swing and tell her stories when I’m working on a script. I’ll start with the beginning of the movie and take her through the story beat by beat. Of course, I make it age-appropriate. She’s four years old. But she asks all the right questions: Why does that happen? Those are the bad guys? You’re the good guy, right?”
On Teaching His Children Well: “It comes down to the same thing as when I was a kid. Can I create a character that will make her happy, that will make her laugh? And you know what? She makes me get better and better, because she’s always asking me to do it again.”
[From Esquire]
It’s a good interview, and it achieved what Tom was aiming for: he comes across as sympathetic, but not self-pitying, matured but not out-of-touch, professional but honest and forthright about his personal life. Or maybe I just drank the Kool-Aid – but I’ve always admired Tom’s professionalism and his work ethic, and when I hear stories of his childhood, it’s easy to understand how well he’s doing considering how terrible he could have turned out. My problem with Tom is that the Xenu stuff is so funny, the rumors are always so juicy, and for a while there, he really did seem batsh-t crazy. Perhaps he’s on his meds again, or perhaps he’s in therapy, or he just had a really good audit or whatever, but he sounds really good. Good for him.
Esquire photos courtesy of Esquire online.
