Tom Cruise's unparalleled career as Hollywood's official Golden Boy includes starring in four of the 100 highest-grossing films in history. He's received three Academy Award nominations: two for the lead roles in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July and Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire and one for his supporting part in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. He's now reportedly dating Katie Holmes, and Premiere magazine just named him the third greatest movie star of all time. Whew!
In his next film, Cruise is reuniting with his Minority Reportdirector Steven Spielberg for War of the Worlds, a big-budget adaptation of the 1898 H.G. Wells novel about intergalactic invasion. The film will
be released on June 29. Cruise discussed War of the Worlds, the new Mission Impossible sequel and working with Stanley Kubrick in a recent telephone interview.
What can audiences expect from War of the Worlds?
entire universe. I think that is a little unreal. Aliens? I have no idea.
This is the largest-scale picture I have ever been involved in. I tell you, I have been looking at these trailers and footage for War of the Worlds. I hope it just scares the heck out of everybody, you know? And I have to say this screenplay, written by David Koepp, was the best first draft of a screenplay that I have ever read in my career. Koepp came on board and everything just aligned.
There is no big scheme. It really just starts with an instinct. There have been a lot of great directors who have offered me things that I haven't interested in, so it really starts with the material.
Is there any strategy behind doing a big movie like War of the Worlds as opposed to something smaller like Magnolia?
I believe what I know empirically. I think that it's truly arrogant to think that we are the only living sentient beings in the
Any worries about how the themes of invasion might be viewed overseas?
This is your first movie with extraterrestrials. Do you believe in aliens?
Image courtesy movies.yahoo.com
Well, I believe what we should be doing is uniting and respecting each other's cultures instead of fighting each other over things like oil and territory, things that have gone on for century after century. Listen, I don't like war. I don't want war. I want a world without war. It has never solved any problems. Never, never, never. But I think with other people around the world, of course they are going to interpret the film however they want to. I know that communication is the only way of resolving problems. Wars never do that.
You got to work with Stanley
with Stanley Kubrick on his last film, Eyes Wide Shut. Spielberg directed A.I. Artificial Intelligence for Kubrick after he died in 1999. How would you compare Spielberg to Kubrick?
Both of them
absolutely understand the medium every aspect of it thoroughly. The process certainly was a longer process with Stanley, but that was his process. With Steven, the speed and accuracy of his creative ability is very, very exciting to me. Also, Steven was a much younger man than when I was working with Stanley. But just different men, different artists.
I discussed A.I. with Stanley. I looked at the drawings, and I know when Steven actually made A.I. it was still in collaboration with Stanley. So the input on that movie was Kubrickian. Most definitely Kubrickian.
What can you tell us about next year's Mission Impossible 3, which is being directed by television creator J.J. Abrams?
I think it's the best story we've had out of the whole series. I think if you look at "Alias" or "Lost" or "Felicity," you really see how much J.J. Abrams likes character. So you take that and on *Ml:3you combine it with huge action sequences*. It is actually going to be, what I believe at this
point, an epic action movie.
Do you read your reviews?
I am not someone who has ever really been concerned about critics. Growing up, I never really read reviews of movies. Still, even today, I won't go to a movie or not go to a movie based on what someone else has said about it. I just like what I like. I don't care what anybody else says.
What's the funniest movie you've seen in the last year?
Napoleon Dynamite. I saw that film three times.I thought it was just hilarious. So much fun.
What movies are you looking forward to this summer?
You have the Star Wars picture. I am looking forward to seeing Batman Begins. You have the Fantastic Four. I am a huge fan of those comics. I am going to be there the opening weekends for those movies. I will tell you a movie I am really excited about—I just happened to have produced it —is the Cameron Crowe picture, Elizabethtown, which is coming out this fall. I can't wait to see Kingdom of Heaven, too, (Orlando) Bloom's movie with Ridley Scott). I saw a trailer of that and I was like, "Whoa!"
It looks like *Gladiator*.
Oh, man. I love stuff like that!
The world's biggest movie star takes on alien invaders in War of the Worlds
1.8 Jayplay 05.05.05