So, a long, long time ago over on the View Askew message board (where I hang out on occassion), Kevin Smith posted that he was going to be interviewing Tom Cruise later that day or somesuch and for us to ask some questions. I barely recall typing one in, most likely on company time, and just not thinking about it again.

Well, today, the New Askew website posted the interview, and almost at the very end, I read a question and it just seems oddly familiar, and I’m nearly certain it was my question, and Tom Cruise answered the question and at the end, added: “These are great questions, by the way. I gotta tell ya.”

So, here is my full interview with Mr. Cruise. If you want to read Kevin’s full interview, which is much, much larger and includes my question, go to New Askew and read the scans of the magazine. You’ll have to squint a little.

My question: Has your celebrity prevented you from making different types of films than perhaps you might be interested in making? Like a back-up or secondary role in a film that might have caught your eye without the stigma of ‘the next Tom Cruise film’ attached to it?

Tom’s reply to me (through Kevin, of course): I felt that when I did Magnolia. But I don’t feel that [being Tom Fucking Cruise] as a stigma at all. I feel that as a privilege. i feel that I have the opportunity to do things. I’ve never felt limited by it; I’ve never said, “Well, okay, I can’t do this because…” But it’s also a huge investment for me when I act in a movie. It’s not, “Oh, I’m just gonna show up!” I mean, I could do something fun. I liked doing Austin Powers. I went in for four hours, had a laugh. I showed up in Young Guns. And then Magnolia. But I take a lot of pride in what i do, and when I do something, I can’t just go, yeah, read the script, yeah, I’m going to go play. That would be me taking advantage of celebrity. Any role that I commit to, it’s an investment. It’s an emotional, physical investment into that character. With Magnolia, even though I only worked about a week and a half, I spent four months prepping that character. These are great questions by the way, I gotta tell ya.”

So, there you have it, by first tangental run-in with Tom Cruise, before he options my novel.

UPDATE: Oops, not quite. Just checked back and someone found the old thread where we originally asked questions. I asked about the roles he has been taking lately, but then went in a different direction, about how he has been using “masks” in recent roles to obscure his face (Vanilla Sky, Minority Report) and if that was a conscious choice to let people see his acting more than his “Tom Cruise”ness. Oh well, ALMOST a brush with Tom Cruise.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2004 at 7:47 pm and is filed under diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.