actor tom cruise age

Actor Tom Cruise has starred in the box-office hits Risky Business , Top Gun , Jerry Maguire , and the Mission: Impossible franchise.

1962-present

Tom Cruise Now: Mission Impossible Star Performs Skydiving Stunt at Olympics Closing Ceremony

Tom Cruise wrapped up the 2024 Paris Olympics with a death-defying stunt. During the Olympics closing ceremony on August 11, the actor jumped off the roof of Stage de France and propelled down to the stadium’s floor on a cable, where he greeted athletes and snapped a few selfies as he walked toward the stage. Once on stage, Cruise shook hands with gymnast Simone Biles and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who handed him the Olympic flag. The Mission: Impossible star then secured the flag to the back of his motorcycle and took off.

The 62-year-old then appeared in a previously filmed video clip that showed Cruise driving through the streets of Paris and boarding a plane headed to Los Angeles, symbolizing the passing of the torch from the Paris Games to the Los Angeles Olympics in summer 2028. Cruise put on skydiving gear and jumped out of the plane, soaring through Los Angeles and past the Hollywood sign, which he redesigned to feature the Olympic rings in place of the two Os at the end of Hollywood .

Cruise is famous for doing many of his own stunts in his movies, including the Mission: Impossible and Top Gun franchises. Ahead of the release of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One in July 2023, he told Entertainment Tonight that his most dangerous stunt took years of practice to perfect: “You have to be razor sharp when you do something like that.”

Who Is Tom Cruise?

Quick facts, young tom cruise and parents, scientology, ex-wives: katie holmes, nicole kidman, and mimi rogers.

Actor Tom Cruise has been one of the most prominent movie stars in Hollywood dating back to the 1980s. After developing an interest in acting during high school, he rocketed to fame with his turns in Risky Business and Top Gun . Cruise has since become an action movie veteran, counting the Mission: Impossible franchise, Edge of Tomorrow , and Top Gun: Maverick among his many successes. The four-time Oscar nominee has also earned acclaim for his performance in Born on the Fourth of July , Jerry Maguire , and Magnolia. Off the silver screen, Cruise is one of the most high-profile members of the Church of Scientology and has been married to fellow actors Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes .

FULL NAME: Thomas Cruise Mapother IV BORN: July 3, 1962 BIRTHPLACE: Syracuse, New York SPOUSES: Mimi Rogers (1987-1990), Nicole Kidman (1990-2001), and Katie Holmes (2005-2012) CHILDREN: Isabella, Connor, and Suri ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, better known as Tom Cruise, was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York. The third of four children, Tom was the only son of Mary Lee South and Thomas Cruise Mapother III. Cruise’s mother was an amateur actor and schoolteacher, and his father was an electrical engineer. His family moved around a great deal when young Tom was a child to accommodate his father’s career.

Tom’s parents divorced when he was 11, and the children moved with their mother to Louisville, Kentucky, and then to Glen Ridge, New Jersey, after she remarried. Like his mother and three sisters, Cruise suffered from dyslexia, which made academic success difficult for him. He excelled in athletics, however, and considered pursuing a career in professional wrestling until a knee injury sidelined him during high school.

At age 14, Cruise enrolled in a Franciscan seminary with thoughts of becoming a priest, but he left after a year. When he was 16, a teacher encouraged him to participate in the school’s production of the musical Guys and Dolls . After Cruise won the lead of Nathan Detroit, he found himself surprisingly at home on the stage, and a career was born.

Early Roles in Taps and The Outsiders

Cruise set a 10-year deadline for himself in which to build an acting career. He left school and moved to New York City, where he struggled through audition after audition before landing an appearance in 1981’s Endless Love , starring Brooke Shields . Around this same time, he snagged a small role in the military school drama Taps (1981), co-starring Sean Penn . His role in Taps was upgraded after director Harold Becker saw Cruise’s potential, and his performance caught the attention of a number of critics and filmmakers .

In 1983, Cruise appeared in Francis Ford Coppola ’s The Outsiders , which also starred Emilio Estevez , Matt Dillon, and Rob Lowe —all prominent members of a group of young actors the entertainment press dubbed the “Brat Pack.” The movie wasn’t well received, but it allowed Cruise to work with an acclaimed director on a high-profile project.

Breakout Role in Risky Business

His next movie, Risky Business (1983), grossed $65 million and become one of the most profitable movies at the box office that year. It also made Cruise a highly recognizable actor—thanks in no small part to a memorable scene of the young star dancing in his underwear.

Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick

In 1986, after a two-year hiatus, the budding actor released the big-budget fantasy film Legend , which did poorly at the box office. That same year, however, Cruise’s A-list status was confirmed with the release of Top Gun , which co-starred Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards, and Meg Ryan . The testosterone-fueled action-romance, set against the backdrop of an elite naval flight school, became the highest-grossing movie of 1986.

Decades later, Cruise returned to his role as fighter pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the action-packed sequel Top Gun: Maverick (2022), which picks up more than 30 years after the original. Critics heaped praise on the movie, and in addition to becoming the second highest-grossing film of the year, it earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

Cruise is set to star in a third movie, Top Gun 3 , which doesn’t yet have a release date.

The Color of Money , Rain Man , and Born on the Fourth of July

Cruise followed the tremendous success of the original Top Gun with a string of both critically acclaimed and commercially successful films. First up was The Color of Money (1986) with co-star Paul Newman , then Cruise worked with Dustin Hoffman on Rain Man (1988). Cruise’s next role, as Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in the biopic Born on the Fourth of July (1989), earned him an Academy Award nomination and a Golden Globe for Best Actor.

A Few Good Men , The Firm , and Interview with a Vampire

In 1992, Cruise proved once more that he could hold his own opposite a screen legend when he co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the military courtroom drama A Few Good Men . The movie grossed more than $15 million its first weekend and earned Cruise another Golden Globe nomination. He continued to demonstrate his success as a leading man with The Firm (1993) and Interview with the Vampire (1994), which co-starred Brad Pitt.

Mission: Impossible Franchise

Next, Cruise hit the big screen with another huge action hit: the $64 million blockbuster Mission: Impossible (1996). In addition to starring in the movie, Cruise also served as a producer. The movie’s popularity spawned another action franchise for Cruise.

The long-awaited smash hit Mission: Impossible 2 arrived in 2000 followed by the also popular Mission: Impossible 3 in 2006. However, Cruise was faced with a professional setback that August when Paramount Pictures ended its 14-year relationship with the actor. The company’s chairman cited Cruise’s erratic behavior and controversial views as the reason for the split, though industry experts noted that Paramount more likely ended the partnership over the actor’s high earnings from the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Ultimately, Cruise and Paramount patched up their relationship and have continued adding films to the franchise. That includes Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (2011), Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation (2015), Mission: Impossible —Fallout (2018), and most recently, Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning (2023).

Jerry McGuire , Eyes Wide Shut , and Magnolia

The same year as the first Mission: Impossible movie, Cruise landed another hit with the highly acclaimed Jerry McGuire (1996), directed by Cameron Crowe. The star secured a second Academy Award nomination and won his second Golden Globe for Best Actor.

Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman spent much of 1997 and 1998 in England shooting Eyes Wide Shut , an erotic thriller that was director Stanley Kubrick ’s final film. The movie came out in the summer of 1999 to mixed reviews, but that same year, Cruise enjoyed greater success with the release of Magnolia . His performance as a self-confident sex guru in the ensemble film earned him another Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Vanilla Sky and The Last Samurai

In 2002, Cruise starred in Vanilla Sky , his second collaboration with director Cameron Crowe, as well as Steven Spielberg ’s Minority Report . The following year, Cruise traveled to Australia to shoot the $100 million war epic The Last Samurai, which earned him another Golden Globe nomination.

War of the Worlds

Cruise proved he remained a top draw by starring in the Steven Spielberg –directed remake of the science-fiction classic War of the Worlds (2005), which grossed more than $230 million at the box office.

The third Mission: Impossible movie added to his list of credits in May 2006, but three months later, his partnership with Paramount Pictures, the franchise’s studio, ended. Cruise quickly rebounded with an announcement early that November: He had a new partnership with film executive Paula Wagner and the United Artists film studio. Their first production as a team, the political drama Lions for Lambs (2007), proved a commercial disappointment despite a strong cast that included Meryl Streep and Robert Redford .

Tropic Thunder

Taking a break from weighty material, Cruise delighted audiences with his performance in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008). Despite his relatively small role in a movie that featured Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller , Cruise stood out by obscuring his trademark good looks to play a balding, obese movie studio executive.

Valkyrie and Rock of Ages

In December 2008, Cruise released his second project through United Artists. The film, Valkyrie , was a World War II drama about a plot to assassinate German leader Adolf Hitler . Cruise starred as a German army officer who became involved in the conspiracy.

Breaking into new territory after another entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise in 2011 , Cruise starred in the 2012 musical Rock of Ages . Although Cruise received some positive reviews for his performance as a rock star, the movie failed to attract much of an audience.

Jack Reacher , Edge of Tomorrow , and The Mummy

Returning to his mainstream action roots, Cruise anchored the 2012 crime drama Jack Reacher , based on a book by Lee Child. He then headlined a pair of science-fiction adventures: Oblivion (2013) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Showing no signs of slowing down, the veteran actor in 2015 delivered his usual high-energy performance for the fifth installment of his blockbuster Mission: Impossible franchise .

In 2016, Cruise reprised the role of Jack Reacher for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back . He then headlined a reboot of The Mummy (2017), which performed respectably at the box office but was savaged by critics, before earning better reviews later that year for the crime thriller American Made .

Cruise is one of the most prominent celebrity members of the Church of Scientology . He became a student of the religion, founded by writer L. Ron Hubbard, through his first wife, Mimi Rogers. Cruise credited the church with curing his dyslexia, and he soon became one of its leading proponents.

In 2005, Cruise made headlines as an outspoken Scientologist. He openly criticized his former Endless Love co-star Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants during her recovery from postpartum depression. He also denounced psychiatry and modern medicine, claiming Scientology held the key to true healing. Cruise’s statements led to a heated argument with news anchor Matt Lauer on The Today Show in June 2005, for which Cruise later apologized.

Cruise has been married three times, all to fellow actors, and has three children.

He first wed Mimi Rogers in 1987 but their union ended three years later. Cruise wasn’t single for long.

Also in 1990, he connected with Nicole Kidman , his co-star in the racecar drama Days of Thunder . The movie was unpopular among critics and fans alike, but the two lead actors had real chemistry. On Christmas Eve 1990, after a brief courtship, Cruise and Kidman married in Telluride, Colorado.

For much of the 1990s, Cruise and Kidman found themselves fiercely defending the happiness and legitimacy of their marriage. They filed two different lawsuits against tabloid publications for stories they considered libelous. In each case, the couple received a published retraction and apology, along with a large monetary settlement which they donated to charity. During the first half of their marriage, the couple adopted two children, Isabella and Connor.

On February 5, 2001, Cruise and Kidman announced their separation after 11 years of marriage. The couple cited the difficulties involved with two acting careers and the amount of time spent apart while working.

Following the divorce, Cruise briefly dated his Vanilla Sky co-star Penelope Cruz followed by a much-publicized relationship with actor Katie Holmes . A month after his ties to Holmes became public, Cruise professed his love for Holmes in a now-famous appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, during which he jumped on Winfrey’s sofa, shouting “Yes!”

In June 2005, after a two-month courtship, Cruise proposed to Holmes in a restaurant at the top of the Eiffel tower. In October, they announced that they were expecting their first child together. The hasty proposal and surprise pregnancy quickly became tabloid gossip.

In 2006, Cruise and Holmes welcomed their daughter, Suri. That November, they were married in an Italian castle, with celebrities Will Smith , Jada Pinkett Smith , Jennifer Lopez , and Victoria and David Beckham among those in attendance. However, the storybook romance didn’t last, and in June 2012, Holmes filed for divorce.

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• 64 wins & 119 nominations total

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Personal details

• Tomu Kurûzu
• 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
• July 3 , 1962
• Syracuse, New York, USA
• Spouses Katie Holmes November 18, 2006 - August 20, 2012 (divorced, 1 child)
• Children Isabella Jane Cruise
• Parents Thomas Mapother III
• Relatives William Mapother (Cousin)
• Other works Played Nathan Detroit in a high school production of "Guys and Dolls"
• 12 Print Biographies
• 9 Portrayals
• 32 Interviews
• 146 Articles
• 21 Pictorials
• 764 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia His acting idol is Paul Newman . Much to the delight of Cruise, they became good friends during work on The Color of Money (1986) . Newman got him into racing, and Cruise ultimately raced on his team.
• Quotes The thing about filmmaking is I give it everything, that's why I work so hard. I always tell young actors to take charge. It's not that hard. Sign your own checks, be responsible.
• Trademarks Often plays romantic leading men with an edge
• Salaries Mission: Impossible 8 ( 2025 ) $13,000,000 + % of back end
• How old is Tom Cruise?
• When was Tom Cruise born?
• Where was Tom Cruise born?

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Tom Cruise facts: Top Gun actor's age, films, marriages, children, net worth and more revealed

4 May 2023, 13:45

Tom Cruise has been one of Hollywood's leading names for over nearly forty years.

Tom Cruise is an American actor who is the fifth-highest-grossing (as of 2023) film actor of all time as well as one of the highest-paid actors in cinema.

He has appeared in some of the biggest film franchises ever like Top Gun and its sequel Top Gun: Maverick (which is his highest-grossing film to date), the Mission Impossible film series, as well as other blockbusters such as Jerry Maguire , Minority Report , Interview With A Vampire , A Few Good Men , The Last Samurai , War Of The Worlds, Days Of Thunder, Cocktail and Jack Reacher .

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Cruise became a Hollywood lead during the 1980s with stand-out performances in films like Rain Man , The Color Of Money , and Born on the Fourth of July .

Although he is well-known for his roles in action movies, Tom Cruise has also been nominated for four Academy Awards throughout his career, though he hasn't won any.

Cruise has been a member of the controversial Church of Scientology since converting in the 2000s, and has advocated for the organisation as it helped him to overcome his dyslexia.

Risky Business Original Glasses Dance Scene (Mandela FX)

How old is Tom Cruise and when was he born?

Tom Cruise was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York. In 2023, he will turn 61 years old.

His father Thomas Cruise Mapother III was an electrical engineer and his mother Mary Lee was a special education teacher. They both originated from Louisville, Kentucky so Cruise and his three sisters (Lee Anne, Marian, and Cass) were brought up as Catholic.

One of his cousins, William Mapother is also an actor and has appeared alongside Cruise in five of his films.

He once described his father as "a merchant of chaos" as he was a violent bully who would beat Tom Cruise and his siblings.

How did Tom Cruise get his start in acting?

Tom Cruise moved around frequently during his youth due to his father's work, and attended 15 different schools in 14 years.

After falling in love with acting during his youth, Cruise eventually moved to New York City to pursue a career in the profession, then onwards to Los Angeles.

He was cast in several small roles shortly after his move, but it wasn't until he was cast in Francis Ford Coppola's 'Generation X' cult classic The Outsiders (which featured young stars like Patrick Swayze , Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Emilio Estevez) that he began gaining notoriety.

His big break came when he was cast in the iconic comedy-drama Risky Business which subsequently became a cult phenomenon and surprise box office hit, which is still regarded as one of the defining films of the 1980s.

What are Tom Cruise’s biggest films?

Top Gun (1986) Official Trailer - Tom Cruise Movie

- Mission Impossible (series)

- A Few Good Men

- Risky Business

- The Last Samurai

- Jerry Maguire

- The Color Of Money

- Born on the Fourth of July

- Top Gun: Maverick

Is Tom Cruise married?

