One of today’s must-reads is Vulture’s new interview with Thandie Newton, the veteran actress who’s currently one of the best parts of HBO’s Westworld. The English performer’s enjoyed a number of highs in her long career, but she’s also been forced to reckon with ingrained cultures of racism and sexism from an early age—her stories about Flirting director John Duigan are particularly harrowing. She’s also got plenty to say about Paul Haggis’ Crash and crime drama Rogue, but one particularly fascinating anecdote concerns her “nightmare” experience working on John Woo’s Mission: Impossible 2.
Newton isn’t as critical of Cruise as she is some of her other former collaborators, but, as often happens in Cruise stories, the actor comes across as more of a being than a human in her telling.
“I was so scared of Tom. He was a very dominant individual,” she says. “He tries superhard to be a nice person. But the pressure. He takes on a lot. And I think he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done.”
She goes on to describe a frustrating night shoot packed with extras and pyrotechnics and, per Newton, a zit on Cruise’s face that was ballooning before her very eyes. That, coupled with Woo’s decision to not speak English on set—“[V]ery helpful to him, but it was extremely unhelpful to the rest of us,” she notes—caused a testy Tom to rather forcefully take matters into his own hands.
“So this scene was happening, and Tom was not happy with what I was doing because I had the shittiest lines,” she says. “And he gets so frustrated with having to try and explain that he goes, ‘Let me just — let’s just go do it. Let’s just rehearse on-camera.’ So we rehearsed and they recorded it, and then he goes, ‘I’ll be you. You be me.’ So we filmed the entire scene with me being him—because, believe me, I knew the lines by then—and him playing me. And it was the most unhelpful… I can’t think of anything less revealing. It just pushed me further into a place of terror and insecurity. It was a real shame. And bless him. And I really do mean bless him, because he was trying his damnedest.”
After describing the “nightmare” shoot to her pal Jonathan Demme later on, she received a call from Cruise. “I thought, Oh, this is it. The apology. No, he was just like, ‘We’re going to reshoot this next week.’ I’m like, ‘Way brilliant.’ And the next time we shot it, I went in there and I just basically manifested all the—because I realized what he wanted. He just wanted this alpha bitch. And I did as best as I could. It’s not the best way to get the best work out of someone.”
Newton clarifies that Cruise “wasn’t horrible,” but rather “really stressed.” He even gave her a Christmas present, though not one anyone in their right mind would want. “Christmas gifts would be something to do with Scientology,” she recalls. “Like a book with the greatest hits of Scientology, a bit like a Bible kind of thing. I was curious, because it’s like, Wow, if it’s going to attract people, powerful, high-profile people, there’s got to be some glue that sticks this shit together. Didn’t find any.”
Read the full interview here.
223 Comments
She’s cool.
Really different story than I expected concerning the times, but something I can really see. It’s kind of funny, because I’ve also read a lot of stories about Cruise being really great to the crew and really providing a fun energy to the set. Not that that in any way contradicts this account here, but rather how it shows how much the general tone and director’s handling of the set probably affects everything.
Yeah, I kept waiting for the twist of the knife and it never came.
I was expecting the zit to just spontaneously pop
Yeah, the headline plus the first paragraph really made this seem like it would have to do with some sort of racism or sexism. Very manipulative of Mr. Colburn, the AV Club should do better
Someone’s projecting
Piss off troll.
I mean same
Looks like the headline’s been changed now to one that more accurately reflects the tone of her comments.
This is a better headline
Nu-AV Club resorting to…to…clickbait?! Well, I never!
He’d never had a franchise before and this was his chance – he’s not only starring in the film but producing it as well (only the second he’d produced that he was also starred in – and I get the feeling De Palma had more of a controlling hand in the wheel for the first) and he’s got a director who’s a great stylist but won’t speak English on set? I can see why he’d feel the pressure to take duties on himself and feel the stress of it. I’m not saying he handled it great but even Newton goes to lengths to be empathetic with his position, if not his actions. She’s right though, the shitty script did seem to be ground zero for it all.
I completely forgot that this was also at the beginning of his producer career. Yeah, when considering that and all the other stuff mentioned here, it really explains a lot even if it doesn’t excuse it.Also, Jesus Christ the Mission Impossible 2 script was so bad.
And she did seem to be the main victim it. At least Dougray Scott, Richard Roxburgh and John Polson got to ham it up a bit (and Cruise got to be cool). She was just there to be Beautiful Plot Device.
