For four decades, Tom Cruise has been working hard on our screens: sprinting across vast landscapes, leaping between rooftops and dodging explosions with the frenetic energy and dazzling grin that have become his trademark. But beyond the death-defying stunts and age-defying bone structure lies an enigmatic figure. Some call him the last true movie star. Others think he’s kind of creepy. Ultimately, at 62, he’s a man on a mission: to make sure his personal life never overshadows his Hollywood legacy, and so far, he’s succeeding.
Behind the smile that first turned Cruise into a heartthrob in the 1980s via hits like The Color of Money (1986) and Cocktail (1988) — and remains glued to his face now in his midlife action-hero era — who is he really? What are his relationships like? Is Scientology still a huge part of his life?
We spoke to experts and insiders to get a better sense of Tom Cruise, the human being — wondering along the way if we’d taken on an impossible mission of our own.
Early Days
Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1962, but his family moved around a lot, with the young Cruise attending 15 different schools. He’s said that his father, Tom Sr., who died in 1984, was abusive and a “merchant of chaos” — which could be why the actor was drawn to religion at a young age. He even considered becoming a Catholic priest. “Tom was instantly hooked,” Father Ric Schneider told the New York Daily News about the superstar’s brief period at St. Francis Seminary School in Cincinnati. “I think he wanted a good education. With his parents going through a divorce, it was tough on him; that’s maybe one of the reasons why he came here.”
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Ultimately, the stint was short-lived, and Cruise set his sights on a different calling: acting. His breakthrough role came in 1983 with Risky Business when he was 21, before Top Gun’s cocky, charismatic hero, Maverick, made him an utterly magnetic megastar in ’86. Teenage girls wanted to marry him, teenage boys wanted to be him — and their parents were big fans, too. He seemed to have it all.
Crafting His Image
But while his early career radiated that globally appealing all-American confidence, Cruise the man has always been more complex. He is obsessively private yet permanently in the spotlight; intensely dedicated to his craft while oddly inhuman, almost like he was grown in a lab to save the movie industry. Now, more than ever, he talks in tight, polished sound bites. In his recent round of interviews to promote the eighth film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, The Final Reckoning — which made a staggering $200 million in its Memorial Day opening weekend — he enthused about the movie and his many daring stunts, but gave little else away, instead repeating words like “wild,” “fun” and “crazy.” He sticks to broadcast interviews, ensuring control of the narrative, rather than allowing journalists to edit and analyze his words in print.
Evan Nierman, founder of Red Banyan crisis PR, says Cruise has perfected this art over many years. “In an era of overexposure and social media, he’s managed to remain disciplined, calculated and slightly elusive,” he tells Us. “A lot of stars out there make it a point to bring in their personal lives — they’re clamoring for attention. But Tom Cruise is in a completely different category: box office royalty. He is the 1 percent of the Hollywood A-listers. Tom doesn’t need to chase the headlines. The world is chasing him. And so it gives him a certain measure of control and confidence that I think he wields very effectively.”
Hollywood publicist Jane Owen agrees. “Tom Cruise is one of the few true movie stars who still knows how to play the long game,” she tells Us. “He gives the public just enough — the big action scenes, the red-carpet charm, the movie magic — but never too much. The few appearances he does do are carefully selected, and the general perception that comes from them are always positive. He is charming and charismatic and comes off like a good guy without showing anyone too much of himself to allow criticism.”
Perhaps that’s by design. In December 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic, audio from the set of Mission: Impossible 7 leaked. An enraged Cruise could be heard telling crew members he felt were standing too close together, “If I see you do it again, you’re f–king gone.” Breaking Covid rules put the project at risk of shutting down, and Cruise’s ire was palpable. The man the world heard was fiery, furious and foul-mouthed, and all toward people with much less power than him — a far cry from the smiling charmer who tirelessly stayed on the red carpet for hours to sign autographs and pose for selfies with fans.