Tom Cruise is not currently married. He divorced his third wife Katie Holmes in 2012.

He was also married twice before, first to actress Mimi Rogers from 1987-1990, and then to actress Nicole Kidman from 1990-2001 who he appeared alongside films like Days Of Thunder and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut .

Does Tom Cruise have any children?

Tom Cruise has three children. He shares his only son Connor and eldest daughter Isabella with his ex-wife, Nicole Kidman who adopted the pair when they were married.

He also has a biological daughter, Suri, who he had with ex-wife Katie Holmes.

Cruise is notoriously private about his children and his relationship with them, although it's been repeatedly reported that he is estranged from his three kids.

What is Tom Cruise’s net worth?

JERRY MAGUIRE - Show Me the Money - MATHEMATICS in the MOVIES

Tom Cruise's reported net worth is $620 million.

Are there any other facts we should know about Tom Cruise?

Tom Cruise loses his mind on Oprah - Original Video - Hilarious!! - Celeburbia.com

The Hollywood action hero got his Hollywood teeth before he became a leading man, getting braces fitted before his career properly kicked off after being cast in Ridley Scott's fantasy film Legend .

Cruise was reportedly touted to play Neo in The Matrix film franchise before it went to Keanu Reeves , and similarly with the role of Iron Man before Robert Downey Jr was cast as the lead.

Executives at Disney wanted to likeness of Aladdin to resemble Tom Cruise as they said it'd make the character more likeable.

After his turn in Risky Business (and the iconic improvised dance scene) Cruise was credited with saving the sunglasses brand Ray-Ban from going under due to the renewed popularity the film gave the frames.

He participates in most of - if not all of - his stunts in movies, and has a gruelling regime to keep him prepared. When asked about how he keeps fit Cruise replied with: "Sea-kayaking, caving… fencing, treadmill, weights… rock-climbing, hiking… I jog… I do so many different activities."

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Tom Cruise turns 61 on Monday, marking more than four decades since he broke on to the Hollywood scene and started his ascension to the mega-famous movie star we know today.

Born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, Cruise got his start in bit movie parts before a breakout year in 1983, in which he starred in All the Right Moves, The Outsiders, and his breakthrough hit, Risky Business.

But it was in the 1990s when Cruise began to hit his stride as box office magic. From 1992-96, he made history when he starred in five consecutive movies that grossed $100 million or more in the United States: A Few Good Men, The Firm, Interview With the Vampire, Mission: Impossible and Jerry Maguire .

His starring role as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible has also been a blockbuster boon. So far, the franchise's six films have grossed over $3 billion worldwide, with the seventh --  Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One -- coming to theaters July 12.

"It's unbelievable," Cruise told ET while premiering Dead Reckoning in Rome last month. "I do pinch myself every day.... It's something that I've never taken for granted ... I just feel very privileged."

And then, of course, there's Top Gun. The   iconic original flyboy flick was the highest-grossing domestic film in 1986, and when Cruise returned to the role of Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell last year for Top Gun: Maverick, it was a triumph in more ways than one. The film became Cruise's first to earn over a billion dollars worldwide and was a major success for movie theaters just starting to dig their way out of COVID shutdown difficulties.

"I make movies for audiences," the actor told ET. "I work so hard and I think about them the whole time and when you see how excited they are and how much they appreciate it - it's just beautiful."

In total, the man often referred to as "the last true movie star" has made himself a $10 billion career so far -- and he doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

However, despite the money, and despite the moniker, for Cruise it's all about the craft.

"It's not about being a movie star," he insisted. "It's about being an actor and concentrating on that and finding roles that are going to be a challenge for me... Movie stardom can come and go, but your craft within, you can work forever if you keep working hard at that."

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Tom Cruise Height, Age, Wiki, Bio, Wife, Dating, Net Worth, Facts

Tom Cruise is an American actor and producer who is known for his roles in Hollywood hits like Mission: Impossible film series, Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire, Magnolia, and The Last Samurai, among others. One of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood history, Tom has won three Golden Globe Awards as well as been nominated for Academy Awards thrice throughout his career. His notable films include Vanilla Sky (2001), Minority Report (2002), Collateral (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Knight and Day (2010), Jack Reacher (2012), Oblivion (2013), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and Top Gun: Maverick (2022).

• 1 Tom Cruise Biography
• 3 Education
• 4 Tom Cruise Personal Life
• 5 Physical Statistics
• 6 Professional Statistics
• 7 Tom Cruise Net Worth
• 8 Favorite Things
• 9 Tom Cruise Facts

Tom Cruise Biography

Tom Cruise was born on the 3rd of July 1962, in Syracuse, New York, United States of America. He is currently 60 years old.

• Father – Thomas Cruise Mapother III (Electrical Engineer)
• Mother – Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer) (Special Education Teacher)
• Siblings – Lee Anne Mapother (Older Sister), Marian Mapother (Sister), Cass Mapother (Sister)
• Relatives – Patrick Russell Cruise (Paternal Great-Great-Great-Grandfather)

Tom attended Robert Hopkins Public School and Henry Munro Middle School in Ottawa, Canada. He was then moved to the US where he briefly went to a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. As a matter of fact, Tom went to 15 schools in 14 years.

Tom Cruise Personal Life

Mimi Rogers (1986 – 1990) – Tom Cruise and American actress Mimi Rogers began dating in early 1986 and got married in May 1987. But their marriage lasted only for three years and divorced on February 4, 1990.

Nicole Kidman (1989 – 2001) – Tom began dating Australian actress  Nicole Kidman in 1989. They married next year on December 24, 1990, and were in a relationship for more than 10 years. During their marriage, they adopted a daughter named “Isabella Cruise” and a son named “Connor Cruise”. The couple ended their relationship in 2001.

Katie Holmes (2005 -2012) – After his split with Nicole, Tom dates actress Katie Holmes in 2005 and became engaged in the same year. They entered into wedlock in November 2006 and they together welcomed their first daughter Suri Cruise on April 18, 2006. The couple ended their marriage terms in July 2012.

Yolanda Pecoraro (2012) – Tom was rumored to be dating actress Yolanda Pecoraro in 2012.

Cynthia Jorge (2012) – Tom had involved in a brief relationship with American businesswoman Cynthia Jorge in 2012.

Laura Prepon (2013) – In 2013, Tom had a fling with actress Laura Prepon.

Annabelle Walls (2016) – Tom and Annabelle worked together in the 2016 movie The Mummy and the rumor mills spilled beans about the couple being in a relationship. They both denied it.

Physical Statistics

Professional statistics.

Tom was first seen in the 1981 American film, Endless Love where he played the role of Billy.

Brand Endorsements

He has appeared in a Japanese Kure 5-56 commercial, Coca-Cola commercial, guitar hero advert, and many others.

Tom Cruise Net Worth

During his stint in the business, Tom Cruise has made immeasurable wealth that the majority of his fortune comes from movies and other business ventures. Tom has an estimated net worth of US$600 million as of 2024.

The charismatic filmmaker drives a Bugatti Veyron and a Porsche 911. Tom never takes commercial airlines for his air journey as he owns a couple of private jets – a US$35 million Gulfstream-IV SP aircraft and Aviat-Pitts S-2B (P-51 Mustang Fighter).

Tom Cruise bought a 10,000 sq-feet mansion in Beverly Hills, California for $35 million. This extravagant mansion sits on 1.3 acres of land and is equipped with several features including seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a tennis court, and a pool.

Cruise also owns a mansion in Telluride, Colorado which he purchased in 2006 for $30 million. This 13,000-square feet house features nine bedrooms, several bathrooms, a tennis court, and a pool. He also owns a $3 million condo apartment in New York.

Favorite Things

• Food – Italian, Strawberries, Lobster, and Flounder
• Color – Green
• Sport – Football
• Perfume – Clive Christian
• People – L. Ron Hubbard
• Singer – Joss Stone
• Song – Gold Digger by Kanye West
• Pets – Dogs, Cats
• Hobbies – Skydiving, Fencing, Scuba diving

Tom Cruise Facts

Tom Cruise would have never thought that his name would be written in the books of history as a charismatic phenomenal star of all time during his teens as he dreamed of becoming a Catholic Priest but his fate had other ideas.

Born to an abusive father, he grew up in near poverty where his father would often beat him.

Cruise had attended 15 schools in 14 years due to the nature of his father’s job. He had his education in the US as well as in Canada and when his father died in 1984, he moved to the United States with his mother and sisters.

While in high school Cruise was fascinated with acting and started acting in drama where his teachers lauded him for his natural acting talents.

Realizing that he was gifted with acting abilities, he moved to New York and landed a small role in the film ‘Endless Love’ in 1981.

He then later starred in the romantic comedy ‘Risky Business’ playing the role of Joel Goodson in 1983 and since then, he took Hollywood by storm.

Cruise has acted in several films, making him the only actor in Hollywood to give six consecutive movies that grossed more than US$100 million at the box office.

Tom Cruise is a highly bankable actor in the business and the most successful star in history making it to the Forbes Celebrity 100 list twice.

He is not only a successful actor but also a prominent producer in the industry making tons of wealth in both ways.

Tom has received several accolades including three Golden Globe awards in his career spanning more than three decades.

He is an outspoken advocate for the Church of Scientology and its associated social programs.

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Personal Info

Known For Acting

Known Credits 115

Gender Male

Birthday July 3, 1962 (62 years old)

Place of Birth Syracuse, New York, USA

Also Known As

• Thomas Cruise Mapother IV
• Thomas 'Tom' Cruise
• Thomas Cruise
• Thomas Mapother
• Thomas C. Mapother IV

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Tom Cruise (born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV; July 3, 1962) is an American actor and producer. One of the world's highest-paid actors, he has received various accolades, including an Honorary Palme d'Or and three Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards. His films have grossed over $4 billion in North America and over $11.1 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing box office stars of all time.

He began acting in the early 1980s and made his breakthrough with leading roles in the comedy film Risky Business (1983) and action film Top Gun (1986). Critical acclaim came with his roles in the dramas The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988), and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). For his portrayal of Ron Kovic in the latter, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

As a leading Hollywood star in the 1990s, he starred in several commercially successful films, including the drama A Few Good Men (1992), the thriller The Firm (1993), the horror film Interview with the Vampire (1994), and the romance Jerry Maguire (1996). For the latter, he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and received his second Academy Award nomination. His performance as a motivational speaker in the drama Magnolia (1999) earned him another Golden Globe Award and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Since then, he has largely starred in science fiction and action films, establishing himself as an action star, often performing his own risky stunts. He has played Ethan Hunt in all six of the Mission: Impossible films from 1996 to 2018. His other notable roles in the genre include Vanilla Sky (2001), Minority Report (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), Collateral (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Knight and Day (2010), Jack Reacher (2012), Oblivion (2013), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and Top Gun: Maverick (2022), with Maverick being his highest-grossing film to date.

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Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Tom Cruise’s life in pictures as he turns 60 – from teen actor to one of Hollywood’s biggest heavyweights

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It is a big weekend if your name is Tom Cruise and you’re a massive Hollywood heavyweight, as the action hero is celebrating his 60th birthday today.

He has a lot to celebrate at the moment, as Top Gun sequel Maverick is currently flying high at the box office, easily smashing through the $1billion mark worldwide.

That’s definitely a huge gift within itself.

There is no denying that he’s still at the top of his game, but how does he do it? 

In honor of Tom’s milestone big day, we’ve taken a stroll down memory lane to relieve some of his best moments and see what makes the Cruiser the last of the Hollywood icons.

1962: Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York. His full name was Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, but he was shrewd enough to shorten it. 

Suddenly, he stopped sounding like an absent-minded uncle in a Dickens novel and started sounding like a super-cool movie star.

1983: Risky Business. You may not remember much about this teen comedy drama, but everyone remembers Cruise being simultaneously silly and sexy as he dances around in his shirt, pants and socks. A star was born!

1989: Born On The Fourth of July. Cruise proved that he was more than a set of shiny teeth by playing Ron Kovic, Vietnam veteran turned anti-war activist. 

He earned the first of his three Oscar nominations, the last of which was for Magnolia in 2000. The last for now, that is …

1999: Eyes Wide Shut. Cruise and Nicole Kidman signed up for six months’ work on Stanley Kubrick’s erotic psychodrama, but they stuck it out for 15 months, hence Eyes Wide Shut holds the Guinness World Record for the longest ever unbroken film shoot. 

Cruise is no quitter – although his marriage to Kidman broke down soon afterwards.

2000: Mission: Impossible 2. Cruise dangled by one hand from a cliff, 2000 feet above the Utah desert.

And that’s really him doing the dangling, even if he had a safety rope which was digitally erased. 

Of course, the scene was hardly essential to the story, but it gave the Mission: Impossible series its raison d’etre: to show audiences a Hollywood legend doing his own insanely demanding stunts. A risky business, indeed.

2005: The Sofa Incident. Here’s where things went a bit wrong. Cruise was on The Oprah Winfrey Show to promote War Of The Worlds, but he raved about Katie Holmes and jumped on Oprah’s sofa instead. 

Between this loved-up gymnastics display and his attacks on psychiatry, Cruise acquired an unfortunate reputation for being a weirdo Scientologist. 

Lesson learnt; he’s been a lot quieter about his private life ever since.

2007: Lions For Lambs. This smug political drama isn’t great, but it IS directed by Robert Redford, and it remains the most recent example of Cruise working with a really big-name director. 

Young Cruise makes a point of ticking them off: Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Michael Mann, etc. But now he prefers to be the boss himself. 

Whoever the director may be, it’s Cruise’s vision of what constitutes an efficiently entertaining film that counts. Fair enough. If it weren’t for such control freakery, he probably wouldn’t have maintained his megastar status. 

But wouldn’t it be exciting if he collaborated with a challenging auteur once again?

2012: Jack Reacher. Cruise hasn’t made many iffy career choices, but deciding that he was the man to play Lee Child’s 6 ft 5 inch blonde vigilante was one of them. 

2017: The Mummy. Okay, so this is another iffy choice. Let’s move swiftly on.

Still, the film was written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, who has since made every instalment of Mission: Impossible, so at least Cruise got a trusty new creative partner out of the deal.

2022: Top Gun: Maverick. A sequel to the most 1980s-ish of all 1980s movies, released 36 years after the original?

It should have been a disaster, but Cruise’s obsessive quality control paid off – and the fact that he hadn’t aged a day since the first film probably helped. 

2022: Cannes Film Festival. During an on-stage Q&A, a French journalist asks Cruise why he does his own stunts. 

Cruise’s reply: ‘No one asks Gene Kelly, why do you dance? Why do you do your own dancing?’

Yep, he’s passionate about what he does, all right.

TG:M has taken over $1billion at the box office, making it the year’s biggest cinema hit – and Cruise’s own highest grossing film. 

Don’t bet against him winning that long-awaited Best Actor Oscar next year.

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Tom Cruise Height, Weight, Age, Biography, Wife & More

Some lesser known facts about tom cruise.

• Does Tom Cruise smoke?: Yes
• Does Tom Cruise drink alcohol?: No
• Tom Cruise grew up in near poverty.
• He had a abusive father to whom he has described as “a merchant of chaos”.
• He used to play Floor Hockey in his school.
• In 14 years, Tom Cruise attended 15 schools.
• He does all the things with his left hand except writing, which he does with his right hand.
• In 1988, he won a Razzie Award for Worst Actor for the film “Cocktail”.
• In 1989, he won Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for the film “Born on the Fourth of July” and was also his first Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor.
• He had never allowed his images to be used in action figures and video-games.
• He has been nominated three times for an Oscar but has never won one.
• In 1996, he earned his second Golden Globe Award and second nomination for the Academy Award for the film “Jerry Maguire”.
• His most successful movie is the Mission Impossible series and in 1996, it was the first US feature film which opened in more than 3000 theaters.
• In 1999, he received his third Golden Globe Award and third nomination for the Academy Award for the film “Magnolia”.
• He is a promoter of Scientology and has campaigned for it to be recognized as a religion in Europe.
• In 2006, he was ranked as the world’s most powerful celebrity by the “Forbes” magazine.
• Japan declared October 10, 2006 as “Tom Cruise Day” because he has made more trips to Japan than any other Hollywood celebrity.