The wife and I just watched MI 2 & 3 for the first time over the weekend. The script for MI:2 was god-awful, but Woo’s visual style saved the movie itself from being just as awful (one of his gifts as a director). I still found it more entertaining than 3, and a lot of that credit goes to Thandie Newton. Neither movie really ever seemed to find a steady footing though. At some point in the middle of 3, we had paused it, and I pointed out that even if no director had been listed, I would know exactly who did direct both movies. Abrams has his lens-flare and shaky handheld closeups, and John Woo has his birds everywhere and dudes spinning around before they shoot their guns.
double post
Yes it was, but
nah it was fun
IIRC the MI2 production was a mess from start to finish and is still considered the least of the series. I suspect Cruise learned everything not to do on a production. From that point on he was far more picky on directors until working with Christopher McQuarrie who I think has the gig for as long as he wants it.
I thought that was part 3? I saw more negative reviews for that one.
I still live within walking distance (or a short bus ride) of many of the filming locations of MI:2 (the racecourse which I can still walk to from home was where I had most of my university exams for the better part of a decade) and the island at the end was where we had a great medical revue party back in 1993 (a member of the caretaker’s family was involved so we were allowed to have a party there, pity someone fell through a roof).Anyway, given all that, it pains me no end that I find it by far the worst of the Mission Impossible films by far. As for Thandie Newton, all her character is really given to do of importance is pick Dougray Scott’s pocket and she doesn’t even pull that off as he immediately knows she’s done it.I guess, though and no disrespect to Dougray, overruns on this film meant he had to drop out of X-Men (Hugh Jackman wasn’t even cast until they’d been shooting for about three weeks) and I just couldn’t have seen anyone else in the role (for more trivial connections, Hugh was school captain at my high school – I can actually say I went to the same school that Agent Smith and Wolverine did).
I always feel that Dougray Scott getting called back for MI:2 reshoots so that X-Men had to move onto an unknown Hugh Jackman for Wolverine is one of those great what-if Hollywood moments.
I feel like Tom Cruise is basically a real life Chris Traeger, if it turns out Dr. Richard Nygaard was a Scientologist.
Wow – that was, literally, perfection. After reading that, I just pictured the scene where Chris/Tom kept doing retakes of the diabetes infomercial and asked Ann, “are we still rolling?” To which she looks at the camera and nods no…
Totally agree. I’ve mentioned this in other threads but a family friend is a propmaster, and he’s worked on movies with Cruise, one very early in his career and then a couple times after he was this stratospheric superstar. He has said time and time again what an absolutely great, kind person Cruise always is to everyone. Very professional, can be intense, but never, ever mean. I specifically remember him saying that Cruise thanks everyone from the person who cleans his trailer, to the person getting his coffee to his co-stars to the director every day, all day, starting from day one all the way to the very last day, he tries hard to remember everyone’s name, and is just super nice. People LOVE working with him. It’s probably why the whole Scientology thing doesn’t really interfere or influence people’s decision to work with him.
This was also a 20 year old movie and had a huge amount of hype behind it, so maybe he’s changed a little bit in terms of how he handles all of that stress and pressure.
There are tons of good stories about him on movie sets, but then there are all the Scientology stories where the crazy head used their slave labor to work on Tom Cruise’s shit(like cleaning things?) and I just….well, all I know is I would still totally do him because he seems batshit in a fantastically sexy way, but if he started mentioning Scientology I’d have to to muzzle him until I’d finished. *WALKS TO CORNER OF SHAME*
gross.
Not one mention of Richard Roxburgh? For shame, Thandie. For Shame.
There’s a reason why people jump at the chance to work with him even though he is a bit of a loon, to put it mildly. Whatever he believes, he’s reputedly very nice and considerate on-set, and always gives his all. He’s never checked out on a shoot the way, say, Bruce Willis tends to be to the chagrin of various casts and crews he’s worked with.
Bruce Willis mail in a performance? That’s unpossible!
This film was made at the height of Cruise’s ego trip; just check out his hair compared to every single other one in the series.
I loved his MI 2 hair. It was his best hair.
Valkyrie was when I learned Tom Cruise has a nice ass for a middle-aged white dude.
Tom’s had good work done his face has settled nicely and he still looks like himself and he keeps his body in shape.
The Last Samurai’s hair would like a word with you
I’m embarrassed to say I once grew out my hair in college in hopes my hair would be as wonderfully coiffed as Cruise in M:I-2(Narrator: It wasn’t)
Yeah, can you believe the EGO og a guy having slightly longer hair than usual?!?!?!??!?!??
Refresh my memory, is this the one where he’s wearing a perm?
No, that was the Kill Hitler one. MI2 was a chin length bob.
He looked like Cousin Itt.
Honest question; why hasn’t Tom Cruise directed a film by this point?
You hear stories about him taking charge on films like this or The Mummy, and that’s a gray area, certainly. But he’s been making films like this most of his life so he knows all the in’s-and-out’s. He has preferred editors and screenwriters he likes to work with, so he has as close to a production posse as anyone. He’s often credited with producing his films and since he gets paid by percentage, he knows how to keep things under budget.