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But he was forgiven: Hollywood colleagues, including George Clooney and Whoopi Goldberg, publicly stood up for him, and his point was understandable. In fact, maybe it even made him a little more relatable: Who hadn’t experienced a few minor meltdowns during lockdown?
Of course nothing had knocked Cruise’s picture-perfect image off kilter quite like his 2005 press tour, which centered around Katie Holmes and Scientology. In April 2005, he and the actress started dating, and that May, Cruise took the gushing about his new love a bit far — say, by jumping on a couch — fueling questions about the authenticity of the relationship. (Longtime Paramount Pictures publicist Tim Menke, who had booked the talk show appearance, revealed earlier this year that the gaffe cost him his job.)
Then, in June 2005, came Cruise’s dismal Today show appearance. He was there to promote his relationship — with Holmes strangely looking on from the sidelines — and his new Steven Spielberg film War of the Worlds. But the conversation devolved into Cruise’s critique of big pharma and psychiatry, which Scientology opposes. Cruise called psychiatry a “pseudoscience” and chastised Brooke Shields for her use of antidepressants to deal with postpartum depression. “She doesn’t understand the history of psychiatry,” Cruise told Matt Lauer. (Shields later revealed that Cruise apologized to her.)
It was the first real crack in the nice-guy veneer, a preview of Covid Cruise. This was a man who trod a fine line between passion and anger, and it was a little alarming. But he shook it off — and his sister, Lee Anne DeVette, who had briefly worked as the star’s personal publicist, also exited his team.
“He just stepped back, regrouped, and came back with hit after hit,” Owen tells Us, like Mission: Impossible III in 2006 and a gut-busting cameo in 2008’s Tropic Thunder. “He learned from the mistake of being overly accessible and leaving himself vulnerable to criticism and instead focused on what made him famous to begin with: his ability to make great movies.” That reservedness has served him, says Owen: “Basically, he just stopped feeding the tabloid machine. For the most part, he stays in his lane and lets his work do the talking — and fans seem to respect that.”
Away From The Cameras
Another area of mystery involves the superstar’s kids — or really, one of them. Cruise is sometimes seen with his adult children, Isabella, 32, and Connor, 30, with ex Nicole Kidman, but he is estranged from Suri, 19, whom he shares with Holmes. In fact, he hasn’t been seen in public with her since before their divorce, which many attributed to the actress’ rejection of Scientology. Suri, now a college student, no longer uses her dad’s surname.
It’s a sad — and confounding — blip in Cruise’s narrative. It’s not often that the actor is caught off-guard, but when he was asked about his Father’s Day plans at a recent red-carpet event for The Final Reckoning, he seemed taken aback. “Hey, just having fun, man,” he told E! News, looking slightly wild-eyed. “Making movies, big adventure, having a great time.”
Perhaps the biggest piece of the Cruise enigma remains Scientology — the controversial religion he reportedly joined in 1986 and which looms large over his public image, a bit like a mysterious spacecraft in a summer blockbuster. Even though, as Owen says, “he never talks about it unless someone brings it up,” his previous outspokenness has etched it into people’s memories. After all, Scientology has faced allegations of abuse, coercion and intimidation. (The Church has long denied these claims.)
Marc Headley, a former Scientologist turned Church critic and author of the 2009 memoir Blown for Good: Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology, tells Us the last time he spoke to Cruise was in 2004. “[Tom’s] been in a decades-long bromance with a controversial man [current church leader David Miscavige]. Who cares if he still runs fast and jumps off stuff? I suspect the more people knew about Tom Cruise’s close relationship with Scientology, the less they would spend supporting him and his activities.” (The Church claims Headley’s statements should be considered “false” and points to his departure decades ago, citing adversarial and litigious issues since he left.)