Tom Cruise (born July 3, 1962) is an American actor, producer and one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood. His films, such as the popular "Mission: Impossible," "Top Gun" and Jack Reacher" action franchises, have grossed over $4 billion in North America and over $11.5 billion worldwide. Best known for performing his own death-defying stunts, Cruise has been nominated for four Academy Awards, eight Golden Globes (with two wins), an honorary Palme d'Or from the Cannes Film Festival and more. Cruise began his acting career in the 1980s, and his first major roles came in the 1983 comedy "Risky Business," Francis Ford Coppola's "The Outsiders" and the sports drama "All the Right Moves." His big breakout was the 1986 military drama "Top Gun," where he starred as U.S. pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. In 2022, 36 years after "Top Gun," he revisited the role with "Top Gun: Maverick." It picked up six Academy Award nominations, including best picture, adapted screenplay, original song, film editing, visual effects and won for best sound. In 1990, Cruise earned his first Academy Award nomination for best actor with "Born on the Fourth of July," followed by another in 1997 for "Jerry Maguire" and a supporting actor nod in 2000 for "Magnolia." In 1996, Cruise launched his most iconic franchise and debuted as special agent Ethan Hunt in the first "Mission: Impossible" film. The series wraps up with a two part finale, "Mission: Impossible -- Dead Reckoning" in 2023 and 2024. His other major films include "Rain Man" (1988), "A Few Good Men" (1992), "Interview With the Vampire" (1994), "Minority Report" (2002) and "War of the Worlds" (2005).

July 3, 1962

Syracuse, NY

• Mission: Impossible,
• Top Gun: Maverick,
• Jerry Maguire,
• War of the Worlds

Golden Globe, "Magnolia," Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Won), Golden Globe, "Jerry Maguire," Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical (Won), Golden Globe, "Born on the Fourth of July," Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama (Won)

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• Celebrities

• Horoscope: Cancer
• Net worth: $570 000 000
• Ethnicity: Mixed(English, Welsh, German and Irish)
• Nationality: American
• Fathers name: Thomas Mapother III
• Mothers name: Mary Lee Pfeiffer
• Education: Glen Ridge High School
• Hair color: Dark Brown
• Eye color: Green
• Lucky number: 1
• Lucky stone: Moonstone
• Lucky color: Silver
• Match marriage: Taurus, Pisces, Scorpio

Scientology

Tom cruise nowadays.

• Personal life

Filmography

Tom cruise: biography.

Tom Cruise is an American actor, director, screenwriter and producer. He is one of the most famous and beautiful representatives of American cinema, the example of the "dream factory".

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV was born on July 3, 1962 in Syracuse (New York, USA). The future actor grew up in a large family (there were four children), he was the third child and the only boy. Tom's father is an engineer, but his career was unsuccessful. Because of problems with employment, the family often moved from one city to another. Tom's mother was an actress.

When the boy was twelve, his father left the family. After that, it became even harder to live: the children had to earn extra money during their free time to help their mother a little bit.

At school, it was not easy time for the boy; he had a rare disease - dyslexia (incorrect perception of written text). His mother also had it and all children in the family suffered from the disease. At school, Tom was not a good student, he was even sent to a special group, but the boy managed to cope with the problem and returned to the regular class.

But this is not the only thing that bothered the guy, he also suffered because of his low growth (now Cruz's growth is 170 cm). Therefore, in school years, Tom talked with the guys who were lower than him, in order to seem higher. In order to be few centimeters higher, the guy was involved in sports and achieved quite good successes in the fight. Cruise planned to become a professional athlete, but because of a knee injury, the young man could not build a sports career.

The dream of acting appeared when Cruise was sixteen years old. For the first time he played on stage in the musical "Guys and Dolls". Before that, Tom had other plans - he entered and studied for a year in the theological seminary, but changed his mind and went to New York to build an acting career. Cruise had a goal - to become famous in ten years.

In 1980, the future actor moved to New York, and the first thing he did was cutting his name, now he was just Tom Cruise. The guy attended all castings. A year after coming to the big city, the beginning actor was noticed and invited to the role of Billy in the film "Endless Love". Then there were some more film with episodic roles. But his first main role Cruise got in 1983 in the blockbuster "Risky business", this film collected $ 65 million at the box office - it was a real success for the actor.

But the status of the Hollywood superstar Cruise got after the film "Top Gun". Later, the actor starred in a fairly successful project "Color of Money" and "Rain Man." For participation in the film "Born on the Fourth of July," Cruise was awarded the "Golden Globe" and nominated for Oscar.

Tom had many successful roles, but the peak of his career is the movie "Mission Impossible." It is interesting that in this film Cruise not only played the main role, but also acted as a producer of the action movie. Also, the bright role that brought the actor millions of new fans is the role of the vampire Lestat in the famous film " Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles."

In 1996, the actor received another Golden Globe, and was also nominated for Oscar for Best Actor in the film “Jerry Maguire” for the second time. Four years later, the "Mission Impossible 2" comes out on the big screen. The film received not only spectator, but also financial success, having collected 550 million dollars.

In 2001, Cruz starred in the fantastic drama "Vanilla Sky", for which he received the Saturn Award for Best Actor. In subsequent years, the actor was working in such famous films as "The Last Samurai", "Collateral", "War of the Worlds", "Valkyrie" and others.

In 2010, the film "Knight and Day" was released. The picture becomes very popular not only in the US, and Tom Cruise's partner in this film was the famous actress Cameron Diaz .

In 2011, Tom appeared in the third part of "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol". In future, the directors will invite him to participate in the next parts of the popular film.

In 2010, the fantastic action film "Oblivion” with his participation appeared on the screens. The film immediately won the sympathy of the audience. Critics gave positive reviews to the film, and a remarkable cast included Hollywood such celebrities as Olga Kurylenko , Andrea Raisboro and Morgan Freeman .

In 2014, the American film actor continued to star in fantasy feature films, which became his business card. The film "Edge of Tomorrow" was released, in which the main partner of Tom Cruise was the British actress Emily Blunt .

In the new film there is a unique struggle of people for survival against representatives of alien civilizations. Events are shown in the near future, when a race of aliens mimikans attacked the Earth, destroying big cities and killing millions of people. The armies of all states struggled for existence and participated in the last battle against aliens. At the cost of incredible efforts, the main characters saved the planet.

The film got positives reviews from critics, and the fans also liked the film, and hoped the filmmakers make a continuation on the fantastic action movie.

The actor is an open follower of the Scientology Church, this direction was introduced to him by Mimi Rogers his first wife in 1990. Tom actively participates in various programs and strongly supports Scientology and its recognition in Europe. As the actor noted in the interview, it helped him completely recover from dyslexia.

After terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Cruise was a co-founder and financial sponsor of the "Purification" program. Thanks to Tom, 800 firefighters and liquidators were able to get treatment at the Downtown Medical clinic. For this, the head of the Scientology Church David Mickiewicz awarded Cruise with the Freedom Medal.

The Scientologist leader and actor began to communicate less because of Tom's relations with the Australian actress Nicole Kidman , whose father was a psychologist. Surely it was he who influenced the religious views of his son-in-law. But after their broke up, which happened not without the influence of Scientologists, Cruise once again established friendly relations with Mickiewicz. In 2004, in an interview, the actor admitted that he was against psychiatry, considering it a Nazi one. In his opinion, this science should be banned.

Fans of the actor are looking forward to his appearance in new films. In 2016, the feature film "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back." Many people are sure that the actor will continue to appear in action movies, as well as in films of a fantasy genre. In particular, at the moment the film "Mummy" will be released in June 2017.

In February 2017, a video appeared on YouTube, in which the image of the falling character Tom Cruise from the picture "Vanilla Sky" is inserted into other feature films. The video with the Hollywood from already well-known fiction has collected over 330 thousand views. Many users immediately assumed that the video appeared for certain reason. And in the near future the actor will again take part in a fantasy action movie.

Tom Cruise didn’t not refuse to participate in the American detective movie "Mission Impossible." In 2018, the premiere of the sixth part of the film is planned.

Personal life 

The world community has always been interested in the personal life of one of Hollywood's most popular actors. The constant attention of journalists followed the actor for decades. Representatives of various world tabloids always try to follow the Hollywood star.

Tom Cruise was married three times. With his first wife, the actress Mimi Rogers, the actor lived for three years (since 1987). Their marriage was considered happy, but as a result, the couple broke up, because of the fact that Cruise refused to move to Los Angeles. There are no children from the first marriage.

In 1990, the actor meets his second wife, the actress Nicole Kidman. The couple met on the set of "Days of Thunder". Lovers got married in the same year, after Christmas holidays. The Kidman-Cruise couple was considered to be the strongest; the actors lived in marriage for 11 years and adopted two children.

In 1999, the couple starred in Stanley Kubrick 's thriller "Eyes Wide Shut." Kidman and Cruise played a family couple who could not solve their problems. Two years later the most beautiful couple of Hollywood filed for divorce. The official reason for the separation was the employment of the spouses. During the divorce, Kidman got 10 million dollars from Cruise.

In 2001, Tom began relations with the famous actress Penelope Cruise , they worked together on the film "Vanilla Sky." The lovers did not get married, after a couple of years the couple broke up. It is assumed that one of the reasons was the jealousy of Penelope to the former wife of the actor.

A year later Tom meets his third wife Katie Holmes . Their beautiful relations were discussed and covered by all tabloids. Cruise made a proposal to the girl six months after the birth of their daughter Suri. The offer of the hand and heart was made in Paris. Tom gave Katie a beautiful ring with a diamond. About their engagement, the couple officially announced to the whole America at the Oprah Winfrey show. The wedding was played in 2006 in Italy.

Star couple lived in marriage for six years, and in August 2012 Holmes and Cruise officially divorced. But, despite this, Tom is not going to leave his daughter, the actor is very fond of children and has long dreamed of a big family. They say that the reason for the divorce was again the religion of Cruise and his views.

Tom Cruise is currently divorced

American journalist Andrew Morton released in 2007 a biography of the actor, in which he called Cruise as a member of the sect. In addition, he wrote that Suri is not Tom's own daughter, and allegedly the girl was conceived with the help of special reproductive technology. Naturally, the actor completely refused this information, and also sued the author of the biography. The information is really absurd and untrue; the girl is very similar to Cruise. Just look at their photo and everything will become clear.

The personal life of Tom Cruise continues to interest fans. Already in 2015, the American media reported that his girlfriend was Emily Thomas, the personal assistant of the movie star. The girl became an assistant of the Hollywood actor during the film "Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation." In Instagram and other social networks, Cruz fans continue to be interested in his personal life.

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Top Gun : Maverick ’s Cannes Film Festival premiere marks another high point in the movie star career of Tom Cruise . The actor turns 60 on July 3, and unlike most leading men of that age who become quicker to call for the stunt double, Cruise shows little evidence of slowing down after 43 films. If anything, his Mission: Impossible stunts seem to grow more ambitiously dangerous, not to mention the fact that he and director Doug Liman will become the first to actually shoot a space film in space for real—aboard one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX crafts with the cooperation of NASA.

So how does Cruise continue to carve such a path?

“I’ve gotten to work with a number of actors who’ve had great success and long careers, Tom being at the top of the heap,” says Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski. “He approaches every day with the enthusiasm that it’s his first movie, and at the same time puts the effort into it like it’s his last movie. That’s a good attitude to have; never take it for granted, give 110 percent every single day. Constantly push the crew and yourself to achieve excellence. I’m amazed by that, that he’s 40 years in and still loves what he does and isn’t slowing down at all. It seems like he’s accelerating, which is pretty amazing.”

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Top Gun & Top Gun: Maverick

“Tom was our first and only choice for Top Gun , that’s who Tony Scott liked, and Don and I really pursued him,” recalls Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the original hit with late partner Don Simpson. “I don’t think he was a pilot back then, but he just had the charisma and we loved what we saw in his film career. You could tell he was a terrific actor and that is so much of what it is all about.”

It was to become Cruise’s signature immersion into the process of preparation. “He went down to Miramar in advance and hung out with a lot of the pilots, found out what they liked and why they did what they did. He just cares so much, and not only about his character but the whole movie. A lot of actors walk into a role and just worry about themselves and how they’re perceived. Never Tom. That was the way he was back in ’85 when we made the first one, and he showed it again this time.”

On the first film, Cruise was the only cast member who didn’t lose his lunch while filming dialogue scenes inside those roaring jets. Mindful of that unpleasant experience, he made it his mission to make sure the new crop of actors playing Top Gun pilots in the sequel fared better.

“We learned on the first one,” Bruckheimer says. “He was the only one we got good footage on; we couldn’t use the footage on the other actors because he was the only one who didn’t throw up. So, Tom designed a flying program for all the actors this time. It took months to do this. First, they went up in a single engine prop plane, just to get a feel for flying. Then, an aerobatic prop plane, and then a jet, and once they were comfortable in that jet, he put them in the F-18. Tom designed [the process] himself to acclimate the actors to the G forces they would experience.”

Kosinski previously directed Cruise in the 2013 sci-fi film Oblivion . In the Top Gun sequel, the director says Cruise put so much into mentoring the young actors on set who were in awe of him. “Tom is an actor that, if you can get him interested in your project, then you can do almost anything,” Kosinski says. “When you combine that with something beloved like Top Gun , it becomes an unstoppable force when you go to make it. We needed that on this movie because what we were doing was very intense and there were a lot of things that hadn’t been done before. Having Tom there to push through the ideas and techniques we were going to use was really helpful. Tom knew just how difficult capturing those images would be, just how physically grueling it would be for the actors.

“I remember one day on the carrier, when Tom was sitting with these young actors, most of them just starting their careers,” Kosinski adds. “Miles Teller has a lot under his belt, but the rest were new. For them, every day was like a master class, and he would make time for them every day. He would sit down and have these impromptu sessions with the actors, either to talk about the scenes we were shooting that day, the technical aspects of shooting an aerial sequence, or broader advice, like how to build a career. I remember Tom asked Glen (Powell), what kind of career do you want? Glen said, ‘I want your career, Tom.’ So, Tom said, ‘How do you think I got that?’ Glen said, ‘By choosing great roles.’ And Tom said, ‘No. That’s not how I did it. I did it by choosing great films. Then, I took the roles and made them the best I could.’ That advice blew Glen’s mind. If you look at Tom’s career, that’s exactly what he did. He chose great films and directors he admired. Regardless of the size of the role, especially on a movie like Taps . And then he created something with it, made the role his own. That’s something these younger actors hadn’t thought about and can only get from someone who spent 30 years as a movie star. I thought it was really interesting to watch.”

Jerry Maguire

Cruise’s turn as the star sports agent who loses his throne after an existential crisis would mark his second Oscar nomination and one of his best-remembered performances.

Cruise shows a different side in the romantic comedy. Writer-director Cameron Crowe wrote many lines that were execution-dependent, that would be the difference between heartwarming and cringe-worthy, and Cruise embraced all of them. That includes the climactic scene, when Maguire pleads with his estranged wife (Renée Zellweger) to give him another chance, a plea delivered in a crowd of pessimistic women who’ve all had their hearts broken by cads.

