Tom Cruise is arguably bigger now than he’s ever been, but his career hasn’t always been smooth. He hit a rough patch in the mid-aughts when the combination of his Scientology, his attacks on therapy, and his couch-jumping antics — which, for the record, were taken out of context — made the public think of him as a bit of weirdo. He’s still seen as an odd duck and myths still persist about his behavior. At least one of them is allegedly bull.
In a piece on Tom Cruise by The Times U.K. (in a bit teased out by Deadline), Christopher McQuarrie — who’s directed the Mission: Impossible series since 2015’s Rogue Nation, as well as the first Jack Reacher — said that Cruise told him he was especially weirded out by a particular story that has persisted in the public eye. Which one? That people on Tom Cruise sets “were not allowed to look me in the eye.”
That’s not to say that Cruise’s relationship with film crews always goes swimmingly. He made news in late 2020 when he blew up on M:I 7 crew members who were violating COVID safety protocols, thus jeopardizing not only the production but potentially the entire industry that he loves. Audio of him shouting “Do that and you’re gone” eventually went public. Thing is, many took Cruise’s side, including some of his fellow actors.
“Everything that Tom cares about, in terms of his job, was at stake due to the pandemic,” Simon Pegg, who’s been on the M:I team since the third entry, told The Times in the same piece. “For him there was a danger this virus could wipe cinema off the face of this earth.”
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One hits theaters on July 12. It’s long.