I really am liking Tom Cruise again. There was a time when his fame and press persona was starting to really irk me, but suddenly he started being nice, following the golden rule of celebrity. When you get so big, bring yourself back to the audience, and he did, very successfully.
He’s got the fans hooked, not only is he producing some really good performances, he’s also picking some excellent scripts (or is that being offered). I really do like the persona of Cruise. I like his style in interviews, I like his onscreen characters and I love the fact he walks the crowd for so long and even leaves messages on their mobiles for them. Nice.
Anyway, this story talks about Cruise discussing a War of the Worlds scene, but for me the killer line comes later, after this.
“Cruise also said that he was offered “a ton of money” for Top Gun 2 and strung the studio on a bit with no intention of ever doing it.”
That would be so cool if it’s true, and shows that either Cruise has a huge grasp of his image and press persona, engineering all of this for the ability to release it to the press, or he just really does have fun with the whole movie-stardom thing. I hope it’s the latter and I will hang onto it.
What’s the feeling of Cruise out there? Meglomaniac with a clever understanding of manipulating the press, or just a great actor having great fun?