So seriously, why hasn’t he directed?
Interesting question. I get the sense that he’s a very private person, so maybe he likes having a buffer between himself and all the random day-to-day interactions with the large numbers of technical/noncreative staff directing requires. The way he currently operates, he can spend the maximum time on creative decisions with a minimum of logistical fuss – apart from his many, many stunts, that is, which is probably a job in its own right, not to mention his acting duties.
Hey Tom, Go fuck your mother!!
According to ex-Scientologists who used to be his auditors or his auditees (at his level you’re required to learn to audit other people and must put in a certain number of hours doing it), he’s not real smart. Even for an actor. You have to be somewhat intelligent to direct.
Michael Bay begs to differ
Bay’s movies are dumbshit, but Bay absolutely knows what he’s doing on all of his shoots. Everything I’ve heard makes him sound like a real hardass on set.
his films are awesome
Bay’s movies are batshit crazy, but the ten year old Rogue in me was so psyched about that first Transformers movie. I saw the animated 1986 Transformers in the theater and Bay’s version did not let me down. I have no qualms about admitting I saw the sequel three times in the theater. I watched the third one in a hotel. I have not re-watched any of them since. Diminishing returns. Bay knows his audience and panders to them. He’ll never get an Oscar, but he brings in steam shovels full of $$$.
“he’s not real smart.”
And if you can trust anyone with the truth, it’s disgruntled former Scientologists.
Not to mention that if you’ve ever seen a single interview with him it’s pretty evident that he’s quite smart.
I believe it. How smart could he be, believing in that Scientology crap?
I mean, Paul Haggis was a Scientologist. There are plenty of otherwise smart people who are sucked into cults. But what the auditors across the board meant was Tom Cruise was unusually dumb. Like noticably so.
Paul Haggis who wrote and directed Crash? I’m not sure that’s a reasonable example of an intelligent person.
I wouldn’t say Crash is a bad film, it just didn’t deserve the awards it won.It’s a fairly basic tv movie style film about racism, but nothing much beyond that.
Crash is a very shallow film that was assembled in a competent manner. Paul Haggis is genuinely kind of a dummy. His appearance in the Going Clear documentary was almost impressive in its lack of vanity. His interview segments made very obvious how small of a role basic elements of critical thinking had played in his life.
That’s only what Xenu (who is inhabiting Cruise) wants them to think.
Cruise has been possessed by the Scientology devil?
But the dude’s work ethic is legendary. People will say he pushes hard on the sets but he never asks people to do anything he isn’t doing. Reminds me a lot of the ESPN Michael Jordan documentary. Very similar, very driven. I don’t care at all for Tom Cruise the scientologist, but Tom Cruise keeps making M:I movies and things like Edge of Tomorrow, i’ll keep showing up.
MJ is actually a really great analog to Tom Cruise.
Smart people believe lots of weird things.
“You have to be somewhat intelligent to direct.”[Josh Trank has joined the conversation.][Josh Trank has praised himself and said something stupid.][Josh Trank has quit social media again.]
Coleman Francis’ filmography would beg to differ.
Did you read/hear about the ready to bake cookie dough tantrum from Leah Remini’s book? And how Cruise’s PA was terrified to say anything?Yeah…not smart and definitely hates being corrected.
I don’t think that’s true. He may be a lot of things, but someone at his level doing what he’s done for as long as he has, has got to be pretty smart. There’s no other way to get around it.
Yeah, I read that Scientology is where he learned to read, basically. They are is family, which is why he’s so weird. He’s basically been created by Scientology. And there’s obviously a person in there trying to show itself, but the two parts of him just smash into crazy.
Yeah, you don’t need a former cult informant to tell that this guy’s not gifted with enough intelligence to be a director. That’s not a slam. It requires certain sets of skills that are relatively demanding and/or difficult, something most people can’t do, requiring a lot of different thought processes and communications skills, an erudite ability to learn and grow in order to be a working director in order to do a good job (much less a great job).
Yu don’t need any intelligence to be a director, Michael Bay is one example.
Given he has all that already, maybe he just doesn’t care enough about the extra recognition and prestige of being the director enough to want the extra work?
The only possible answer is because he doesn’t want to. He absolutely has the clout to make it happen, so he either knows his limitations (which seems unlikely), or just would rather not.
“so he either knows his limitations (which seems unlikely)“
You look at a guy like Cruise and think he *doesn’t* know his limitations?
This might be a little too cynical, but maybe it’s just the possible responsibility for a box office bomb that he’s trying to avoid? From the sounds of things, he controls a ton of creative decisions for every project on set, but as long as some other name is sitting in the chair, he thinks he won’t be held personally responsible for another The Mummy.
