While Tom Cruise has come to be increasingly less respected over the past couple decades as both actor and human being, no one had ever completely written him off as a bona fide star. The last of a dying Hollywood breed and generation of actors that include the likes of Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio (Johnny Depp, alas, has left the building in terms of being counted on for “star credibility”). There have been plenty of buzz names post-2010 (commencing a decade of free fall and decline with regard to the film business and those it would have in its employ), but not since the 90s and early 00s has anyone truly “dazzling”–with that aura of studio system cachet–appeared on the big screen (RIP). And please, do not offer up Timothée Chalamet as a suggestion. So it is only to be expected that one of the OGs of the industry as we knew it in the twentieth century (when film was first birthed in its modern commodifiable form) has taken a passionate stand against “harmless” Covid protocol violations.
Ironically, for Cruise, there is not nearly as much at stake as there is for everyone else working on the set in terms of having money in his pocket for life whether he makes another movie or not. Yet he is seemingly the most passionate (to use an understatement) about ensuring the project goes off without a hitch. Every celebrity’s least favorite British tabloid, The Sun, known for exposing people at their worst, perhaps thought that Cruise’s tirade would be viewed by the public with as much shock and appallment as the likes of Christian Bale going off on a cinematographer during the filming of Terminator Salvation back in 2009. Here, instead, at least where the acting community is concerned (as opposed to the more abused “underlings” behind the scenes), it’s as though Cruise has spoken a truth that everyone else has been waiting to shout from the mountaintops as well. And, of course, as a white male, it’s much easier for him to get the message across without it being dissected and analyzed to the point of said message being lost, or, likelier still, reduced to the fact that he’s on his period.
Although many might feel Cruise’s reaction to two crew members “simply” standing near one another in front of a computer screen was overblown, it obviously spoke to a larger problem that Hollywood cannot shake: vaccine or not, Covid has wiped out the business for those who do not work on a big budget project. And even those remaining studios that can still afford to put out multi-million dollar affairs are going to struggle for the foreseeable future after what can now be called HBO Max-gate… otherwise known as Warner Bros. deciding to release its movie theater lineup on the streaming service the same day it’s distributed (minimally) throughout theaters across the world. The implications of this continue to spell the writing on the wall for “moviegoing”–which now seems to constitute that “going” act as the more Matrix-y practice of “going inside your computer” to check out the latest offerings in cinema.
So it was that while on the set of Mission: Impossible 7, Cruise was at a point where there was only one more straw needed to break his camel’s back. As per the usual gamut of regulations, all crew members are required to stand two meters apart, but that was patently not the case when a pair of employees appeared to “forget themselves” as they stood in front of a screen too closely. It set off Cruise in a way we would expect of one of his many characters, ranging from Lt. Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men to Les Grossman in Tropic of Thunder. Because yes, he did have quite a wide range of enraged characters before essentially relying on making Mission: Impossible movies as a source of steady work. What’s more, it’s long been reported that Cruise’s temperament is inherently volatile, just another reason, perhaps, that he enjoys getting paid to channel it in front of a camera.
But after seeing this casual flouting of the rules, Cruise reverted to his behind-the-camera position to shout the following:
They’re back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us! Because they believe in us and what we’re doing! I’m on the phone with every fucking studio at night! Insurance companies! Producers! And they’re looking at us–and using us–to make their movies. We are creating thousands of jobs, goddammit! I don’t ever want to see it again! Ever! And if you don’t do it, you’re fired. If I see you do it again, you’re fucking gone! If anyone on this crew does it, that’s it! And you too! And you too! And you! Don’t you ever fucking do it again! That’s it! No apologies! You tell it to the people that are losing their fucking homes! Because our industry is shut down. It’s not gonna put food on their table, or pay for their college education! That’s what I sleep with every night! The future of this fucking industry! So I’m sorry, I’m beyond your apologies. I have told you and now I want it, and if you don’t do it, you’re out! We are not shutting this fucking movie down! Is it understood? If I see it again, you’re fucking gone! And so are you! So you’re gonna cost him his job. If I see it on the set, you’re gone! And you’re gone! That’s it! Am I clear? Do you understand what I want? Do you understand the responsibility that you have? Because I will deal with your reason, and if you can’t be reasonable, and I can’t deal with your logic, you’re fired. That’s it. That is it. I trust you guys to be here.
In this epic “rant” that he seemed to have summoned from a pre-written script of his own “in case of Covid protocol-breaking emergency” arsenal, it was as though Cruise called upon the spirits of all the studio forefathers–Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, Adolph Zukor, Darryl Zanuck, Carl Laemmle and Harry Cohn–to say his goddamn piece about what’s at stake here in terms of ensuring that moviemaking remains profitable in its incorporation of these new health and safety restrictions (which can easily add a cool million to the budget required). Because without profit, of course, there are no jobs. And while the “little man” might think it’s chic to say “fuck ‘em” to a business that has exploited its workers (especially female ones) for its entire history, that doesn’t spare them in the end from losing their livelihood. What’s more, jobs in film remain among the few “interesting” careers left on this godforsaken planet. Without that industry to offer such arcane employment, a lot of creatives are going to be floating in an abyss.
Although the criticism against Cruise is that he way too quickly enforced the powers of his master-slave dynamic with the crew, for once, being a white male didn’t make Cruise intrinsically “wrong.” Instead, that power white men so often take for granted was used to sound the alarm worldwide about the imperiled state of the movie business that many have been far too cavalier about from their outsider perspective. As though shruggingly saying, “I’d rather not pay twenty fucking dollars for a movie anyway.” Seeming to relish this new sole dependency on at-home viewing and streaming without realizing that something will and has been fundamentally lost without cinema in the form it was originally intended to be enjoyed. Barring the revival of drive-ins throughout select regions, it would appear as though the American public has decided to let go altogether of the “novelty” of schlepping to a movie theater when they have the freedom of choice and comfort that their own abode allows. Tom Cruise, however, has awakened them to the many lives that hang in the balance because of this–threatening one of the last potentially lucrative artistic mediums available.
