Tom Cruise: Daring Star

ONLY ONE MAN would not be surprised at a 62-year-old flying down off the top of a stadium, almost like a bungee jump with the entire world watching, and that is the man who did it—Tom Cruise. It was the moment of the handover of the Olympics from Paris to Los Angeles. Cruise took the flag and motorcycled away with the scene then cutting to him in Los Angeles at the Hollywood sign. It was showman­ship apt for an occasion like the closing of the world’s greatest sports spectacle but all too regular for his fans.

He is used to jumping off heights because Cruise is that rare superstar who insists on doing his stunt scenes himself even though, as we know, it does not matter because the audience is usually satisfied with a double. Yet, he does it because he enjoys it. He has spoken about how he liked to do stunts even before he got into movies as a child. Jumping off a stadium is very mild when compared to other things he has actually done. He once hung off an aeroplane while shooting for a movie scene.

There are actors and there are stars, and there are the uncommon few who traverse both the commercial and artistic sides of the movie universe with ease. Cruise is one of them. From his first movie in 1981 in a small role to becoming a teen heartthrob with movies like Top Gun, he soon gallivanted to more substantial roles, like Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July. Take any time period and there will be an iconic Cruise movie that everyone will remember. In the 1990s, there were A Few Good Men with that immortal court scene with Jack Nicholson, and Jerry McGuire, where he plays a sport agent. And just two years back, there was the sequel to Top Gun which made close to US$ 1.5 billion at the box office. In between, peppered throughout over the last few decades, were the Mission Impossible franchise movies. Cruise mixes and matches the projects he takes on. If he is doing something with a director known for winning awards, he will then go for an out-and-out commercial caper like Jack Reacher. It explains to some extent the longevity of his career and the mindspace he occupies.

He has chosen in recent times to mostly stay out of the limelight. It might be the result of some earlier controversies, especially his once vocal promotion of Scientology, a cult that he is still part of and which has some questionable ideas. As Rolling Stones wrote in an article last year, “There was a brief window where it was possible the Tom Cruise/Scientology partnership would end in some kind of mutual assured destruction. The man was on an absolute tear in the mid-2000s, railing against psychology and pharmaceuticals, scolding Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants…” But then he toned down his posturing on Scientology and let his movies do the talking. He retreated so much from the public profile that the New York Times once did a story on trying to find where he lived and not being very successful at it. The world got their fill of him in little spurts whenever he chose it, like for the promotion of his movies or with the Olympics closing ceremony. It would all be spellbinding and spectacular and then he would vanish again.

That is probably not a bad thing and might even be what keeps the Cruise mystique going. He only gives of himself as much as he needs to and that keeps his audience wanting more. The latest Mission Impossible movie did not do as well as was expected and there is a second part that still has to come out. It might meet the same fate but you can be sure that Cruise will find a new gear to self-propel. There is, for example, a movie being planned with the Academy Award winning director Alejandro Iñárritu. That might not see death-defying stunts but it will still be vintage Cruise because he fits into the mould that he chooses.

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