He doesn’t need to. He’s always a producer. He has final say on the script and the cast and the final cut. It’s way easier to just hire a director, and then tell them what to do.
this right here. McQuarrie may be a bigger name than he used to be but he isn’t calling action on a shot if Cruise isn’t on board with it
Why don’t you ask Xenu?
you don’t have to do everything. some people just like having their craft.i don’t need cruise to direct a couple of underwhelming toneless action flicks to know he is an actor first.
There’s a lot of shit involved with being a director that Tom probably knows the job entails, and it doesn’t interest him because it doesn’t have to do with his own scenes.
i’ll go ahead and say tom cruise does whatever he wants so he probably doesn’t want to.
Completely unfounded guess: he likes acting enough that he can’t be bothered with all of the minutiae that goes with directing. Anytime he gets commandeering on set, I’d wager it’s because he wants his co-star to do better so that they can collectively turn out a good performance. Rising tides and all that.
He only wants to be a movie star.
Stories about the Mummy of him having the think rewritten, why isn’t he a director is a good question.
I imagine directing and acting at the same time is a massive pain in the ass that he doesn’t want to deal with, and he’s definitely got directors he’s extremely comfortable with – like Christopher McQuarrie – so he kinda doesn’t need the extra hassle that comes with being the named director.
I forget who said this but I distinctly remember someone who had worked with him saying something like: “You and I will never love anything as much as Tom Cruise loves being a movie star.” He probably just doesn’t want to, especially since not even his amazing genes and world class plastic surgery will keep him doing these action movies forever…
I’d imagine it has everything to do with wanting all of the power, but none of the responsibility. If you’re just a big powerful ego on set, you sort of decide when and where you want to step up. When you’re actually the director, dozens of people are coming up to you every day wanting answers and clarification, and it’s a lot. Cruise probably loves that he can ask anyone for anything, but no one but the director can ask anything of him.I’ve co-directed with actors before on short films. I bet directing Tom Cruise is a lot like that (but with an extra 9900 people and $999,990,000 on the line): being the magic mirror on the wall for him, flattering him when necessary, and being an objective set of non-Cruise eyes to gently call him out once in a while to (hopefully) prevent him from looking silly.The actual hardest thing an actor does on set is trust the director. Understanding he needs a director to trust is probably the exact limit of Cruise’s self-awareness.
Just because your a good (debatable) actor and hands on with things doesn’t mean he would make a good director. Its a different world, but then again directors isn’t the be all end all either, the editor has a huge amount of influence on the final product.
My bet is he probably wants to do it but he works following a line were the film must have as much big names as you can get for maximum profit. A director with a big name will work better than “a tom cruise film” in the end. And for sure will deliver a better film. On the crazy side we all can see the whole thing going down the drain on the first scene he thinks that actor isnt doing exactly what he have inside his head.
I think he just likes working with directors he trusts, like Christopher McQuarrie (who he’s worked with on just about everything he’s done in the past 10 years either as director/writer/producer). Basically he knows how he wants things done so he finds someone whose vision aligns very closely with his own, but he doesn’t want to have to worry about all the small details. I have a feeling a Tom Cruise directed movie would actually be pretty bad, even though it’d definitely have insane stunts.
They don’t make camera tripods that short?
Very interesting question because since he is usually the producer, the kind of ends up directing the movies anyway. Have you noticed that in any Tom Cruise movie there is a pattern of scenes found. There is a scene of him having a joy ride in either a plane, motorcycle or car. There is a scene of a girl seducing him and him acting like he pretending to hesitate. He makes the exact same facial expressions in every movie. And it must be a religious thing because even “Eyes Wide Shut”, everyone got naked but him.
If you look at Cruise’s career and you know your directors, it’s literally a Who’s Who of the eighties and nineties. Francis Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Barry Levinson, Ron Howard, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, Neil Jordan, John Woo, Brian DePalma, Stanley Kubrick, Michael Mann, Bryan Singer, James Mangold and Cameron Crowe. If you can command this level of talent behind the camera, why would he want to direct?Granted, he’s not as shiny as he used to be (Will Smith was the last genuine movie star Hollywood produced) because we’re post-movie star but even his lesser movies have merit and he’s survived forty years as a leading man in an industry that can’t wait to destroy you.Yeah, he’s got a wacky religion but I think they’re all wacky. He’s given me forty years of solid entertainment. More power to him.
who would sign on to that project
John Woo is such a mixed bag. Hard Boiled, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, so good! Then Hard Target, Broken Arrow, MI:2, Face/Off… I just don’t understand what happened.
He continued being awesome is what happened!
Face/Off is one of the greatest movies of all time, what are you talking about??!