“Oh, Tom couldn’t wait for that scene,” Crowe says. “I was a little nervous about some of the lines, like, ‘You complete me.’ It’s a slippery slope; if you lean wrong into a line like that, it’d probably be the first thing you cut. But he said, ‘I want to say I love you in this movie, and I want to say it with that line.’ And by the time he got to it, it was two in the morning, at the end of a long week.

“Tom surprised the women because we didn’t tell them that he would be there to do the scene with them that day. In he comes, and in the most loving way, this heavyweight was ready for the knockout. He gently crushed it. The ladies were crying. The crew members were crying. And Renée was a mess. He just took great pleasure in being able to deliver a line that he knew I was on the fence about. He’d said, ‘Just give me a shot, man. You’ll see if I got it, or if I didn’t.’ And, you know, I’m still just so proud of it.”

Crowe recalls other ways that Cruise endeared himself to those around him, from one late night when an In-N-Out Burger truck showed up, courtesy of the actor, or the way he handled the first young actor who pulled out of the precocious child part that eventually went to Jonathan Lipnicki.

“Tom stayed in touch with the mother of the kid who had asked to be replaced,” Crowe says. “Tom wrote him and called and sent him stuff. I only knew this because his mother called to say, ‘Thank you for everything Tom Cruise has done to make my son feel good about even being in the movie and working with him as much as he did.’ I went to Tom on the set and said I couldn’t believe what he’d done, spending the last few weeks making sure his spirits were high. Tom just said, ‘Well, I just don’t want that guy growing up, looking at movies and feeling disappointed about what happened. I want him to love movies.’ Wow.”

When Russell Crowe changed his plan from playing the assassin who conscripts a cab driver to drive him to a series of murders in Collateral , director Michael Mann went right to the doorstep of Cruise, even though it would be a decided departure from the actor’s résumé of hero roles.

“In Tom, I saw Lee Marvin,” Mann says. “When Tom zeroes into a certain kind of person, if they are far enough away from him so that it’s a turn-on for a man of adventure, to be on some kind of a frontier with a character he can get to know but is very different from him, I could tell that within him it becomes a real adventure. To play Vincent, this solipsistic sociopath, who has all the f*cking answers and is so methodical and good at what he does, it felt like Tom was a perfect fit. He’s a perfectionist about knowing how to do the things he is supposed to do, which is why he does his own stunts in Mission: Impossible . The sociopathy of this guy was so unique, in his cosmic indifference and outrageous statements that still crack me up when I see some of the scenes with Jamie Foxx in the taxi cab. ‘You ever hear of Rwanda? So, what do you care about one fat guy who gets thrown out the window?’ Or answering Jamie’s accusation of ‘you killed him’ with, ‘I didn’t kill him. The bullets killed him and then he fell out the window.’ The flat irony of Tom’s delivery on those lines is so perfect. It was a very different character for him, and I knew Tom would throw himself into whatever I needed to take him through to become that assassin.”

When I mention the memorable shootout scene in the nightclub and that Cruise’s proficiency with weaponry is reminiscent of the acumen shown by Keanu Reeves in the John Wick films, Mann is quick to correct the record.

“ John Wick’ s are not real techniques,” he says. “What Tom did, those are real techniques and there was a lot of training with my friend Mick Gould, who was the head of close-quarter combat training for the British SAS. The scene in the alley, there’s no cut in that scene… It came down to doing the work. There was nothing he was doing that wasn’t established close-quarter combat moves that came from months of training. That included blending in. Obviously, people know Tom, but I wanted him to feel what it would be like to blend in, to mix with people and have conversations. He went to Central Market and trained to be a FedEx delivery guy. He said to me, ‘They’re gonna know it’s me.’ I said, ‘No, they’ll see the sign that says FedEx, and you’ll wear sunglasses and a cap and carry that portable computer that drivers used to have when they made deliveries.’ Tom went in and delivered something to a liquor stand and sat down and struck up a conversation with a couple people and insinuated himself into the lives of others. There was a lot of psychological training he did. Tom is a dream. He sees the adventure in what we do, just the way I do, and I imagine other directors do. He just goes for it.”

Mission: Impossible

After scripting the Cruise World War II thriller Valkyrie , Christopher McQuarrie became the actor-producer’s creative partner on the Mission: Impossible franchise with 2015’s Rogue Nation , 2018’s Fallout , the recently completed Mission: Impossible –  Dead Reckoning Part One and the eighth installment currently in production. Cruise had stepped up his commitment to outrageously ambitious stunts right before McQuarrie got there, when Brad Bird directed Ghost Protocol , and Cruise scaled the glassy exterior of the world’s largest skyscraper in Dubai, 123 floors up. But it was on McQuarrie’s watch that Cruise hung from the exterior of a flying Airbus A400M in midair for Rogue Nation , and when Cruise broke his ankle after a leap during a chase in which he crashed into a wall. It was a rare mishap, and McQuarrie feels that Cruise is so meticulous in his stunt prep and so confident in his ability to walk away unscathed, that the director swallows hard and says yes.

“I was asked once by a film student: ‘How do you know when you’ve made it?’” McQuarrie says. “I said, ‘You don’t make it. You’re making it. Actively. All the time. May you never make it. May you always be making it. May you look back one day on all you’ve made and go right on making more.’ Tom embodies that. There is no finish line, no pinnacle, no summit. He applies all he’s learned to something new, then studies it with brutal honesty: Where did we go wrong? Where did we go right? How do we apply it to the next thing? How do we push the limits of what is possible? How do we create the most immersive, engaging experience for the widest possible audience? How do we do all that with an emphasis on character and story first? Tom’s not still here by accident.”

McQuarrie could not recall a stunt Cruise insisted on doing that the filmmaker tried to talk him out of. “I get asked that a lot,” he says. “Honestly, no. Is there anything I wish I hadn’t suggested? Absolutely. When I’m sitting in an A400M with the engines running and my friend is strapped to the fuselage, I’m thinking, Maybe I should have kept this one to myself. The truth is, that stunt seems tame now. What we’ve done since, I still can’t believe. If my hair could get any whiter, it would… Tom understands how all of the individual parts function. His level of preparation is exceedingly present and aware. The bigger the stakes, the higher the awareness. That awareness is contagious and enormously clarifying.”

J.J. Abrams made his feature directorial debut on Mission: Impossible III , the one in which Phillip Seymour Hoffman went mano a mano with Cruise after kidnapping the agent’s wife (Michelle Monaghan). Abrams says the stunts weren’t as eye popping as the ones in the films directed by McQuarrie and Bird (Abrams is a producer of all of those films). While Abrams was a hotshot TV director and showrunner with Alias , Cruise pushed for him to direct, despite his being untested on the big screen.

“I blame Tom Cruise entirely on my having a career,” Abrams says. “He did all the impossible heavy lifting I don’t think anyone could have done to give me a shot. I will be forever grateful for everything he did.”

They met when Cruise and Steven Spielberg wanted Abrams to script War of the Worlds (scheduling didn’t work) and they cooked up a Mission: Impossible movie different from the one Paramount thought it was going to make. “While I was shooting the Lost pilot, Tom watched Alias and asked if I would be interested in Mission: Impossible . They were meant to shoot that other version of Mission . Steven was meant to shoot Munich and then War of the Worlds , and somehow Tom convinced both Steven and the studio, and it seemed like a herculean task only Tom could do, but he managed to reorder the films. Steven agreed to do War of the Worlds first, and Mission: Impossible got moved to after. What I remember is that I had a meeting with Tom and Sherry Lansing, who was high on this other version of the movie. I remember Tom basically saying, that he and I were going to do Mission: Impossible together. I remember Sherry saying she liked the other script and Tom saying, ‘This is the one we’re going to do.’ And she said, ‘OK.’ I’m sitting there, watching him take a wild chance on someone who had never directed a feature before, and I couldn’t believe it was me. I came to learn that kind of thing is a normal Tuesday for Tom.”

Any fear Abrams had that the film’s star and producer would impose himself on a young director was quickly allayed. Abrams says Cruise had a clear understanding of the lanes each occupied, and that he relied on good directors to push him to do his best work.

“Any first film is a surreal experience,” Abrams says. “To have it be something where the first day you are filming in Rome with Tom Cruise on a Mission: Impossible set, now that is incredibly surreal. On the second film I directed, which was Star Trek in 2009, I remember getting to the set the first day and feeling the palpable sense of the absence of Tom Cruise. Which is to say, I had only known shooting a movie with Tom, which was a kind of gift you can’t find anywhere else. You have someone who you always know is working as hard — if not harder — trying to make something work, and he is number one on the call sheet. It’s an incredible rarity.”

American Made

Doug Liman, who directed Cruise in the fact-based American Made , the sci-fi Edge of Tomorrow and the upcoming film they’ll shoot in outer space, got to see more than most filmmakers what it is that makes Cruise tick.

“I lived with Tom when we made American Made ,” Liman says. “When you work with Tom, it’s a seven-days-a-week job. No matter how hard a worker you are, and I consider myself that, it’s nothing compared to Tom. After 40 or 50 straight days, we were coming up on July 4 weekend. It happens his birthday is July 3 and I’m thinking that since his birthday happened to fall on a holiday, maybe Tom will want to have a long weekend off to celebrate his birthday somewhere. I mention to Tom, ‘Are you thinking of going away for your birthday?’ Tom says, ‘No. I was thinking since we have the day off on July 3, we can use that time to have the eight-hour aviation meeting that we’ve been having trouble scheduling.’ I am beyond tired and I’m like, ‘You want to have an eight-hour meeting on your birthday?’ He said, ‘Yes, that’s what I want for my birthday. I want to be making a movie. That’s the best birthday present.’ There was no blowing out candles, either.”

“Cake? No, Tom doesn’t eat cake. You don’t get to look the way he looks, by eating birthday cake. You have to make a life choice there. You know the suit of armor, the exoskeletons he wore on Edge of Tomorrow ? They were extremely heavy, cumbersome, took 10 minutes to get on and off and was too heavy for him to sit in between takes. He would get out of the armor and go, we’re wasting all this time, me getting in and out of this suit. So, Tom gets this idea that, between setups, it would save time if, instead of getting in and out of his suit, we converted a child’s swing set into something with hooks that he could hang from, in between setups.”

For the result, picture the gangster Carbone, hanging from a meat hook in the freezer truck in Goodfellas .

“Yeah, that is the visual,” Liman says.

“Living with Tom on American Made , I came to the conclusion that it would be like if you imagined a premise for a high concept movie, where you got to wake up and be Tom Cruise for the day. He gets up with so much energy. He was a real taskmaster when it came to chores in the house. We didn’t have a housekeeper, for security reasons, and we had to clean the house. He would constantly pull out a pot that I had already cleaned and put back, and say, ‘This is not clean.’”

Liman is circumspect about timing and the story he and Cruise will film in space, but not the intent. “The thing both of us have in common is, we’re not interested in the gimmick of shooting a movie in outer space,” he says. “For Tom and me, it’s a challenge to make sure we make a movie that is so frigging good it can survive the inevitable criticism, ‘Did they really have to go into space to shoot that?’”

Barry Levinson, who directed Rain Man with Cruise, saw the film win Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman’s turn as the autistic savant. Cruise wasn’t nominated for playing Charlie Babbitt, the hustler who kidnaps his brother Raymond and drives him to L.A. to claim an inheritance, but in Levinson’s mind, “Tom had the harder job,” he says. “It was a difficult role because he basically had to drive the movie. Otherwise, Raymond would just be content to sit in a motel. His obligation is to continually drive it and push him, and at the same time not exhaust the audience with a one-beat, ‘C’mon, we’re going.’ It was a very hard role, and he never got the credit he deserved for that film.”

Levinson got the job after Martin Brest, Spielberg and then Sydney Pollack were in and then out because of the tricky nature of the material. Levinson says they found the movie while shooting on the road trip, and what surprised him was Cruise’s skill in improv, and willingness to try most anything they could think of.

“When Sydney dropped out, we were seven weeks out from shooting and we hit the road and kept working on dealing with the relationship between the two of them as we went along,” Levinson says. “We did an extensive amount of ad-libbing and improv work for that film, and Tom jumped in there and ran with it. It was at that point very different for him, not only to be that type of character, but also because the movie was a two-hander. It’s just these two guys basically, and they’ve got to carry the movie. Tom was never resistant to the idea of, well let’s just see what happens if we do this. I said to him once, ‘Let’s get in a car, I wonder if the audience is thinking, the brother hasn’t done anything for Raymond. I think he needs to do something so at least he has made an attempt to deal with him.’ He said, ‘Well, what about if I gave him fresh underwear? That will lead to an argument. Raymond can’t wear that because he gets his underwear in Cincinnati.’ That was the basis of the idea to just have a little something, riding in the car. The two worked really well with each other. I know it sounds like it can’t be true, but it was as good a relationship between the two guys and in terms of what we were trying to accomplish. They were both contributing, and Tom was the one who had to push this movie all the time and I think Dustin would acknowledge that. You keep slowly seeing the changes, as he becomes more emotionally attached to his brother.”

A Few Good Men

To A Few Good Men director Rob Reiner, there is just about nothing Tom Cruise can’t do as an actor, and so he was not at all surprised by the way he went toe-to-toe with Jack Nicholson in his prime during that electric courtroom scene.

“I’ll tell you something. He’s a great actor,” Reiner says. “I know in the last many years he has been doing his Mission: Impossible movies and different things. It seems every really good actor, whether it’s Chris Evans or Mark Ruffalo, they are all in these big action pictures. The thing Tom used to do is, he used to balance that out. I would love to see him do some things that aren’t the franchise films. I’d seen him do things like Taps , Risky Business , and I never worried about him going up against Nicholson because Tom has an incredible work ethic. At that time, I’d never met a young actor with as much dedication as he had to the process. He worked his ass off in rehearsals. He was not only on time, but early every day, and always had his lines nailed. Never had I seen a young actor with a work ethic like this guy. He may tell you behind the scenes that he was intimidated by Jack, but I never saw it.

“When Jack came and we had the first reading of the script, he came fully loaded to work, with a performance at the table. In a table read, you’re usually just kind of marking it. And when Jack got into his performance, it just sent a message to every other young actor. Kiefer Sutherland, Tom, Demi (Moore) and Kevin Bacon and Kevin Pollack, everybody involved knew, you better step up here. We’re not messing around. Tom was always right there with it. I would love to see him play more complex characters than the ones he’s doing now because people don’t realize how great an actor this guy is.”

The Outsiders

When Francis Ford Coppola adapted the S.E. Hinton novel The Outsiders , he wound up with a cast filled with the most promising young actors in the business, from Patrick Swayze to Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio and C. Thomas Howell. Cruise’s role was smaller by comparison, but Coppola had an inkling he might be special based on how the rest of the cast buzzed about how it was Cruise who got the starring role in Risky Business , while the rest of them were confined to ensemble work.

“It’s hard for me to remember that time since I was so focused on casting all of the boys’ roles, of which there were many,” Coppola says. “In those days, I was very experimental about the way I handled auditions. I felt strongly that everyone who showed up be given a chance to show their strengths, so we held them in an open arena where everyone was able to watch the other actors’ auditions for the same roles. The method was as new to them as it was for me. Through that process, I discovered a wealth of talent from which to choose. It’s the luck of the draw I guess, but certainly Tom more than justified his promise. Risky Business was a great showcase for him, and as I recall, he left our set a few days early in order to begin production on that film.”

What stood out to Coppola was the young actor’s openness to messing with what would become his signature thousand-watt smile, to fit the character.