Actress Leah Remini, who left Scientology in 2013 after being brought up in the religion, is also critical of Cruise’s ongoing dedication to it: “I believe it’s hurt him,” she told Us in a May interview, “and rightfully so.” She even claimed that when he wanted to end his brief relationship with fellow Church member Nazanin Boniadi in 2005, he had representatives do it for him: “He couldn’t even break up with his own girlfriend. When you have that kind of power behind you, could you imagine Tom being in the normal world?” (The Church continues to dispute Remini’s accounts.)
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These days, Cruise keeps quiet about the role of Scientology in his life — and it’s hard to square the idea of a man whose 2022 film Top Gun: Maverick brought in $1.5 billion as suffering from a “hurt” reputation.
“I think Tom Cruise learned his lesson with the discussion and uproar around Scientology that happened many years ago,” says Nierman. “He’s been very effective at not shining a light on that and instead letting the power of his films and his stunt work speak for itself.”
His Inner Circle
Cruise also surrounds himself with a roster of friends outside the Church, including David and Victoria Beckham and his M:I costar Simon Pegg. “I’ve been able to hack my way through all the bizarre mythology that surrounds him,” Pegg told The Times in 2023. “On one side he’s Tom Cruise — this enigmatic film star everyone wants to know about. And on the other he’s just a guy. I like being normal with him.” When asked what Cruise does to unwind, Pegg quipped, “I don’t know if he ever unwinds. He took us go-karting and zip-lining. He hates doing nothing.”
Though, of course, being friends with a star of Cruise’s caliber comes with some implicit rules. “If you are close to Tom, you don’t gossip about him,” a source tells Us. “You understand that is part and parcel of being in his circle.” One could argue it’s a good friendship rule for anyone.
But there’s even mystery around where Cruise lives. In the past, he’s spent a lot of time in England — he and Kidman owned a house in upscale Dulwich, south London — and he’s described himself as an Anglophile, saying, “I love being in Britain because everyone is pleasant and will give you a nod or say hello without crowding you too much.” It’s also where his daughter Isabella lives with her British hubby, Max Parker.
Last summer, he partied up a storm in the U.K., watching Coldplay at Glastonbury alongside Pegg and Gillian Anderson, at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour at Wembley and celebrating with the Beckhams in London for Victoria’s 50th, as well as hanging out with Prince William at a charity event earlier in the year. He sold his L.A. properties years ago and is thought to avoid NYC, where Holmes lives. Mostly, he seems to go wherever his latest movie or promo trail takes him.
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Or his new relationship. In May, Us exclusively reported that there was a romance brewing between Cruise and Ana de Armas. A source told Us that after meeting the actress, 37, in February, Cruise was “smitten” and “began courting her,” adding that Cruise’s ex Penélope Cruz helped play matchmaker between her two good friends. The good news for Cruise is that de Armas “doesn’t like public attention,” explained the source, adding that she prefers to keep her relationships out of the press. “That’s one of the things Tom likes about her.”
Cruise Control
He remains one of the last actors who can open a film on name alone. He produces much of what he stars in too, giving him total creative control. He’s not just in the movie — he is the movie.
PR guru Mark Borkowski says Cruise is a unique being in an overexposed world. “In an age when celebrity is measured in clickbait and confessionals, he’s Houdini with a dollop of old-Hollywood glamour,” he tells Us. “He’s one of the few who understands that mystique — curated silence, not curated content — is more potent than a thousand influencer confessionals.”
So, still we ask, who is he? A control freak? A perfectionist? A true believer? A man on a decades-long PR offensive? Or a genuinely good guy? Maybe all of the above. What’s certain is that Cruise has built a persona so bulletproof, so relentlessly focused on performance, that there’s barely any space for real life to poke through. While other stars have tried and failed to balance career reinvention with personal openness, Cruise has never stopped being Tom Cruise
. He is, quite possibly, the greatest brand-management success story of all time.
”I will never stop,” he recently told The Hollywood Reporter about his career. With his ever-present energy and intensity, he added, “I will never stop doing action, I will never stop doing drama, comedy films — I’m excited.”
With reporting by Andrea Simpson and Mariel Turner