And Hard Target! Brimley’s Cajun accent deserves an Oscar and Van Damme’s sweaty mullet deserved a Nobel Peace Prize!
This guy gets it!
Yes! How could I forget the scene where he manually detumesces a giant, fanged schlong?!
The second best film of 1997!https://film.avclub.com/the-best-movies-of-1997-1798265963
Ditto Hard Target! The Most Dangerous game in The Big Easy, and Van Damme has to TCB. Plus Witchblade is there!
Face/Off is all kinds of horrible.
I remember sitting in the theater thinking what I was seeing couldn’t possibly be real. It is a decent enough action movie, but the basic premise is so fucking nuts.
I was just nodding saying “and where’s the bad examples here?”
All the “so good” movies you listed were produced in China.All the others are American productions.Just keep the dude in his native land.
More specifically Hong Kong, pre-takeover.
While I’m here, the reason you didn’t get an invite to my party is because what you just said.
He left the HK film industry, which he understood and went to Hollywood, where they make movies completely differently.
Did you just diss Hard Target?
I agree with you about everything except Hard Target. I love that movie un-ashamedly. Lance Henrikson, Arnold Vosloo and Wilford Brimley take it from being a ho-hum action vehicle for Van Damme to something so much more than the sum of its parts. My buddies and I STILL throw quotes from that movie back and forth. And dude, that Graeme Revell soundtrack – bloody chef’s kiss.
FACE/OFF IS AMAZING.
Hollywood happened.
About to say the same thing. This is a general trend that happened many times in cinema history. Cool (often foreign) director creates awesome pieces of cinema, then the big Hollywood moguls notice and try to reel that director in, and once cool director agrees to do a big american blockbuster, studio sends suits to tell cool director what to do, thus diluting what made cool director cool in the first place.
I remember another great director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet (France) who was highly vitriolic when talking about his experience in Hollywood, doing Alien Resurection. I remember him in a interview saying that the experience was driving him nuts. I remember him talking about a spat of blood on the floor in one scene that needed a whole team of about 15 people debating its position over an hour, because he was required to do what these people wanted. And that was just for a minor thing. Just imagine the rest. In the end that completely drove him away from american/Hollywood cinema.
Hollywood is very good at trying to hire good people, and then telling them what to do. Which is pretty stupid.
Regarding John Woo’s american movies, I don’t see them as complete turds like some might say, but they’re clearly not in the same league as his previous Chinese movies.
But yep. Hollywood happened. That’s why.
Woo claimed that he stopped making films in Hong Kong because the heroic bloodshed genre that was his bread and butter was waning and comedies were becoming more popular over there and since that wasn’t really his strong point he moved to Hollywood so he could continue doing action.
Alien Resurrection is fascinating because I don’t think I’ve ever seen another film where the screenwriter and director clearly didn’t understand each other. Like it’s not merely a matter of language, but the entire approach behind the film. It’s a massive culture clash, as Joss Whedon’s extremely American perspective just does not mesh at all with Jeunet’s French perspective, and at a certain point it feels as though Jeunet is totally baffled as to the motivations of his American collaborators, and that comes across on screen.I’d have to watch it again to expand on that idea but it’s also bad so I don’t really want to.
I used to find that Alien Resurrection was perfect Sunday morning hangover viewing. It’s the right level of confusing stupidity.I have a high tolerance for nonsense though.
I don’t think the film’s entirely bad though. Although that’s a personal opinion. But it’s definitely not great, that’s certain. Even completely bonkers in places. But I think there were nice ideas in there. They were simply poorly implemented in the movie/story and buried under tons of Hollywood crap. You can still see Jeunet’s style in some shots, camera angles and other aspects. But it’s one of those movies that literally feel like there was tons of conflicts during production.
Then Hard Target, Broken Arrow, MI:2, Face/Off… I just don’t understand what happened. You kinda answered your own question: He came to America and, suddenly, he had to answer to others.Supposedly there is a far more violent/Hard “R” version of Hard Target that Woo delivered but that the studios were uncomfortable with and the film was tinkered with before release. Still thought the final product was OK, though not in the realm of Woo’s previous Hong Kong/China works. Similarly, Broken Arrow was softened for theatrical release (interestingly, Hard Rain, another Christian Slater action-fest, was originally meant to be directed by John Woo as well!). M:I 2 had, as is hinted in the article, problems in its production. Face/Off I haven’t heard much about behind the scenes problems but, again, I suspect he had to cater to his producers and money-men as well.Looking back at Woo’s American films, I feel like you they are disappointing compared to The Killer or Hard Boiled, but on the other hand I can’t say they are absolutely terrible monstrosities. Hell, I kinda like Hard Target, Broken Arrow, and Face/Off. Not a big fan, however, of M:I 2.
We don’t shit on Broken Arrow in this household!