“I was impressed by his willingness to go to extremes in creating a character,” Coppola says. “If the role called for a chipped tooth, he would willingly chip his tooth. He is also very athletic, which you can clearly see in the scene where he backflips off a car. He did not go light or easy in his commitment. I liked his look, and I liked his performance in Taps . He might have been suitable for the older brother role, except he was a little young compared to Patrick Swayze.

“I can’t say that I would have predicted [what was to come for Cruise] at the time, but back when we worked together, he did impress me as a very committed actor with many gifts. Certainly, the incident of the self-inflicted chip in his tooth is an example of his whole-hearted commitment to character.”

Born on the Fourth of July

Oliver Stone badly wanted to tell the story of wounded Vietnam vet Ron Kovic’s transformation from gung-ho soldier to anti-war protester, and each time the film faltered, he could feel it crush the film’s subject. “I had written it with Al Pacino in mind,” Stone says. The movie fell apart when Pacino dropped out, and the project languished for years. Until Cruise sparked to it. The actor was coming off a string of hits that included Risky Business , Cocktail , Top Gun and Rain Man . He was the brightest young superstar in the business and used that clout to empower a picture that allowed him to test his acting mettle in a new way.

“I was broken hearted, and Ron was a basket case,” Stone says. “I said to Ron, ‘If I ever get the chance, I’ll come back and do it.’ Platoon opened up the world for me, and it was either Charlie Sheen or Paula Wagner who suggested Tom Cruise, who was her client. I had met with Tom, and he liked Platoon so much. Maybe no one was going to give the performance as Kovic that I’d seen Al Pacino do in rehearsals, but Tom had other qualities. He was the right age, he looked far younger [than Pacino] and he worked his ass off prior to rehearsal. He hung out with Ron Kovic for a few weeks, going around L.A. in a wheelchair and getting the moves down, getting the mentality down. Ron was such an enthusiastic teacher and Tom took everything he could and kind of fell in love with Ron in a way that he absorbed him into his performance. And they stayed in touch for many, many years.”

Stone says the shoot was grueling, but Cruise was game. “We started the film overseas in the Philippines, where Platoon was made, and for Tom and everyone else, it was a very tough shoot because of the subject matter. I remember the scenes in the hospital being especially difficult, but Tom stuck through it. I was not surprised because I saw his dedication. Tom is a person with a tremendous willpower and once he committed to the role, he really committed.”

Stone says he wondered if Cruise was saying yes to anything the director asked. “In the early scenes, I was worried because I hadn’t seen him wrestle,” Stone says. “He tells me, ‘I can wrestle.’ Well, I’ve been told that kind of thing by a lot of actors, and when you get there on the day of the shoot, when you have no f*cking time to adjust, you find out they can’t wrestle. So, I’m worried. He said, ‘Just trust me. Don’t put pressure on me, I put pressure enough on myself.’ And sure enough, he actually wrestled very well. So never doubt Tom Cruise, I suppose is the lesson.”

Minority Report

For a young actress playing a difficult role as a precognitive woman in the Spielberg-directed Minority Report , measuring up in a blockbuster can be a daunting task. For that reason, Samantha Morton says she often thinks of how much easier a difficult shoot became because of the film’s star.

“I suppose I didn’t fully appreciate how rare Tom was, but now having been in the industry so long, he’s incredibly rare,” Morton says. “Not only is he unbelievably professional, and at a time when a lot of very famous men around me were not being very professional, he was unbelievably generous to me as an actor and as a creative person in that space. And it wasn’t fake or false in a kind of job way. He is genuinely one of the nicest, kindest people I’ve ever worked with, and I cherish those memories of that experience because the job itself was very tough.”

“Mr. Spielberg was incredibly kind and supportive and they made me raise my game because they believed in me. When an actor of his caliber is on set, oftentimes those individuals can be all about the self, and here’s the opposite of that. Because of (Tom), it was, ‘What do we need to make us better?’

“I was 22 when I worked with him, and I didn’t have a huge wealth of knowledge in regards to his cinema history at the time, and I was just there to get my job done. I’ve since seen how exceptional his body of work is. He’s insanely talented and continues to be so, and I have more praise for him as the years go by. He wasn’t being like that because he had to, back then, it was just how he is.”

Morton mentions Cruise sending a coffee truck on a particularly trying day. “People do that now, but nobody did that stuff back then,” she says. “My character was always very emotional and vulnerable. And maybe I was being a bit too method for my own good at the time. But there were scenes where the character couldn’t walk, and he physically carried me all through this shopping mall because I wasn’t taking my own weight. I said, ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry,’ after I don’t know how many takes of the scene. He just smiled. A lot of other actors would have moaned, said something to the director who would have come back and said, ‘Is there any way Sam can just walk on this take?’ Not Tom. And I can tell you, his generosity and exuberance were contagious.”

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12 Things You Might Not Know About Tom Cruise

The actor once considered joining the priesthood.

Defining movie star is somewhat subjective. If it’s a combination of charisma, audience interest, and box office success, then one of the few performers that continue to meet the definition is Tom Cruise. The actor, who has been on screens for over 40 years, regularly makes movies that are considered appointment viewing in theaters even in the era of streaming. His Mission: Impossible series alone has brought in over $1.3 billion domestically.

Part of Cruise’s appeal is his enigmatic public persona. He rarely lets his guard down, preferring to let his work speak for him. Nonetheless, there’s still plenty to know about his life and career.

Tom Cruise started doing stunts early on.

He was a pretty good high school wrestler., cruise auditioned for risky business with a chipped tooth., he didn’t love cocktail ., cruise directed an episode of television., cruise took heat for two adaptations., cruise could have been in the shawshank redemption ., cruise was involved in one of the longest film shoots of all time., he has a cousin who is also an actor., cruise rescued multiple people from maritime disaster., he asked to be included in a photo with some famous directors., cruise gifts colleagues with hundreds of holiday cakes..

Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, Cruise seemed to be drawn to physical activity and danger from an early age. In 2022, the actor recalled that when he was around 4 years old, he thought it would be a good idea to jump off the roof of his childhood home while using a sheet as a parachute. "It’s that moment when you jump off the roof and you go, ‘This is not gonna work,’” he said. “’This is terrible. I’m gonna die.’ And I hit the ground so hard. Luckily, it was wet … And I saw stars in the daytime for the first time, and I remember looking up, going, ‘This is very interesting.’”

Cruise’s mother, Mary, separated from his father, Tom Senior, in 1976, when Cruise was 14. (The actor would later allege that Senior had been abusive toward him.) The family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and Cruise also spent some time in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he briefly considered becoming a Franciscan priest. Eventually, he rejoined his family and they settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, where he joined the varsity high school wrestling team as a junior and senior. During the 1979-1980 year, the team went 14-4-1.

The wrestling may have indirectly played a role in his career choice. After a leg injury prevented him from continuing, he decided to investigate acting and signed up for a role in a school production of Guys and Dolls . “All of a sudden, I felt like I knew what I was doing,” he said in 1983. “And I got all this attention, and it just felt right. So I came to New York. I wanted to try [acting].”

In 1981, Cruise appeared in a small role in Endless Love and as a military cadet in Taps . Two years later, he appeared in the teen sex comedy Losin’ It and the football drama All the Right Moves . Cruise also scored a role as a street punk in The Outsiders . It was during filming of The Outsiders that Cruise auditioned for Risky Business , which cast him as a preppy kid who runs amok when his parents leave town. “I told them, ‘I can't afford to tamper with my Outsiders character because I have to work tonight,’” he said in 1983. “’I can't take a shower, even.’ I was all greasy, had a chipped tooth and a tattoo, and an Okie drawl. And they cast me for this clean-cut boy.”

Risky Business was considered Cruise's true breakout role. It also made Cruise synonymous with Ray-Ban sunglasses, which he later wore to great effect in 1986’s Top Gun .

The mid- to late-1980s was a period where Cruise was able to demonstrate his dramatic chops with prestige directors in films like 1985's Legend (Ridley Scott), 1986’s The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese), 1988’s Rain Man (Barry Levinson), and 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone). In the middle of this impressive run came Cocktail (1988), a relatively lightweight drama about a bartender who relocates to Jamaica. It was “not a crowning jewel,” he told Rolling Stone in 1992. The film earned a Golden Raspberry Award, or “Razzie,” for Worst Picture, the same year that Rain Man won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Given his collaborative nature and intense interest in filmmaking, it’s somewhat surprising Cruise has yet to helm a feature film. But he has gotten behind the camera. In 1993, Cruise directed an episode of the Showtime series Fallen Angels , an anthology set largely in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles. In the episode, titled “The Frightening Frammis,” a con man (Peter Gallagher) has the misfortune to cross paths with a femme fatale named Babe (Isabella Rosellini). The series was produced by Sydney Pollack, who had just directed Cruise in the 1993 film The Firm .

When Cruise was cast as the vampire Lestat in 1994’s Interview With the Vampire , the book’s author, Anne Rice, was a vocal critic, saying she preferred someone like Daniel Day-Lewis for the role. After seeing Cruise in the part, Rice changed her mind, calling him “wonderful.” Cruise had a similar experience in 2012’s Jack Reacher , where fans of the Lee Child book series found him smaller in stature compared to Child’s towering protagonist. The film did well, however, meriting  a 2016 sequel, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back .

The list of movies Cruise has been offered (or at least had discussions about doing) is long, and the list of movies he’s turned down is likely even longer. Among them: Footloose , Edward Scissorhands , and The Shawshank Redemption . Director and writer Frank Darabont, who adapted the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption for the screen in 1994, said that producer Rob Reiner offered to acquire the script so he could direct and his A Few Good Men star Cruise could step into the role of Andy Dufresne. Darabont was tempted, but ultimately decided to make the movie himself. He cast Tim Robbins as Dufresne.

Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman agreed to star in director Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut , which examines the complicated marriage of a young couple tempted by forces outside their union. Kubrick ( 2001: A Space Odyssey ), a notorious perfectionist, shot the film for an astounding 15 months, far beyond the typical four- to six-month shoot of many films. Guinness World Records recognizes it as the longest continuous production in cinema history. (Interrupted shoots are a different story: Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age drama Boyhood shot for 39 days over a window spanning from 2002 to 2013.)

Eyes Wide Shut was met with a tepid reception, though it proved bountiful for Cruise. While on set, he met with director Paul Thomas Anderson, who cast him as a motivational speaker in 1999’s Magnolia . That part earned Cruise an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He had previously been nominated for Born on the Fourth of July and for Jerry Maguire (1996), though he has yet to win.

Cruise wasn’t the only member of his family to get into acting. His fraternal cousin, William Mapother, is also in the business and has shared several of Cruise’s film sets. Mapother was a production assistant before getting parts in Magnolia (1999) and in 2002’s Minority Report , playing a desk clerk who is threatened by Cruise’s distressed protagonist. Mapother might be best known as Ethan Rom, a character of dubious intentions on ABC’s drama Lost .

In 1996, Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman were aboard a yacht near Capri, Italy, when they came upon a family floating in a lifeboat whose own yacht had caught on fire. They climbed aboard Cruise’s vessel until the Coast Guard arrived.

A decade prior, it was Cruise himself who needed a hand. While filming Top Gun , he was dragged underwater by parachute lines. According to United Press International, Navy swim school instructors rushed to pull him out.

Shooting The Last Samurai with Cruise in 2003, director Ed Zwick was surprised to see several A-list directors dropping by the set to see Cruise. When the actor learned that David Fincher ( Fight Club ), Cameron Crowe (who directed Cruise in Jerry Maguire ), and others posed for a group photo with Zwick while he was busy, he asked that he be retroactively placed in the image.

To work with Tom Cruise is to risk being sent a cake every holiday for the rest of your life. (Or his.) Each year, the actor orders white chocolate coconut Bundt cakes from Doan’s Bakery in Los Angeles and has them sent to a list of recipients, including former co-stars. According to former talk show host James Corden, Cruise himself has never tried the cake. (Other stories, however, have him tasting it as part of a “cake-off” while Cruise’s then-wife Katie Holmes and Diane Keaton were making a film together in 2008. The cake was reportedly Keaton’s favorite.)

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Here's How Tall Tom Cruise Really Is

In 2011, Tom Cruise was embroiled in a casting controversy when it was revealed he'd be playing Jack Reacher (via Deadline ). Fans of the character, created by Lee Childs, were quick to point out that the former US Army major is described as standing at 6 foot 5 inches and about 250 pounds in the book, both of which Cruise isn't. The actor is pretty synonymous with his shorter height, with rumors often circulating that he wears heels or shoe lifts when starring opposite taller actors, per  BuzzFeed . 

But, as Childs noted at the time, "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way." The author also pointed out to BBC News that it's "completely impossible to literally transfer the page to screen," and that while people think someone "that looks more like Reacher is described in the books" should have been cast, there were none Childs was happy with.

Cruise also stated that he was "very sensitive" to the criticism of his height in an interview with Empire, adding that the author told him "the reason he wrote [Reacher] that size is because that was just one element to his character, and that opened the door to me playing him."

So exactly how tall is Tom Cruise, and why did it cause so much drama when he was cast as Jack Reacher?

It's rumoured that Tom Cruise uses heels to elevate his height

While Tom Cruise is often cited as standing at 5 foot 7 inches tall (via Your Next Shoes ), it's actually pretty hard to pinpoint the actor's height. As The Delite notes, there's "a lot of speculation" about his height, noting that there's even a Pinterest board that's collated the times Cruise as allegedly worn heeled boots or shoe lifts to elevate his height.

Sometimes, it seems that his co-stars have to wear flatter shoes to compensate for his height as Nicole Kidman noted speaking about her experience filming "Days of Thunder" with Cruise (via Your Next Shoes). "They had me in really flat shoes, but you could still see I was taller than him," Kidman explained, who happens to be 5 foot 10 inches (via The Sun ). "I'd prefer to be smaller, but I don't mind," she continued. "I like the fact that he's one of the most famous actors in the world and can work with anybody — but he doesn't mind working with an actress who's taller."

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Birth Name : Thomas Cruise Mapother IV

Occupation : movie actor, born in : syracuse, new york, usa, birthdate : july 3, 1962, age : 62 years old (as of 2024), ethnicity : white, nationality : american, sexuality : straight.

Tom Cruise was born on the 3rd of July, 1962. He is popular for being a Movie Actor . He co-starred with Renee Zellweger in the 1996 comedy/drama Jerry Maguire. Tom Cruise’s age is 62. Actor and producer who won Golden Globe Awards for his roles in Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire, and Magnolia. His other well known films include Top Gun, Risky Business, Rain Man, Mission Impossible, and The Firm.

The 62-year-old movie actor was born in Syracuse, New York, USA. He grew up in an abusive household and had planned to become a priest before becoming interested in acting. He became the most well-known member of the Church of Scientology, the religion created by Science Fiction author L. Ron. Hubbard.

Countdown to Thomas’s next birthday.

