Tom Cruise, our messy messiah of movies

Over the span of his 40-year career, Tom Cruise has been many things: Hollywood heartthrob, celebrated Short King (he's 5-foot-7), Scientology spokesperson, reticent actor and now . . . the savior of cinema. Earlier this year, Steven Spielberg made the decree at the annual Oscars luncheon, telling the actor he "saved the entire theatrical industry," as "Top Gun: Maverick," Cruise's highest grossing movie ever ($1.49 billion globally), achieved the rare and coveted task of bringing moviegoers back to the theaters. The claim has regained traction now that the star has joined negotiations with SAG-AFTRA in order to protect actors from being replaced by artificial intelligence — nevermind the fact that he has declined to join the picket line for the unions' ongoing strike.

It's no mere coincidence then that the villain in Cruise's latest movie, "Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One," is, of all things, AI. In the seventh installment, notoriously rogue spy Ethan Hunt is tasked with finding the key that controls the sentient AI called "The Entity" that can manipulate digital reality. Good guy that he is, Ethan doesn't stop at obtaining the key, he sets out to destroy The Entity for the sake of mankind.

Like his character, Cruise is fighting to preserve reality by tackling AI, merging his persona with his performance and reinforcing himself as the movie messiah. Since the pandemic, the public has been awoken to his staunch defense of The Movies. In a leaked clip captured while filming "Dead Reckoning" during the pandemic, he was heard yelling at crew members who were not following COVID-19 precautions. While he was audibly angry and intense, the clip was widely interpreted as Cruise being dedicated to the craft that is moviemaking. To top it off, he's famously known for performing his own stunts no matter how terrifying, just one of the many reasons people refer to him as the last remaining movie star.

In an era where Hollywood is ruled by IP and franchises in place of actors, Cruise feels like the last of his kind. What allowed his stardom to endure and evolve in ways Brad Pitt's, Sandra Bullock's and so many others' did not?

Unlike other celebrities, the persona of Hollywood's last star has always loomed larger than life. It's not always a tidy reputation, but it is always intriguing and full-on — even his fall from publicity grace. The early aughts through to 2012 were dark times for the actor's public image. In 2004, he opened up about joining the Church of Scientology, an organization suspiciously structured like a pyramid scheme, purported to be a religion, founded by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. The cult-like group comes with many controversies, including allegedly profiting from human trafficking and forced labor and practicing abusive behavior. The optics for Cruise at the time weren't great, but they were still surrounded by buzz and an intense need to know more about the actor. 

The more investigations and self-reports from the actor about his ties to Scientology, the more complex and unhinged he appeared to be. There was the time he criticized Brooke Shields for taking antidepressants because psychiatry is not within the church's belief. Or, that time when a former Scientologist alleged that he had not seen his daughter Suri Cruise for 10 years because she is not a Scientologist. At one point, he also used the church to find new love interests, as Scientologists reportedly recruited actress Nazanin Boniadi, giving her a makeover to Cruise's preferences, to become the actor's girlfriend. He dated her for a while before letting the church break up with her for him. When she told a friend what happened, she was punished by the church with months of menial labor. 

In this handout photo provided by NBC, actor Tom Cruise (L) stands on the couch during an interview on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" June 8, 2005 in Burbank, California. (Paul Drinkwater/NBC via Getty Images)

Even when he's not speaking about Scientology, everything about Cruise is sensational. His infamous 2005 couch-jumping Oprah Winfrey interview (which he's since enthusiastically reenacted) is case in point. Looking back, the interview feels like an "I Think You Should Leave" skit with Cruise, the Tim Robinson stand-in, taking emotions to the unsettling extreme until they cross social norms. He randomly and repeatedly jumps up onto the couch, grabs Oprah by both shoulders and shakes her, drops to his knees and then, when Katie Holmes is invited onto the stage, finds the actress, restrains both of her arms and almost drags her to the stage; all because he's just so passionate about his love for her. Perhaps what's even more perplexing than the actor's behavior is how the live audience uproariously cheers him on.

Such is the power of Tom Cruise.

After watching the interview, it's easy to see how Cruise was the character inspiration for the onscreen take on sociopathic killer Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho," which Christian Bale came to realize after watching a 1999 appearance of Cruise on "Late Show with David Letterman." During his appearance, the actor recounted a story about co-piloting a private plane and turning off a passenger's oxygen supply. When Letterman asks him if that's attempted manslaughter, he laughs so hard he can't string a full sentence together to finish the story. Creepy as this interview is, it adds yet another conundrum to the puzzle that is Tom Cruise. Attempting to solve that puzzle keeps us coming back. His eerie antics keep us glued to the screen, like witnessing something horrific you just can't look away from.

Eventually, the star learned to shut up about Scientology, entering a newly reticent era and becoming known for turning down in-depth interviews. Who he is now and what he gets up to has become so mysterious that the New York Times recently went on their own impossible mission to find him in the wild. His increasingly private life and determination to keep making movies has essentially repaired his hurt reputation. As Rolling Stone points out, Cruise "effectively replaced Scientology with a different public-facing religion: The Movies."

Shielding his private life only added fuel to the fire that his mysterious, larger-than-life persona created. Now, when people hear any details they can about the star, they revere it and pick it over. He has a signature white chocolate coconut cake bundt cake and he sends it to celebrities every year? He taught Zac Efron to ride a motorcycle? He rescued a family from a burning sailboat? Wow, he's so fearless and heroic, like a real-life Ethan Hunt and all the other action heroes he's fully leaned into playing and that don't at all try to distract from his Scientology scandals . . .

It's almost as if Tom Cruise The Person and Tom Cruise The Character are one and the same. The conflation has bolstered the star's allure and ability to bring people to theaters, as his deep lore and real heroics draw people to see him, and specifically him, in films — and we eat it up. Journalist Justine Smith puts it best, "People didn't come back to the cinema to watch a new 'Top Gun' movie, a sequel 30 years in the making — they came to the cinema to watch Tom Cruise." 

Whether or not you believe this one white man, who stood with SAG-AFTRA most when it benefits his own movies, can fix a systemic issue of exploitation and capitalism is irrelevant, because Cruise will act like he did. That's the whole point of the latest "Mission Impossible." And we watched it, we enjoyed it if its Rotten Tomatoes score (96% for critics and 94% for the audience) is any indication, and we will continue to watch when Cruise puts on another performance. While he is many things, no one can accuse him of not committing to the bit.

Cruise's allure can be best captured by his acceptance speech video for "Top Gun" at the MTV Movie & TV Awards. He didn't just accept his speech, he got into a helicopter and thanked the audience for going to the movies. Right before he jumps out of the helicopter to finish his speech mid-fall, he shouts, "I love entertaining you!" From Scientology to Movie Savior, Cruise does exactly that. He is a star because he never stops entertaining, and we love him all the more for it.