Damn right! It’s the movie that (briefly) led Howie Long to think he could carry an action flick!
You shut your whore mouth about Face/Off
Blackjack is underrated. Needs more love.
You fucking retract that bit about Face/Off. That’s going overboard, mate!
John Woo is such a mixed bag. Hard Boiled, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, so good! Then Hard Target, Broken Arrow, MI:2, Face/Off…shut the hell up
I believe your talking to the wrong audience. 😀
Face/Off is unwatchable and to this day I do not get why people praise it so much.
Face/Off is a damn masterpiece.
I can’t figure out from the interview if he knew English and decided he wouldn’t communicate in a language everyone understands (which…shitty) or if he didn’t speak English and was required to use a translator.The interview implies he spoke English just fine but he decided to be a dick and not speak it, because being a dick is an option for rich people I guess.I give Thandie and Tom credit, if my boss decided one day that he would only speak Portuguese I’d be pretty pissed and frustrated at work.
The whole interview is really worth reading. She’s clearly very intelligent and I liked how straightforward she was in sharing her opinions, she didn’t deflect the way I see other people do in interviews.
Imagine getting Thandie Newton for your Star Wars movie and killing her off after she says five lines.
Thandie Newton and Keri Russell were minimized… unforgivable.
I mean, so was Daniel Craig. Sometimes a cameo is just a cameo.
Keri Russel was pretty much thrown away in MI:3 as well.
At least with MI-3, it was a “hey, let me throw a bone to this once-upon-a-time TV friend of mine who could use a little jolt of visibility” a la Josh Holloway in 4 (And it is very much series-tradition to kill recognizable TV stars in a first-act walk-on). Star Wars wasting Keri Russell post-”Americans”, though, is just a goddamn tragedy.
It reminded me of the old Police Squad TV show (that lead to the Naked Gun movie series) deliberately having the guest stars – such as Florence Henderson and William Shatner – bumped off during the opening credits.
Ugh, I had forgotten about that! I watched Solo on a flight and I was so mad. Just sitting there regretting my life choices. Most of the movie was “I bet you wondered how he got his last name or his ship, well, here it is”! Nobody asked for that!
“Just sitting there regretting my life choices.”Lol, seek therapy.
Seriously. She should’ve been in that whole movie.
On the car ride home from seeing that movie, I imagined a bunch of different scenarios where she could have been in the whole movie and made it about 300 percent better and I was so mad at the wasted opportunity.
Seriously, that makes no sense.
I know of no such Star Wars movie, that film never happened.
Just like there are only three Indiana Jones films.
Grow the fuck up.
Imagine not knowing how movies work, and thinking filmmakers are lucky to “get” actors looking for work, or that it’s bad/a waste to have a good actor for a minor role.
What’s a movie?
It takes an especially brilliant and honest person to thread the needle of criticism this effectively. Thandie’s a legend.
I thought this was going to turn out differently lol. Kind of makes sense, Cruise supposedly has an absolutely insane work ethic.
She should have just offered him some ice cream, since there were no gay people there.
Tom Cruise, not John Travolta. Wrong Scientologist.
https://www.avclub.com/bronson-pinchot-1798218088
“You want some ice cream, in case there are no gay people there?” This is further evidence towards my “Tom Cruise is really an android with incorrect programming on how to act human” theory. It’s like he thought that sounded like something a human homophobe would say, so he said it. Then probably followed it with that laugh that Ben Stiller exaggerates so well.
Thanks I’ve just gone down a rabbit of reading that RR with Bronson Pinchot.
A very good read.
It’s a nice quote by Thandie as it gives every entertainment site the ability to create a headline that a lot of of people will click on (thinking Cruise did something horrible to her). But the actual story is pretty tame and the interview itself reminds me of better days when the AV Club used to be the site doing random role interviews with interesting actors vs using the most salacious quote to drive clicks.
“Newton isn’t as critical of Cruise as she is some of her other former collaborators”“… but it is the one that’ll get the most attention so here’s our story on it!”(To be fair it worked – I clicked)
This story could have been boiled down to “Thandie Newton was ‘terrified’ of Tom Cruise for having a better work ethic and also having tens of millions of his own money invested in the project.”
kill yourself
That’s one way to read it, but I find Newton’s account that Cruise was trying to be nice but being absolutely terrifying at it so plausible-sounding.
“Man gets stressed in the middle of stressful shoot.”
This is news, huh?
And it happened TWENTY YEARS AGO!! Now that’s a hot take for the ages.
He tries superhard to be a nice person.Tom Cruise strikes me as exactly the type of person who would try really hard at something that most of us do naturally, like being a nice person, and still fail at it.
“something that most of us do naturally, like being a nice person”I don’t know what planet you’re from, but it sounds a lot better than ours.
