“I can live through just about anything.”
So says Tom Cruise, still arguably the biggest–and busiest–movie star on the planet. But he’s not talking about performing the arduous stunts and enduring the discomfort of having his eyes forcibly pried open for his latest film, the science fiction thriller Minority Report. Nor is he referring to having his private life trumpeted very publicly throughout the media, or the rigorous shooting schedule facing him in a few months when he films The Last Samurai for director Edward Zwick and Mission Impossible 3 for director David Fincher back-to-back. He’s not even talking about the new braces that track his trademark toothy grin with bands of gleaming metal.
No, Cruise is talking about climbing mountains–both the literal kind and the metaphorical peaks he’s scaled to get where he is today. But then, let’s let him tell it.
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On finally working with Steven Spielberg, one of the few A-list directors he hadn’t yet acted for:
Everyone wants to work with Steven. He and I had been looking for something and it’s hard. It’s difficult to find material that he’s interested in, that I’m interested in, something really challenging and exciting. We came very close to working together on Rain Man. He developed it, but he owed somebody a picture. He had to do a Raiders—Raiders 3, I guess it was. That was very disappointing for me, because I was so looking forward to working with him.
On choosing to collaborate with the director after discovering Minority Report, based on a story by science fiction author Philip K. Dick (whose other work inspired the films Blade Runner and Total Recall):
I thought when I read it and then read the short story it had great potential–very cinematic. I thought, “Oh, man I’d love to see what [he’d do] with this. What would this world be like? What will he create with that?” It was a film that for a director was very challenging. You’re creating this world, and yet it has great characters for an actor, for performance…it’s not a walk-in-the-park kind of film to make. Spielberg knows how to tell a story. It was his choice to [set] it in 2054 and make it so that people could identify with it–not this removed world, but relevant to our lives. You can see how the guy can just really tell a story.
On not having to pressure director Cameron Crowe, whom he’d talked into getting a buzz cut with him after making Vanilla Sky, into making a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in Minority Report:
I finished Vanilla Sky and started Minority Report the next day. Literally, our wrap party was me shaving my head, and Cameron cutting his hair.
Steven was in Vanilla Sky, and so Steven called Cameron and said, “Look, I’ve got a role for you in this.”
On performing Minority Report‘s wince-inducing “eyes wide open” scene, which he did without the benefit of digital effects:
That was my eye that was being hooked up! They put numbing drops in my eyes and I came on the set and I couldn’t see. My eyes were blurring and they sat me down and they opened my eyes.
On why he didn’t just call in a stunt man or body double:
Well, that’s no fun! I don’t want to sit in my trailer. I want to work! I want to be there.
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On Minority Report‘s precognitive people and the real-world implications of knowing his own future:
I don’t believe in fate. I believe that you make your own fate. That’s what I personally believe, but if we were in a situation where we had precognitives that were able to predict the future–I think it’s pretty cool. I would like to live in a society [like that]–But then there’s that whole thing about “How accurate is it?” and that whole problem. But I think it’d be interesting to know what’s gonna happen in the future and then you can have a choice. I’d like that.
On the other elements of Minority Report‘s envisioned year 2054 that he’d enjoy experiencing in real life:
The MAGLEV system [a vertical superhighway which runs up the side of skyscrapers], I hope that’s part of the future. I’d like to have that but it’s got to be able to come off so you can drive also. I don’t want to lose that.
And that slick, red Lexus he drives in the film?
Very cool car. You’ve got to have the toys, man!
On a slightly lower-end technology, the much-discussed braces that currently adorn his multimillion-dollar smile:
These braces are more about function, because I was having a hard time closing my mouth, biting down. This orthodontist said I should fix it because I’m fracturing the lower teeth…I got ’em in January…Now when it comes time for my kids to get braces–I know what it’s like. I’ve been there. [with mock parental authority] “Don’t whine about it.”
On why braces on a person his age may be commonplace in 2054:
[For Minority Report] they did a lot of research with scientists to find out: “What is the future going to be?” Some of the things all these scientists agreed upon was that people are going to live to 150, 200 years. That’s where we’re headed.
On his upcoming 40th birthday, which in the future wouldn’t come close to being middle age:
Forty’s comin’ up, man. Obviously, now I’m getting asked this question, and I hadn’t thought about it a lot…. You get busy with kids and work and everything. But when I was a teenager and in my 20s you always think, “Geez, where am I gonna be?” I’d hoped that I would just keep developing and have the opportunities to make different kinds of movies and hopefully survive that “flush” when you first start working.
On what he’d have said if a precognitive had told him where he would be at this stage of his life and career:
[Laughs explosively] I’d say I think they’re crazy. I’d say, “You’re out of your mind!” I am surprised at how well things have gone. You always still want to keep pushing and see what’s gonna happen next, but the more you work–I think it’s the same being a painter, a writer, an actor. You start to gain confidence in your work, and yet every time you go to do it again, you have that thing in your stomach, you know? You start to get nervous beforehand. I like that nervousness. It’s not fear, it’s excitement. I just know that feeling I had when I was racing cars: Right before the race, no matter what happens. It sort of keeps things very sharpened. I get excited. Days before I don’t sleep.
On exactly what he has planned for his big 4-0 on July 3:
I think friends of mine are going to throw a party for me. I just leave it up to them. They’re quite enthusiastic about this evening, so I’m going to leave it to them. And I think this summer, I’m gonna climb a mountain. Just relax. Maybe in Yosemite or Colorado…I’m not a great climber or anything, but I can climb. I can live through just about anything.