Tom Cruise is a Cancer and his 63rd birthday is in jQuery(function() { var start = new Date('1962-07-03T00:00:00-04:00'); var increment = 1 * '-1'; var loop_time = 1 * ''; var loop_range = ''; var expire = !!0; var large = !!0; var display = ['day']; var seconds = { year: 365.25*1000*60*60*24, month: 30.41666667*1000*60*60*24, week: 7*1000*60*60*24, day: 1000*60*60*24, hour: 1000*60*60, minute: 1000*60, second: 1000, years: 365.25*1000*60*60*24, months: 30.41666667*1000*60*60*24, weeks: 7*1000*60*60*24, days: 1000*60*60*24, hours: 1000*60*60, minutes: 1000*60, seconds: 1000 }; var delimiter = ' '; function updateCountdown() { var today = new Date(); var start2 = new Date(start); var diff = increment * (today - start2); var abs_diff = Math.abs(diff); var text = ''; if(!expire) { if(!!loop_time && !!loop_range) { if(loop_range == 'h') { loop_range = seconds['hour']; } else { loop_range = seconds['day']; } if(start2 > today) { while(start2 > new Date(today.getTime() + loop_time * loop_range)) { today = new Date(today.getTime() + loop_time * loop_range); } } else { while(start2 0) { if(diff > 0) { start2.setFullYear(today.getFullYear() - 1); } else { start2.setFullYear(today.getFullYear()); } } } diff = (start2 - today); abs_diff = Math.abs(diff); } else { if(diff seconds[display[i]] || show_zero) { var count = Math.floor(abs_diff / seconds[display[i]]); if(!large) { text += (text.length ? delimiter : '') + count.toLocaleString() + ' ' + display[i] + (count != 1 ? 's' : ''); } else { text += ' ' + count + ' ' + display[i] + (count != 1 ? 's' : '') + ' ' } if(count > 0 && !show_zero) { //show_zero = true; } abs_diff -= count * seconds[display[i]]; } } } } jQuery('#countdown_66d16c3e9e1878_94877863').html(text); } setInterval(updateCountdown, 1000); updateCountdown(); }); .

JUMP TO : Tom Cruise’s biography , facts , family , personal life , zodiac , videos , net worth , and popularity .

Tom Cruise was born in 1960s. The 1960s were an era of protests. The decade was dominated by the Vietnam War, Civil Rights Protests, Cuban Missile Crisis, antiwar protests and saw the assassinations of US President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. It also marked the first man landed on the moon. Discover what happened on this day .

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV is part of the Baby boomers generation. Also known as "boomers", are the result of the end of World War II, when birth rates across the world spiked. They are associated with a rejection of traditional values. These hippie kids protested against the Vietnam War and participated in the civil rights movement.

You can also find out who is Tom Cruise dating now and celebrity dating histories at CelebsCouples.

It's hard to know Tom Cruise birth time, but we do know his mother gave birth to his on a Tuesday. People born on a Tuesday have great will power and a lot of energy. In general, they are very ambitious.

[fetch instagram=”tomcruise” display=”posts” ]

The 62-year-old American was born in the Baby Boomers Generation and the Year of the Tiger

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV attended Glen Ridge High School, Glen Ridge, New Jersey, USA.

Tom Cruise’s mother’s name is Mary Lee Pfeiffer and his father’s name is Thomas Mapother III. We will continue to update information on Tom Cruise’s parents.

Personal Life

Like many famous people and celebrities, Tom Cruise keeps his personal life private. Once more details are available on who he is dating, we will update this section.

The 62-year-old American movie actor has done well thus far. Majority of Thomas’s money comes from being a movie actor. CelebsMoney has recently updated Tom Cruise’s net worth .

Zodiac Sign : Tom Cruise is a Cancer. People of this zodiac sign like home-based hobbies, relaxing near or in water, helping loved ones, and dislike strangers, revealing of personal life. The strengths of this sign are being loyal, emotional, sympathetic, tenacious, persuasive, while weaknesses can be moody, pessimistic, suspicious, manipulative and insecure. The greatest overall compatibility with Cancer is Capricorn and Taurus.

Chinese Zodiac : Tom Cruise was born in the Year of the Dragon. People born under this sign are thought to be brave and independent. They're respected for their deep thoughts and courageous actions, but sometimes show off when accomplishing something.

Ruling Planet : Tom Cruise has a ruling planet of Moon and has a ruling planet of Moon and by astrological associations Sunday is ruled by moon. The Moon represents one's nurturing and emotional instinct. People who are born with Moon as the ruling planet are sensitive, nurturing, and usually have fluctuating moods.

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Tom Cruise’s birth sign is Cancer and he has a ruling planet of Moon.

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– Who’s the richest Movie Actor in the world? – Tom Cruise Net Worth Stats – When is Tom Cruise’s birthday?

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The Golden Age of the Aging Actor

Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ isn’t the exception—he’s the rule. There’s long been anecdotal evidence that top-line actors and actresses are getting older. Now, The Ringer has the data to back it up.

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Like its predecessor, Top Gun: Maverick is a movie about sweaty beach sports , awkward sex scenes , and dogfights with enemies of uncertain national origin . More so than the original, though, it’s also about aging. Maverick, a trainee in Top Gun , is now an instructor, regarded as a fossil, an old-timer, the last of his kind. Tethered to the past, he’s told that he’s going to get grounded as the guard changes not just to the next generation of pilots, but to uncrewed drones. He teaches his students that “Time is your greatest enemy,” a lesson hammered home by his old frenemy Iceman’s struggle with cancer. “It’s time to let go,” Iceman informs him. “I don’t know how,” Maverick replies.

All of this seems to make the movie a metaphor for film stardom. Tom Cruise, who first played Maverick when he was 23 and reprises the role in his late 50s, is a household name who hails from an era when there was such a thing, and when people, not IPs, were the biggest box-office attractions; he’s “Hollywood’s Last Real Movie Star,” as a recent New York Times feature dubbed him, or “The Last Action Hero,” as Ringer contributor Noah Gittell did . It may be true that Cruise’s kind of big-screen (or any -screen) star is “headed to extinction,” to borrow a phrase from Maverick’s boss, rear admiral Chester Cain (Ed Harris). But even if, as Cain says, “the end is inevitable,” Hollywood hasn’t let go of aging actors just yet. In fact, it’s clinging ever more tightly to them.

In the past 20 years—and particularly the last 10 to 15—the average age of actors appearing toward the top of the bill in film and TV projects has risen significantly. Whereas the star, or the top two or three stars, of the typical movie or TV series released in the closing decades of the 20th century was typically in their late 30s—several years older than the median age of the United States population at the time—today’s average actor age has reached the mid-40s and is steadily climbing toward 50. Actors who became fixtures on big screens and small in previous decades haven’t given way to new blood as quickly as was once customary. As a result, Hollywood’s leading men and women of today bear a strong resemblance to the leading men and women from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s after a trip to the beach from Old —except, of course, for the fact that actors like Cruise (who’ll turn 60 next week) don’t always look their age. The graying of actors—the ones with their natural hair colors, at least—appears to be the product of a confluence of factors that reflect the fracturing of culture in the post-monoculture age, the industry’s gravitation toward franchises and sequels, shifts in audience demographics, efforts to promote more inclusive casting, and a growing range of options for maintaining a more youthful appearance.

Top Gun: Maverick features 50-somethings Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, and Jon Hamm; 62-year-old Val Kilmer; and 71-year-old Ed Harris. The movie also makes space for a smattering of 30-somethings, led by Miles Teller, Glen Powell, and Jay Ellis (who turned 40 after filming finished), but the oldsters are the stars. Audiences have happily turned out to see them: The movie opened big at the box office over Memorial Day weekend, and its appeal has proved resilient in subsequent weeks. The movie has surpassed a cumulative gross of $500 million domestically and $1 billion worldwide, and although COVID concerns kept many older film watchers away from theaters during the peak of the pandemic, 55 percent of people who bought tickets to Top Gun in its opening weekend were over 35.

In this era, the average age of Top Gun ’s top two actors hardly stands out. Consider the duos associated with other recent, high-profile releases such as Coming 2 America (Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall) or Only Murders in the Building (Steve Martin and Martin Short); the aged (and sometimes digitally de-aged) ensembles of The Irishman or the just-concluded Grace and Frankie ; or the leads of Star Trek: Picard (Patrick Stewart) or Hacks (Jean Smart). The Taylor Sheridanverse that’s taking over TV features lead actors who range from their 50s to their late 70s: Kevin Costner, Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Renner. Heck, an increasing percentage of movies have had “Old” in their titles: Not only Old , but also All of the Old Knives , The Old Way , and Old Henry , just since the start of 2021. On TV, there’s the almost too on-the-nose The Old Man , the new FX/Hulu series featuring 72-year-old Jeff Bridges and 76-year-old John Lithgow.

Granted, aged actors gracing the screen is not a new phenomenon, and neither is naming movies and TV shows with the word “Old.” (Old Yeller was only five years old , but the Grumpy —and Grumpier —Old Men were getting up there.) However, our analysis of IMDb data shows that this apparent aging of actors isn’t just anecdotal. The graph below displays the average age (at time of release) of the top-listed actor, top two listed actors, and top three listed actors in movies produced since 1980 that have garnered at least 1,000 IMDb user ratings (a really low bar cleared by 3,000 to 4,000 movies per year worldwide, including streaming releases).

The same pattern appears in all three, as it does if we focus on more exclusive samples of movies with at least 10,000 IMDB user ratings (roughly 200 titles per year) …

… or non-animated movies released in theaters …

… or non-animated movies that made at least $10 million at the box office …

… or the top-grossing movie of each year.

As the average age of actors with prominent parts has soared, the fraction of movies in which at least one of the top two listed actors is over 60, and the fraction in which at least one is under 30, have correspondingly increased and declined, respectively:

And while the aging of male action stars—the Cruises, Craigs, Keanus, Neesons, and Stallones—is among the most visible manifestations of the trend, it seems to span multiple genres.

Recent releases have more missing birthdates on IMDb, as do younger actors, but that can’t skew the stats enough to account for these visuals. Essentially, actors who rose to prominence in past decades have yet to retire or be vaudeville hooked out of the frame, and the youngsters and understudies who might have been expected to succeed them haven’t really arrived the way their predecessors did. The chart below, a kind of aging curve for actors, shows how prolific actors born in each of the 20th century’s five 20-year buckets collectively were as they aged. The most recent cohort, which would be in its early 20s to early 40s now, is on a much less productive trajectory than the generations born between 1940 and 1960 or between 1960 and 1980. (For reference, there are more movies made than ever now, across all platforms and even after limiting to 1,000 or more IMDb ratings, though there’s been a decrease in theatrical releases over the past decade, which began prior to the pandemic.)

The top two actors from the top-grossing movie of each year of the 1990s went on to appear in 185 movies from 2000 to 2009, and 129 from 2010 to 2019. The top two actors from the top-grossing movie of the 2000s went on to make only 101 movies from 2010 to 2019. So not only did the ’90s stars nearly double the next-decade output of the 2000s stars, but the ’90s stars were still more active two decades after their box-office heydays than the 2000s stars were one decade later. “There’s just greater longevity, frankly, of the people who are acting,” says Bruce Nash, founder of movie-industry database The Numbers . The most bankable actors, per his site’s current ranking , are Robert Downey Jr. and Sandra Bullock, both 57. But which is driving the trend: movie stars, or the movie business? Not to quash the suspense, but you know the drill: The answer is always “a bit of both.”

Ask industry sources, and you’ll get little pushback on the finding that lead actors, on average, are older than they used to be. (And not just in the sense that everyone who’s still living is older than they once were.) “People in Hollywood talk about this all the time,” says Matthew Belloni, founding partner and entertainment reporter at Puck (and host of Ringer show-business podcast The Town ). Nash adds, “It does certainly feel as though we do have that trend.” Casting director Mike Page confirms, “It definitely does track.” And Joshua Lynn, president of Piedmont Media Research , says, “It’s definitely true, you see the same names now that you did 15-to-20-plus years ago on the list of bankable stars.” The question is why this has happened—and on that topic, you’re liable to hear a range of responses.

One common hypothesis pins the blame for younger actors’ failure to reach the same heights of bankability on the decline of the monoculture. “The fracturization of the culture means it’s much more difficult to launch stars,” says Belloni. “You look at what’s going on with the Top Gun guys right now. In a previous generation, Miles Teller, Glen Powell, maybe Jay Ellis, those guys would all be stars that could be the center of their own movie now. But now, not really.” (Unless, that is, it’s a Marvel movie—but we’ll get to that.) As Page puts it, “It’s harder to establish these megastars now, because so few people are viewing the exact same content.”

In other words, actors of Cruise’s vintage, who came of age as actors and celebrities in a pre-internet age with fewer entertainment options and less siloed media diets, attained a level of cultural penetration that would be far more difficult for any actor to replicate now. Members of that generation who built their public profiles in a more fame-friendly era may be better positioned to cut through the static of competing people and products than those who didn’t debut or break big early enough to establish that foothold. Consequently, the former may be more able—or perceived as more able—to attract an audience on the strength of their reputation, which would make them more in demand. “You’ll keep seeing the same names over and over, because they happened to exist at a time when ‘movie stars’ were a more important thing to our culture than they are now,” Lynn says. Whether you noticed or not, Neeson has pumped out 24 action movies since starring in Taken in 2008, when he was 55. Another ’90s star, Adam Sandler, has made 22 non-animated movies since the start of 2008—including more comedies than he had in his whole career up to that point—most of which were part of lucrative Netflix deals .

Some sources suggest that somewhat paradoxically, the greater ease of access to celebrities today may diminish their movie-star cred. Jeff Bock, senior media analyst for Exhibitor Relations Co. , says, “Part of the mystique of being a larger-than-life movie star resides in the exclusivity of engagement with audiences. … Even though fans have more access [to younger stars], oftentimes it diminishes that unique bond one forms with consumers.” Belloni echoes that sentiment. “We can see Miles Teller all over his wife’s Instagram every day. And we can see him tweeting about the Phillies, and we can see him in all the paparazzi shots and on our TikTok feeds. And there’s nothing special about seeing Miles Teller in a movie anymore. Whereas … there [were] only a couple places to see Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Tom Cruise … or any of these guys that are considered action stars still today.” The social-media-driven “commoditization of actors,” Belloni believes, has “really, really diminished the ability to create new stars.”

Perhaps that’s partly because the current up-and-comers who might be movie-star material are less likely to inspire, or even aspire to inspire, the same sort of fandom as stars in previous eras. “There is a rising generation—more than one, really—of entertainment consumers that isn’t as committed to narrative entertainment as the generations before them,” says film historian and author Mark Harris . “Maybe they’re gamers, or maybe what they really enjoy is TikTok, or maybe it’s something else, but a generation can’t generate stars if it doesn’t really love the medium that creates and accommodates stars.” At the very least, the strain of stardom that newer media spawns may not look like yesterday’s flavor; the modern model may be closer to Kardashian than Cruise.

Even so, some actors still covet Cruise-ian cachet. (Per the Times , Powell told Cruise, “I’m trying to be you.”) They may just lack the avenues to achieve it, thanks to what Nash identifies as a “gap between the regular movies and the big blockbusters,” the latter of which are dwindling in number The remaining few, he adds, “come in, increasingly, the same mold. Really, what you’re seeing are superhero movies, [and] there’s not a lot of opportunity for people to become superhero movie stars.”

That increasing emphasis on franchise-based blockbusters has come at the expense of some of the old pathways to prominence. “There [are fewer] studio movies now than ever before, and the indie movie scene is pretty small and not as significant to Hollywood as it used to be, which allowed exciting new faces/voices into the mix,” Lynn says, adding, “There are just [fewer] opportunities for new people to suddenly emerge and lead a major film and then become stars, leading to more opportunities to lead other films subsequently.” To return to Teller: “In a previous generation, he would have the opportunity to do a mid-budget studio thriller, rom-com, something that would test his allure as a movie star and the ability to open a movie,” Belloni says. “And those movies are just not happening.”

Now, Lynn says, there are at most three routes to traditional movie stardom. You can rise from obscurity to star in a film from a respected studio director who became a big name in the ’80s or ’90s; you can earn critical acclaim from a series of smaller movies and then make the leap to Marvel, Star Wars , or another sci-fi tentpole; or you can cross over from a huge hit on TV, though it’s getting harder to have a Game of Thrones – or Stranger Things –level smash as streaming segmentation intensifies. Oscar Isaac, the Chrises , and Adam Driver, all now in their late 30s or early 40s, needed boosts from major genre movies to reach a new stardom stratosphere. As those movies make up a bigger proportion of the thinner studio release schedule, Lynn says, “You see the same people over and over again in those movies playing the same parts.”

