Cinema nerd Tom Cruise knows everyone’s lines in his films

Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise is a film nerd, and a well-prepared actor. The actor “knows every character’s lines” in his movies. The ‘Top Gun’ actor has worked twice with Cameron Crowe, on Jerry McGuire and Vanilla Sky, and the 68-year-old filmmaker found the star a “breeze” to collaborate with because he is happy to put his trust in his director and is willing to try anything, reports ‘Female First UK’.

Cameron told Uncut magazine, “Tom Cruise is not a director, and he will tell you that. And that is why he puts a lot of trust in the people directing him”.

“I found it to be a breeze, and an inspiring breeze at that. He is a blast to direct. He will say no to nothing, he will try all kinds of stuff. He knows everybody’s job, he knows every character’s lines, he’s there for everybody. So he has committed filmmakers in his wake, for good reason. He makes it fun”, he added.

As per ‘Female First UK’, Cameron praised Tom for the energy he brings to filming because of his love of music.

He said, “He acts to music — he’ll put on (Radiohead’s) OK Computer and do the scene. He’s a big fan of music. The music in the Vanilla Sky soundtrack was music we all loved, and the actors acted to. I feel something different when the music is going, and it really has made the scenes better as a result”.

However, not all actors are as enthusiastic about background sound. Cameron shared, “The one person who said, ‘Don’t play music during my take?’ Philip Seymour Hoffman. The first day working with him, I put on I Wanna Be Your Dog in the middle of his take, because I assumed, ‘Oh, everybody is into this’”.

“He said, ‘Cut! What makes you think the music you’re playing is better than the music I’m hearing in my head?’. I’m like, ‘Nothing, you’ll never hear music again’”, he added.

Cruise was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, to electrical engineer Thomas Cruise Mapother III (1934–1984) and special education teacher Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer; 1936–2017). His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Cruise has three sisters named Lee Anne, Marian, and Cass. One of his cousins, William Mapother, is also an actor who has appeared alongside Cruise in five films.

Cruise grew up in near poverty and had a Catholic upbringing. He later described his father as “a merchant of chaos”, a “bully”, and a “coward” who beat his children. He elaborated, “(My father) was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life — how he’d lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang! For me, it was like, ‘There’s something wrong with this guy. Don’t trust him. Be careful around him.’” Cruise’s father died of cancer in 1984.

In total, Cruise attended fifteen schools in fourteen years. Cruise spent part of his childhood in Canada; when his father took a job as a defense consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces, his family moved in late 1971 to Beacon Hill, Ottawa. He attended the new Robert Hopkins Public School for his fourth and fifth grade education. He first became involved in drama in fourth grade, under drama teacher George Steinburg. He and six other boys put on an improvised play to music called IT at the Carleton Elementary School drama festival. Drama organizer Val Wright was in the audience and later said that “the movement and improvisation were excellent ... a classic ensemble piece.”

In sixth grade, Cruise went to Henry Munro Middle School in Ottawa. That year, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sisters back to the United States. In 1978 she married Jack South. Cruise briefly took a Catholic church scholarship and attended St. Francis Seminary in Cincinnati. He aspired to become a priest in the Franciscan order but left after a year. In his senior year of high school, he played football for the varsity team as a linebacker, but was cut from the squad after getting caught drinking beer before a game.  He went on to star in the school’s production of Guys and Dolls. In 1980, he graduated from Glen Ridge High School in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

Agencies