I said “nice,” not “good.” That said, in my experience, people are generally nice in person.
the type of person who would try really hard at something that most of us do naturally, like being a nice person, and still fail at it.You must not be from SoCal. That’s everyone here.
I lived there briefly in the mid 90s. I found people to be somewhat nice.
A lot has changed since the 90’s
Of course there are plenty of nice people in LA. You just have to find your crowd, which is entirely possible in a metro area of 9 million.
I needed to be more specific. The OP must not be from Orange County.
Orange County, the place where they just hounded the health commissioner out with death threats against her children, because she had the audacity to try and save their lives?But there are plenty of nice people in OC too, just as there are amongst the four million people in LA. If you walk around all day in LA and can’t find a nice person just remember the wise words of Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens:“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
But there are plenty of nice people in OC tooMy “that’s everyone here” statement was mostly hyperbole, but with that said, there has been a massive upswing in standard assholery since Trump was elected. There’s a false sense of righteousness right now, presumably due to this weird phenomenon that only allows people to think in extremes a la, ‘if you don’t agree with every single thing I say, you must be against me’.
As a SoCal native, you are absolutely right.
The people not born here, but try again.
There’s a story I’ve heard a few entertainment industry people tell at this point about Cruise being invited to a Super Bowl party. On the day of, the dude showed up with…a football.
Because it’s the Super Bowl, right? Everybody brings their own ball?
I’m pretty sure if I’m Tom Cruise and going to another movie star’s house for a Superbowl party, I’m expecting it to be catered and not to have to bring my own food. I suppose a football is better than nothing.
Say what you will about his insane cult— but I would totally throw the football around with Cruise during the Super Bowl and ignore the game
He was trying to fit in with his non-alien peers while watching the human football games. What?
Are we sure Cruise wasn’t actually the invention of a lone cyberneticist in the 24th Century?
The A.V. Club“Wow, if it’s going to attract people, powerful, high-profile people, there’s got to be some glue that sticks this shit together. Didn’t find any.”
If you think any of the AV club bloggers are powerful or high-profile..Boy oh boy, their resume`s read like a college dropout’s.
He’s referring to the commenters, obviously.
Why would garbage attract anything but flies and maggots?
This interview is a fantastic read and this headline does it a grave disservice.
This is an absolutely disgusting headline, especially considering that Newton’s interview is a lot about sexual assault and racism, and abuse on set. I’m no fan of Cruise, and I’m sure he’s enabled abuse as a Scientologist, but wow this is really intentionally misleading and awful, really expect better from you guys.
to be fair, almost every article referencing this interview had the same or similar headline. it wasn’t just AVC.
What a clickbaity title to essentially convey that Tom Cruise is a human who tried to make the best of a stressful situation and it misfired.I’m in video production. If a shoot is going fucking sideways it is incredibly stressful and expensive.But hey, he’s a celebrity! And he believes something different than you! That means that he’s not allowed to have human faults doesn’t it?
Don’t forget he had millions invested in producing it.
That headline though….
I guess ‘Tom Cruise ‘Not Horrible’ and ‘Trying His Damnedest’ With Thandie Newton on Mission Impossible 2 Set’ wouldn’t rack up those Amazon ad dollaz as effectively.
Your bait hath worked for upon thy link I clicked.Shame. On you and me.
Yo, that headline is fucked.
When I saw Flirting, the idea that Newton would have only the third-best career in that cast behind both Kidman and Watts (two actresses I really like, but who aren’t any better or more charismatic than her) would’ve shocked me. It shouldn’t have. Still, she deserved better.
It’s a messed up world we’re in when I’m kind of relieved. “Oh! He was just being kind of an asshole??” how quaint!
so tom cruise is a professional who takes his job very seriously and has lots of confidence. what a monster.
I don’t think swapping roles in rehearsal to show your scene PARTNER how they “should” act is very professional. In fact that seems shitty and almost childish. And “confidence” can and often does tip over into egomania. Not a monster, no, but not anyone I would want to work “with”.
that’s his loss then. i’m sure he’ll still want to talk “with” you about scientology though.
I mean, ideally it should be the director who tells someone how to act, but Thandie says in the interview that the director was downstairs on the monitor not really giving good direction.It sounds like Tom realized that his scene partner was uncomfortable, realized that the director wasn’t going to step in, and tried to change it up to help her get to a better head space. And probably didn’t realize that being coached by an intense workaholic in a bad acting exercise might make things worse. I guess it sounds like his heart was in the right space, even if the idea wasn’t.