Film data researcher Stephen Follows, who has also observed a 21st-century trend toward older actors, suspects that the thirst for reboots and sequels accounts for some of the aging trend, because recycling material leads to recycling stars. “It’s about films having the same people in them, and people sticking around for longer,” he says. “And therefore, by definition, they’re aging one year a year.” (Cruise, for instance, appears almost exclusively in sequels these days.) F. Andrew Hanssen, an economics professor at Clemson who detected early signs of a widespread aging of actors in a study published a decade ago, notes that whereas during the days of the studio system, studios would spend substantial sums on building up new stars, “The trend of paying large sums of money to relatively unknown actors to appear in a series of films (as Captain America, say)” may have “created an ‘anti-studio’ situation, in which the incentive to develop new actors except in this narrow capacity has become even weaker.”

Of course, the explosion in sequels, prequels, reboots, and remakes—not only in movies, but in other media, giving rise to what researcher Adam Mastroianni has labeled a “ pop oligopoly ”—stems in part from the fretting about breaking through in a crowded culture, which leads studios to default to the same old names. “The name above the poster is a rarity these days, and because the cost to green-light a blockbuster is an enormous risk for studios, these companies often lean on what has worked previously—sequels and big stars,” says Bock. Last month, Top Gun: Maverick producer Jerry Bruckheimer said as much, remarking , “I still get the same list of 10 men the studios want in a movie. You still get Tom, Leonardo [DiCaprio]. Get one of these big names and you’ve got a good shot at getting a movie made.” Asked for other names, he listed Brad Pitt, who at 58 just related that he’s on the “last leg” of his career; pressed for someone who wasn’t famous last century, he allowed that Hemsworth has “broken through.”

Which isn’t to say that things have to work that way. “Bruckheimer is not wrong in that there are a limited number of actors who can ‘carry’ a movie,” Belloni says. “But I think Hollywood is a little bit to blame here for being risk-averse and not trying certain actors in these roles. … A lot of it is fear that there is such a splintered culture.” Follows also attributes part of the aging effect to “the risk-averse nature of the people commissioning” blockbusters, though he notes that the evidence of actor aging even outside of theatrical releases from major studios “does suggest that it is more of a cultural trend than just the conscious or unconscious decision of 20 people.”

What else could be contributing to that cultural trend? For one thing, this situation isn’t the inverse of Wooderson’s line from Dazed and Confused , in which the actors get older while the audience stays the same age. The audience is getting older also, along with the U.S. population, whose median age is up 8.5 years since 1980. Consequently, catering to middle-aged spectators and senior citizens is more rewarding for the makers of movies and TV. “Older audiences are fueling moviegoing right now,” Belloni says. In 2019 , people 60 or older accounted for more tickets sold than any other age group except 25 to 39. And as younger viewers cut the cord and churn through streaming services , cable-connected and deeper-pocketed viewers are making their preferences felt on TV, too.

“You do have to target the older audiences, because they are the ones that are still paying,” Page says, adding, “They’re probably looking more for content and lead characters, lead actors, that are relevant and reflect their lives and experience.” Although Follows has found that the impact of actor age on audience turnout may be overrated, the perception of a link influences studios. “I probably would be more inclined to see Liam Neeson in an action movie, given my age, than Tom Holland,” says Nash, who’s 54. “You see that in romantic comedies as well. It’s not people in their early 20s anymore. It’s people in their 40s, sometimes, and the second chances at romance, and so on, tends to be a little bit more the prevailing force.”

Older characters require older actors—and like Cruise, those actors may seem to defy the ticking clock that Maverick warned about, especially compared to the chain-smoking stars of old (and old-looking) Hollywood. “Actors look young for longer, thanks to advances in exercise and diet (not to mention cosmetic surgery), and can credibly play action heroes or romantic leads at older ages than in the past,” Hanssen says. ( Physique-enhancing drugs may play a part, too.) Plus, there’s always the option of airbrushing. “Between both modern medicine and what they can do with digital makeup and things like that in post, you can have stars that are aging out, but you still pretend that they’re age appropriate,” Belloni says. And an aging audience might have an evolving definition of “appropriate.” Page points to a “societal expansion of what sexy is, what vitality is, and getting to see that there’s not necessarily an expiration date at 50, at 60, at 70.” (Which is the theme of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande , a movie released last week that stars the 63-year-old Emma Thompson and includes a much - discussed nude scene.)

Actors aren’t alone here: By historical standards, today’s top politicians , top touring musicians , top tennis players , and top quarterbacks are ancient too. It’s the era of presidential runs by Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders; pricey, sold-out concerts by Paul McCartney, Elton John, and the Rolling Stones; unprecedented title totals by Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic; one-two MVP finishes by Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady . Just as new racket strings and slower playing surfaces have helped venerable tennis stars stay at a higher level for longer—and, for that matter, as improvements in manufacturing have kept cars on the road for record durations —tuneups to actors’ exteriors have helped them stay on screens and win Oscars at more advanced ages. Jessica Daniels , a Casting Society of America board member and the VP of casting for Walt Disney Television, says, “60 years old now doesn’t look like 60 years old did 20 or 30 years ago, and people are living longer, and so just by virtue of that, I think that we’re all adapting.”

Another factor fueling that change is anti-ageism advocacy by organizations such as the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. Although in theory the extended tenures of legacy stars could prevent a group of more diverse actors from seizing the spotlight, studies show sweeping improvements in representation, at least in front of the camera. “It feels like the industry is … moving in the right direction as far as diversification in many areas, and I think age is one of those,” Page says. Historically, female actors have faced severe age discrimination , and that problem persists; Bruckheimer, when asked to list female counterparts to his bankable Brads, Toms, and Leos, said, “Women are harder. It’s just not that strong a list yet.” However, the trend toward older actors holds true for both men and women, and the age gap between them has seemingly started to shrink (though Top Gun costar Kelly McGillis attributed her absence from the sequel to her age and appearance).

“I definitely think, specifically in television, we are breaking a lot more barriers,” Daniel says. “I think that there is so much more room for not only a diversity and inclusivity of experience, but I do think that there’s an audience that does want to see not only beloved actors that we’ve loved for years, but also just wants to see this experience, wants to see these stories being told.” Although the lines on that graph aren’t close to converging, Nash notes that there’s “not necessarily so much of a bias as there might once have been.”

For the foreseeable future, those “average age” lines may continue their ascent. “With YouTube getting more interest among kids than the state of the Academy Awards, and with streaming fracturing the landscape as we speak even further, I honestly don’t see that changing anytime soon,” Lynn says. The question confronting Hollywood seems similar to the question confronting the ATP Tour as Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic finally age out : Who’s next? “Beyond [Timothée] Chalamet, Holland, and Zendaya, name a movie star under 30.” Belloni says. “It’s tough.” Letitia Wright, Florence Pugh, Hailee Steinfeld, and (soon) Sydney Sweeney may make the most of their Marvel exposure, but in the absence of a deep pool of marquee talent, Page says, “Everybody clamors for the short list of the recognizable names.” Al Pacino anointed Chalamet as his pick to play Vincent Hanna in a potential Heat 2 , and Sony sold Uncharted to audiences using Holland’s post-Spider-Man star power, even though his older costar, Mark Wahlberg, was the one whose name helped get the movie made. (Wahlberg, now a fanatically buff 51, embodied the older-actors hegemony when in 2012 he replaced the 15-years-younger Shia LaBeouf as the face of Transformers .) But Holland and the Dune duo can act only so much.

Cary Grant, who retired at 62, supposedly said , “Hollywood is very much like a streetcar. Once a new star is made and comes aboard, an old one is edged out of the rear exit. There’s room for only so many and no more.” But what if the old stars won’t relinquish their status until they’re elderly enough for riders in real life to offer them seats? The star of Top Gun: Maverick has two more Mission Impossible movies on the way, but Chester Cain wasn’t wrong; Cruise can’t act forever, and by the time that second flick comes out, he’ll be pushing 62 himself. “There is not going to be another Tom Cruise,” Belloni says. “That era is over.” But the era of old actors has no end in sight.

Rob Arthur is a Chicago-based freelance journalist and data science consultant.

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Tom cruise's new movie role with oscar-winning director sounds like his best in 25 years.

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Tom Cruise Played One Of The Best Movie Villains Of All Time 20 Years Ago & I’m Still Waiting For More

Sonic 3 isn’t even out yet but already has one of the coolest scenes of 2024, who is dr. robotnik’s grandpa jim carrey’s new sonic the hedgehog character explained.

• Tom Cruise may have his best role in 25 years, playing a character who tries to save humanity but ends up causing destruction.
• Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu's new movie presents Cruise in a twist on his hero stereotype, potentially leading to a standout performance.
• The role in Iñárritu's film could rival Cruise's acclaimed role in Magnolia, with potential for an Oscar nomination and a standout performance.

The first details about a new Tom Cruise movie have surfaced, and it just might give the actor his best role in 25 years. After spending much of his time in recent years making franchise installments and entertaining action movies, Cruise is finally on the cusp of breaking away from those practices and returning to working with auteur filmmakers. He was meant to team up with Quentin Tarantino in his now-canceled movie, but the actor also has a film in development with Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu ( Birdman and The Revenant ).

Development on Tom Cruise and Alejandro G. Iñárritu's new movie has been underway since early 2024, when the actor's casting was first reported. However, the plot and the type of role Cruise would play remained a mystery. It has now been revealed (via Deadline ) that the story follows "the most powerful man in the world" as he attempts to become "humanity's savior." The catch is that he's unleashed something that will destroy everything. There is no doubt that this is the role that Tom Cruise is meant to play, and it sounds like an auspicious opportunity for him to shine.

Tom Cruise has hardly played any antagonists in his illustrious career but his iconic villain role in Michael Mann's 2004 thriller makes me want more.

Tom Cruise's New Movie Role As Humanity's Savior Is Very Exciting

It's a twist on a common stereotype for cruise.

What makes Tom Cruise's role as humanity's savior in the new movie so exciting is how it builds on his career to this point and his most famous roles. Cruise has become a major star, in part, because of the often heroic roles that he plays. Whether its Ethan Hunt or Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell, the actor typically plays heroes who are the key to saving the world or humanity in some case. Iñárritu's movie is poised to put Cruise back in that same stereotype, although the circumstances are very different.

Audiences should have no trouble buying him as the "savior" character, since that is what he is best known for at this point. Cruise has even positioned himself somewhat as Hollywood's savior thanks to his dedication to the theatrical experience before and after Top Gun: Maverick 's record performance. But, it sounds like Cruise's new movie role will essentially have him be the villain behind humanity's potential doom. This creates the potential for the movie to deconstruct Cruise's hero/savior complex , which could help him deliver one of his best performances ever.

This Can Be Tom Cruise's Best Role Since Magnolia

It was his last oscar-nominated performance.

The potential that exists for Tom Cruise's new role and the type of performance he could give under Iñárritu's direction could easily make it his best role since Magnolia . Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 movie was critically acclaimed and even brought a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Cruise . While he's worked on several notable projects since then, none have brought him the same level of awards recognition. Iñárritu's movies tend to get its performers Oscar nominations, if not wins, so Cruise could be next if the performance is everything imagined.

Even if Tom Cruise's new movie role doesn't get him an Oscar nomination like Magnolia did, it could still be his best performance since then. He's had great performances over the last 25 years , whether in Collateral , Minority Report , or Top Gun: Maverick , but they still did not reach the emotional heights of his Oscar-nominated performance. Iñárritu's track record and Tom Cruise 's interest in seeking out this project are signs that the actor could be in line for one of his best roles ever.

Source: Deadline

Age, Biography and Wiki

Tom Cruise (Thomas Cruise Mapother IV) was born on 3 July, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, U.S., is an American actor and producer. Discover Tom Cruise's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? Also learn how He earned most of networth at the age of 62 years old?

We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 3 July. He is a member of famous Actor with the age 62 years old group.

Tom Cruise Height, Weight & Measurements

At 62 years old, Tom Cruise height is 1.70m .

Who Is Tom Cruise's Wife?

His wife is Mimi Rogers (m. 1987-1990) Nicole Kidman (m. 1990-2001) Katie Holmes (m. 2006-2012)

Tom Cruise Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2022-2023. So, how much is Tom Cruise worth at the age of 62 years old? Tom Cruise’s income source is mostly from being a successful Actor. He is from United States. We have estimated Tom Cruise's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets.

Tom Cruise Social Network

After YouTube investigated this claim, they found that the video did not breach copyright law, as it is covered by the fair use clause. It was subsequently reinstated on the site, and as of April 2019, the video has achieved over 13 million views. YouTube has declined to remove it again, due to the popularity of the video, and subsequent changes to copyright policy of the Web site.

Cruise starred in the 2017 reboot of Boris Karloff's 1932 horror movie The Mummy. The new film, also titled The Mummy, was produced by Alex Kurtzman , Chris Morgan, and Sean Daniel , written by Jon Spaihts and directed by Kurtzman which received negative reviews and become flop at the box office . In 2018, Cruise again reprised Ethan Hunt , in the sixth film in his franchise, Mission: Impossible – Fallout. The film was more positively received by critics than the previous films in the series, and grossed over $791 million at the box office. Unadjusted for ticket price inflation, it is Cruise's biggest commercial success to date.

As of mid-2015 Cruise's films have grossed about $8.2 billion worldwide.

The 2015 documentary Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief cast a spotlight on Cruise's role in Scientology. The film alleges that Cruise used Sea Org workers as a source of free labor. In the film, Cruise's former auditor Marty Rathbun claims that wife Nicole Kidman was wiretapped on Tom Cruise's suggestion (which Cruise's lawyer denies).

Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in the fifth installment of the Mission: Impossible series, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, which he also produced. Returning cast members included Simon Pegg as Benji and Jeremy Renner as William Brandt , with Christopher McQuarrie as director. The film earned high critical acclaim and was a commercial success.

In 2013, Cruise stated that ex-wife Katie Holmes divorced him in part to protect the couple's daughter Suri from Scientology. He also said that Suri is no longer a practicing member of the church.

Cruise starred as Jack Reacher in the film adaptation of British author Lee Child's 2005 novel One Shot. The film was released on December 21, 2012. It met with positive reviews from critics and was a box office success grossing $216,568,266 worldwide. In 2013, he starred in the science fiction film Oblivion based on director Joseph Kosinski's graphic novel of the same name. The film met with mixed reviews and grossed $285,600,588 worldwide. It also starred Morgan Freeman and Olga Kurylenko .

In October 2012, Cruise filed a lawsuit against In Touch and Life & Style magazines for defamation after they claimed Cruise had "abandoned" his six-year-old daughter. During deposition, Cruise testified that due to his work load 110 days had passed without him seeing her. The suit was ultimately settled between the two parties.

On May 6, 2011, Cruise was awarded a humanitarian award from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and Museum of Tolerance for his work as a dedicated philanthropist. In mid-2011, Cruise started shooting the movie Rock of Ages, in which he played the character Stacee Jaxx. The film was released in June 2012.

In March 2010, Cruise completed filming the action-comedy Knight and Day, in which he re-teamed with former costar Cameron Diaz; the film was released on June 23, 2010. On February 9, 2010, Cruise confirmed that he would star in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the fourth installment in the Mission: Impossible series. The film was released in December 2011 to high critical acclaim and box office success. Unadjusted for ticket price inflation, it was Cruise's biggest commercial success to that date.

