Image credit to Nigel Parry for Esquire Magazine.
Everyone’s favourite heterosexual leading man, Tom Cruise, is the June/ July cover boy for Esquire magazine. The 47-year-old, who hasn’t aged in nearly that long, grins maniacally at you while using his Jedi mind tricks to get you to pick up a copy. Tom Cruise has been picked for the How To Be A Man cover, which is fitting, as who’s more manly than someone who does their own stunts and yet needs two phone books at his feet in order to be able to look his robot wife in the eye (Katie Bot v2.0 will be built a lot shorter). It’s Cruise, in all his manly matchy-matchy denim-wearing glory. Someone at this magazine has an excellent sense of humour. Also, Cruise is clearly having lines read to him on and off screen. Scroll below for his well-rehearsed interview to see what I mean…
- On the Oprah fallout: “There was a confluence of events. My deal with Paramount was up and it wasn’t extended. At first it was, Huh? I don’t get it. But people have misconceptions about that whole thing, too. Sumner Redstone and I are friends. It’s a business.”
- On Katie Holmes: “Because we do live in a cynical world. It’s easy to be cynical. Making the choice not to be cynical is important. You can keep dwelling on what didn’t work, or you can figure out how to fix it. Which is what being a parent is all about. You know, I’m married to such a special woman. Every night before we go to sleep, Kate and I look at each other and it’s like, How’d we do today?”
- On Suri [Cruise... his four-year-old daughter]: “It’s come full circle. Now I’ll put Suri on a swing and tell her stories when I’m working on a script. I’ll start with the beginning of the movie and take her through the story beat by beat. Of course, I make it age-appropriate. She’s four years old. But she asks all the right questions: Why does that happen? Those are the bad guys? You’re the good guy, right?”
- On his father: “I remember looking at my dad and wanting to understand him. I didn’t want to just write the guy off. He was lost. I can’t speak specifically in terms of why and how he got to where he was — that was his journey. All I can tell you is, he was overwhelmed by life… My mother basically did all the work, and then they got separated and I didn’t see him for a long time. He didn’t try to help the family financially or spiritually, and I lived with the effects of the chaos.”
- On forgiving his father: “Risky Business had become a hit. I hadn’t seen my father in about ten years. I found out he was dying, and I went to see him in the hospital. He knew that he’d blown it. There was deep regret. I think he was torturing himself. We tend to do that. All I could do was tell him, ‘Look, it’s okay.’ I wasn’t going to live in blame and regret. I wanted to understand what happened. I wanted to understand, so I could answer the question, What can I do to make things better? I looked at my father there dying and thought, How can I not be that guy?”
- On being a father: “I’ll never forget the moment I became a dad. But it’s hard to describe — that level of responsibility, the desire to give such joy. The clarity: Nothing is more important than this. I remember that first night, just staring at Bella. I was checking her every second, just looking at her, feeling that immediate bond. I was probably looking at her so much that I was keeping her up. I made a promise to her: All I can do is the best I can. But I’m not going to say I’m gonna do something and then not do it.”
- On the Oprah interview: “What happened, happened… I wanted the audience to be happy just like I wanted to make my sisters and my mother happy when I did those skits as a kid. But I’ll take responsibility for my actions… Afterward, wild things were being said about me, and once they’re in the ether, there’s nothing you can do about it. It felt like being the new kid in the schoolyard again and the other kids are whispering and whispering about you and suddenly you hear what they’re saying, and you think, What? That didn’t happen. Look at the reality of the situation.”