That is a charitable reading, sure. I read it as Tom Cruise, control freak, wanted his scene *partner* (really want to emphasize this word) to give *his* performance of *her* role. Coming up in film school it was reinforced to me in acting classes, directing classes, and screenwriting classes to not force your interpretation of a character onto an actor. Yes, you want them to give you what need. But the last thing you do is just act their part out for them. I can see Tom the Producer wanting to get the doubtlessly expensive scene in the can. I can see Tom the actor wanting to bounce off a specific energy in her performance. It’s understandable and I’m not without empathy. But it is *definitively* unprofessional and not a little bit jumped up.And yes, ultimately it lead to Thandie giving the performance he wanted. But it shouldn’t come to that.Which is why I think there’s something to the idea of him avoiding directing duties. I think he’s pragmatic enough to know that he’s not good at giving direction. As this story demonstrates.
Read the article, the comments, no one seems to even try to elaborate on the most interesting thing here: John Woo refusing to speak English on the set of MI2? WTF?!
Better still – read the interview. Far more interesting than anything in the article.
‘he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done.’How terrible.Next he’s going to be accused of, whatever’ abuse.
Have you ever dealt with this kind of person? It actually *is* terrible. They make you a prop in their egomaniacal bullshit and heaven forbid you have any self-esteem issues because your perceived lack of awesome WILL be commented on.
I have.I’ve worked in the movie industry.Never had any self esteem issues.My first job was digging potatoes out of the ground with my bare hands.Now I have a million dollar business as a scientific consultant.You?(I see you’re an ALL CAPS aficionado.)
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You asked me a question.I answered it.And you?(You realize stating ‘eyeroll.gif’ doesn’t actually implement a gif?’)
Yes. Of fucking course. Hence my (rhetorical) question.Do you realize that writing eyeroll.gif achieves the same purpose of demonstrating how obnoxious, egomaniacal, and generally dogshit I find your retort while not requiring me to use the shit-tastic Kinja system to post said gif?Go dig up a potato, dink.
Always amusing watching someone cracking up…Big boy words and everything.Self esteem issues I guess.
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Just give up kid.Amusing as you are you’re pissin’ in the wind.
Better than pissing in Tom’s mouth. I hear that’s what he likes.You know, “whatever, abuse”.Or is that your kink, Spuds McKenzie?
Let me guess…early 20’s. No career.You’re pissin’ in the wind kid….
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I have had to hardest crush on Thandie since MI:2 and its unlikely that will ever change. She was on the Graham Norton Show years ago and told a story how as a little girl, she and her friends would fill an old purse with literal dog shit, then leave the purse along the side of the road for random people to pick up, then they would jump out and scream “SHITTY HANDBAG” at the stranger and run away. This story made me love her all the more.
That’s it? How much was she getting paid to deal with someone she didn’t agree with and wasn’t really hurting her (unlike her other films)? I think for movie money, I could deal with some annoyances.
Nothingburger.
Just like I said about Justice League, at some point we all get put under pressure and how we externalize that stress to the people around us says a lot about who we really are.Tom Cruise sounds like he handled it, if not perfectly, waaaay better than others.
He seems like a weirdo, but… He also seems like he brings his A game whenever the camera is on and he has done some really good work. And ultimately, that is what I really am interested in from an actor; is your performance good? In a lot of his roles he makes me forget that he is Tom Cruise and makes me believe in the character. That can’t be easy…
Too much conversation about Tim Cruze. Not enough about Thandie Newton.
This news story has no meat on the bone, but as per usual, they run with the catchy headline (as did all the other Zergnet level trash sites).Thandie Newton is great, not ragging on her. But the way everyone clutches their pearls whenever actors have a disagreement is comical.If a man disagrees with a woman or has a suggestion that she finds unhelpful, we too as the reader should find it weird too! Tom Cruise isn’t human!Ok, he’s weird as fuck, sure. But maybe make your article quota writing taking an AP article and AVC-ing it up with links to other AVC articles and Pepper in the word “reckoning.” Schedule.
“caused a testy Tom to rather forcefully take matters into his own hands.”Are you saying he took (consults every entertainment news headline from the mid 90s to at least 2010) Cruise control
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
Reading the full interview, Newton comes off as a very funny, down to earth person. Which is great because that just enhances how much I love her as an actor. She basically made Westworld worth watching in season 3. Even though her character got screwed.
This is easily the least interesting story to come out of that interview. Jeez.
Well if this nothing of a story shows us anything it is that WE MUST CANCEL TOM CRUISE IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE HE IS TOO FUCKING INTENSE SOME OF THE TIME!!!!!!!! #CANCELCRUISE
She’s describing a bad employee to work with, why do Black people think everything little thing is discrimination? Also, why do white people support this?
“And I think he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done.”
You do understand that he’s a 100th level Bleeblebot. Which is like the highest level one can attain in Scientology. Show some respect!
If I ever meet him the first thing I would do is tell him what an cunt he is