In 2009, Michael Davis Sapir filed a suit charging that his phone had been wiretapped at Cruise's behest. That suit was dismissed by a Central Civil West court judge in Los Angeles on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired on Sapir's claim.

In 2006, he returned to his role as Ethan Hunt in the third installment of the Mission Impossible film series, Mission: Impossible III. The film was more positively received by critics than the previous films in the series, and grossed nearly $400 million at the box office. In 2007, Cruise took a rare supporting role for the second time in Lions for Lambs, which was a commercial disappointment. This was followed by an unrecognizable appearance as "Les Grossman" in the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder with Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. This performance earned Cruise a Golden Globe nomination. Cruise played the central role in the historical thriller Valkyrie released on December 25, 2008 to box office success.

In August 2008, Wagner stepped down from her position at United Artists; she retains her stake in UA, which combined with Cruise's share amounts to 30 percent of the studio.

On January 15, 2008, a video produced by the Church of Scientology featuring an interview with Cruise was posted on YouTube, showing Cruise discussing what being a Scientologist means to him. The Church of Scientology said the video had been "pirated and edited," and was taken from a three-hour video produced for members of Scientology. YouTube removed the Cruise video from their site under threat of litigation.

On August 22, 2006, Paramount Pictures announced it was ending its 14-year relationship with Cruise. In the Wall Street Journal, chairman of Viacom (Paramount's parent company) Sumner Redstone cited the economic damage to Cruise's value as an actor and producer from his controversial public behavior and views. Cruise/Wagner Productions responded that Paramount's announcement was a face-saving move after the production company had successfully sought alternative financing from private equity firms.

In November 2006, Cruise and Paula Wagner announced that they had taken over the film studio United Artists. Cruise acts as a producer and star in films for United Artists, while Wagner serves as UA's chief executive.

Medical authorities view Cruise's comments as furthering the social stigma of mental illness. Shields herself called Cruise's comments "a disservice to mothers everywhere." In late August 2006, Cruise apologized in person to Shields for his comments.

In 2006, Premiere ranked Cruise as Hollywood's most powerful actor, as Cruise came in at number 13 on the magazine's 2006 Power List, being the highest ranked actor. The same year, Forbes magazine ranked him as the world's most powerful celebrity. The founder of CinemaScore in 2016 cited Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio as the "two stars, it doesn't matter how bad the film is, they can pull [the box office] up".

In August 2006, Paramount cited Cruise's "recent conduct" as the reason they did not renew their production contract with him. In addition, Marketing Evaluations reported that Cruise's Q score (a measure of the popularity of celebrities), had fallen 40 percent.

October 10, 2006, was declared "Tom Cruise Day" in Japan; the Japan Memorial Day Association said that he was awarded with a special day because he has made more trips to Japan than any other Hollywood star.

In 2006, Cruise sued cybersquatter Jeff Burgar to obtain control of the TomCruise.com domain name. When owned by Burgar, the domain redirected to information about Cruise on Celebrity1000.com. The decision to turn TomCruise.com over to Cruise was handed down by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on July 5, 2006.

Cruise is noted as having negotiated some of the most lucrative film deals in Hollywood, and was described in 2005 by Hollywood economist Edward Jay Epstein as "one of the most powerful – and richest – forces in Hollywood." Epstein argues that Cruise is one of the few producers (the others being George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer) who are regarded as able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar film franchise. Epstein also contends that the public obsession with Cruise's tabloid controversies obscures full appreciation of Cruise's exceptional commercial prowess.

In April 2005, Cruise began dating actress Katie Holmes. On April 27 that year, Cruise and Holmes—dubbed "TomKat" by the media—made their first public appearance together in Rome. A month later, Cruise publicly declared his love for Holmes on The Oprah Winfrey Show, famously jumping up and down on Winfrey's couch during the show. On October 6, 2005, Cruise and Holmes announced they were expecting a child. In April 2006, their daughter Suri was born. On November 18, Holmes and Cruise were married at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, in a Scientologist ceremony attended by many Hollywood stars. Their publicists said the couple had "officialized" their marriage in Los Angeles the day before the Italian ceremony. There has been widespread speculation that their marriage was arranged by the Church of Scientology. David Miscavige , the head of Scientology, served as Cruise's best man. On June 29, 2012, Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise. On July 9, the couple signed a divorce settlement worked out by their lawyers. New York law requires all divorce documents remain sealed, so the exact terms of the settlement are not publicly available.

In addition to promoting various programs that introduce people to Scientology, Cruise has campaigned for Scientology to be recognized as a religion in Europe. In 2005, the Paris city council revealed that Cruise had lobbied officials Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Claude Gaudin. They described him as a militant spokesman for Scientology, and barred any further dealings with him.

In January 2004, Cruise made the controversial statement "I think psychiatry should be outlawed." Further controversy erupted in 2005 after he openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil (paroxetine), an anti-depressant to which Shields attributes her recovery from postpartum depression after the birth of her first daughter in 2003. Cruise asserted that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance and that psychiatry is a form of pseudoscience. Shields responded that Cruise "should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them". This led to a heated argument between Matt Lauer and Cruise on NBC's Today on June 24, 2005.

For such activities, Scientology leader David Miscavige created the Scientology Freedom Medal of Valor and awarded it to Cruise in late 2004.

In March 2004, his publicist of 14 years, Pat Kingsley , resigned. Cruise's next publicist was Lee Anne DeVette, Cruise's sister, who was herself a Scientologist. She served in that role until November 2005. DeVette was replaced with Paul Bloch from the publicity firm Rogers and Cowan. Such restructuring was seen as a move to curtail publicity of his views on Scientology, as well as the controversy surrounding his relationship with Katie Holmes.

In 2003, he starred in Edward Zwick's period action drama The Last Samurai, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for best actor. In 2004, Cruise received critical acclaim for his performance as Vincent in Collateral - directed by Michael Mann. In 2005, Cruise worked again with Steven Spielberg in War of the Worlds, a loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel of the same name, which became the fourth highest-grossing film of the year with US$591.4 million worldwide. Also in 2005, he won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Movie Star, and the MTV Generation Award. Cruise was nominated for seven Saturn Awards between 2002 and 2009, winning once. Nine of the ten films he starred in during the decade made over $100 million at the box office.

His next five films were major critical and commercial successes. The following year Cruise starred in the romantic thriller Vanilla Sky (2001) with Cameron Diaz and Penélope Cruz. In 2002, Cruise starred in the dystopian science fiction action film Minority Report which was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick.

Cruise was next romantically linked with Penélope Cruz, his co-star in Vanilla Sky (2001). Their relationship ended in 2004. An article in the October 2012 issue of Vanity Fair stated that several sources have said that after the breakup with Cruz, Scientologist leaders launched a secret project to find Cruise a new girlfriend. According to those sources, a series of "auditions" of Scientologist actresses resulted in a short-lived relationship with British-Iranian actress Nazanin Boniadi , who subsequently left Scientology. Scientology and Cruise's lawyers issued strongly worded denials and threatened to sue, accusing Vanity Fair of "shoddy journalism" and "religious bigotry". Journalist Roger Friedman later reported that he received an email from director and ex-Scientologist Paul Haggis confirming the story.

In May 2001, he filed a lawsuit against gay porn actor Chad Slater. Slater had told the celebrity magazine Actustar that he had been involved in an affair with Cruise. This claim was strongly denied by Cruise, and Slater was later ordered to pay $10 million to Cruise in damages after Slater declared he could not afford to defend himself against the suit and would therefore default. Cruise requested a default judgment and, in January 2003, a Los Angeles judge decided against Slater after the porn actor said that his story was false.

Cruise has been married to actresses Mimi Rogers , Nicole Kidman, and Katie Holmes. He has three children, two of whom were adopted during his marriage to Kidman and the other of whom is a biological daughter he had with Holmes. Cruise is an outspoken advocate for the Church of Scientology and its associated social programs, and credits it with helping him overcome dyslexia. In the 2000s, he sparked controversy with his Church-affiliated criticisms of psychiatry and anti-depressant drugs, his efforts to promote Scientology as a religion in Europe, and a leaked video interview of him promoting Scientology.

In 2000, Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in the second installment of the Mission Impossible films, Mission: Impossible 2. The film was helmed by Hong Kong director John Woo and branded with his gun fu style, and continued the series' blockbuster success at the box office, taking in almost $547M in worldwide figures. Like its predecessor, it was the highest-grossing film of the year, and had a mixed critical reception. Cruise received an MTV Movie Award for Best Male Performance for this film.

Cruise's performance as a motivational speaker in the drama film Magnolia (1999) earned him another Golden Globe Award and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. As an action star, he has played Ethan Hunt in six films of the Mission: Impossible series from 1996 to 2018. He also continued to feature in several science fiction and action films, including Vanilla Sky (2001), Minority Report (2002), The Last Samurai (2003), Collateral (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Knight and Day (2010), Jack Reacher (2012), Oblivion (2013), and Edge of Tomorrow (2014).

During Cruise's marriage to Nicole Kidman, the couple endured a great deal of public speculation about their sex life and rumors that Cruise was gay. In 1998, he successfully sued the Daily Express, a British tabloid which alleged that his marriage to Kidman was a sham designed to cover up his homosexuality.

In 1996, Cruise appeared as superspy Ethan Hunt in the reboot of Mission: Impossible, which he produced. It was a box office success, although it received criticism regarding the Jim Phelps character being a villain despite being a protagonist of the original television series.

In 1996, he took on the title role in Jerry Maguire, for which he earned a Golden Globe and his second nomination for an Academy Award. In 1999, Cruise costarred with Kidman in the erotic Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut, and took a rare supporting role, as a motivational speaker, Frank T.J. Mackey, in Magnolia, for which he received another Golden Globe and nomination for an Academy Award.

Cruise partnered with his former talent agent Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993, and the company has since co-produced several of Cruise's films, the first being Mission: Impossible in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer.

Cruise's next films were Days of Thunder (1990) and Far and Away (1992), both of which co-starred then-wife Nicole Kidman as his love interest. In 1994, Cruise starred along with Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Christian Slater in Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire, a gothic drama/horror film that was based on Anne Rice's best-selling novel. The film was well-received, although Rice was initially quite outspoken in her criticism of Cruise having been cast in the film, as Julian Sands was her first choice. Upon seeing the film however, she paid $7,740 for a two-page ad in Daily Variety praising his performance and apologizing for her previous doubts about him.

Cruise met his second wife, actress Nicole Kidman, on the set of their film Days of Thunder (1990). The couple married on December 24, 1990. They adopted two children: Isabella Jane (born 1992) and Connor Antony (born 1995). In February 2001, Cruise filed for divorce from Kidman while she was unknowingly pregnant. The pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. In 2007, Kidman clarified rumors of a miscarriage early in her marriage to Cruise, saying that it was wrongly reported and explaining that she had actually had an ectopic pregnancy.

Cruise is an outspoken advocate for the Church of Scientology and its associated social programs. He became involved with Scientology in 1990 through his first wife, Mimi Rogers . Cruise struggled with dyslexia at an early age and has said that Scientology, specifically the L. Ron Hubbard Study Tech, helped him overcome dyslexia.

Cruise followed up Top Gun with The Color of Money, which came out the same year, and which paired him with Paul Newman. 1988 saw him star in Cocktail, which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor. Later that year he starred with Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, which won the Academy Award for Best Film and Cruise the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. Cruise portrayed real-life paralyzed Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic in 1989's Born on the Fourth of July, which earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Actor, a nomination for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Cruise's first Best Actor Academy Award nomination.

Cruise married actress Mimi Rogers on May 9, 1987. They divorced on February 4, 1990. Rogers introduced Cruise to Scientology.

At age 18, with the blessing of his mother and stepfather, Cruise moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. After working as a busboy in New York, he went to Los Angeles to try out for television roles. He signed with CAA and began acting in films. He first appeared in a bit part in the 1981 film Endless Love, followed by a major supporting role as a crazed military academy student in Taps later that year. In 1983, Cruise was part of the ensemble cast of The Outsiders. That same year he appeared in All the Right Moves and Risky Business, which has been described as "A Generation X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise", and which, along with 1986's Top Gun, cemented his status as a superstar. Cruise also played the male lead in the Ridley Scott film Legend, released in 1985.

Cruise began acting in the early 1980s and made his breakthrough with leading roles in the comedy film Risky Business (1983) and action drama film Top Gun (1986). Critical acclaim came with his roles in the drama films The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988), and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). For his portrayal of Ron Kovic in the latter, he won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. As a leading Hollywood star in the 1990s, he starred in several commercially successful films, including the drama A Few Good Men (1992), the thriller The Firm (1993), the horror film Interview with the Vampire (1994), and the romance Jerry Maguire (1996). For his role in the latter, he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and received his second Academy Award nomination.

Cruise splits his time between homes in Beverly Hills, California; Telluride, Colorado; Clearwater, Florida; Dulwich, London; and East Grinstead, West Sussex. He had several relationships with older women in the early-to-mid-1980s, including Rebecca De Mornay (three years his senior), Patti Scialfa (nine years his senior), and Cher (16 years his senior).

While reviewing Days of Thunder, film critic Roger Ebert noted the similarities between several of Cruise's 1980s films and nicknamed the formula the Tom Cruise Picture. Some of Cruise's later films like A Few Good Men and The Last Samurai can also be considered to be part of this formula.

Cruise spent part of his childhood in Canada. When his father took a job as a defense consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces, his family moved in late 1971 to Beacon Hill, Ottawa. He attended the new Robert Hopkins Public School for his fourth and fifth grade education. He first became involved in drama in fourth grade, under the tutelage of George Steinburg. He and six other boys put on an improvised play to music called IT at the Carleton Elementary School drama festival. Drama organizer Val Wright, who was in the audience, later said that "the movement and improvisation were excellent [...] it was a classic ensemble piece". In sixth grade, Cruise went to Henry Munro Middle School in Ottawa. That year, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sisters back to the United States. In 1978, she married Jack South. Cruise's father died of cancer in 1984. Cruise briefly took a church scholarship and attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio; he aspired to become a priest before he became interested in acting. In total, he attended 15 schools in 14 years. In his senior year of high school, he played football for the varsity team as a linebacker, but was cut from the squad after getting caught drinking beer before a game. He went on to star in the school's production of Guys and Dolls. In 1980, he graduated from Glen Ridge High School in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962) is an American actor and producer. He has received several accolades for his work, including three Golden Globe Awards and three nominations for Academy Awards. With a net worth of $570 million as of 2020, he is one of the highest-paid actors in the world. In addition, his films have grossed over $4 billion in North America and over $10.1 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing box office stars of all time.

Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in Syracuse, New York, on July 3, 1962, the son of special education teacher Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer; 1936–2017) and electrical engineer Thomas Cruise Mapother III (1934–1984). His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Cruise has three sisters named Lee Anne, Marian, and Cass. One of his cousins, William Mapother , is also an actor who has appeared alongside Cruise in five films. Cruise grew up in near poverty and had a Catholic upbringing. He later described his father as "a merchant of chaos", a "bully", and a "coward" who beat his children. He elaborated, "[My father] was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life—how he'd lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang! For me, it was like, 'There's something wrong with this guy. Don't trust him. Be careful around him.'"

Production began in 2007 of Valkyrie, a thriller based on the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler. The film was acquired in March 2007 by United Artists. On March 21, 2007, Cruise signed to play Claus von Stauffenberg, the protagonist. This project marked the second production to be greenlighted since Cruise and Wagner took control of United Artists. The first was its inaugural film, Lions for Lambs, directed by Robert Redford and starring Redford, Meryl Streep and Cruise. Lambs was released on November 9, 2007, opening to unimpressive box office revenue and critical reception.

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