Christopher McQuarrie and Simon Pegg Talk About Working With the Quirky and Talented Tom Cruise

We all know that Tom Cruise is a great actor, a talented, risk-taking stuntman, and a bit of a weirdo. It’s like the perfect storm of intensity that makes the guy who he is, and Christopher McQuarrie and Simon Pegg have some kind words to say about him. McQuarrie is not only his most recent Mission: Impossible director, but his collaborator and friend who has worked with him on the past three Mission: Impossible movies and produced Top Gun: Maverick since first working with Cruise on Valkyrie.

McQuarrie revealed to The Times newspaper that the first time he met the veteran action star in 2006, Cruise explained to him, “I make mass entertainment.”

During the project about a wartime mission to kill Hitler, Cruise realized more money was required to complete the film, and decided to amend the script to make it for as wide a cinema-going audience as possible. 

McQuarrie said:

“There is an outsized importance placed on Oscars. Films that not many people are going to see. A wedge has been driven into the industry. Are you an artist or an entertainer? Tom doesn’t see them as mutually exclusive.”

The director added that Cruise also revealed to him the weirdest story he had heard about himself. The actor responded that the greatest myth about him was that people on set “were not allowed to look me in the eye.”

Cruise’s friend and frequent co-star Simon Pegg also told The Times that Cruise’s determination to keep the film industry on its feet during the pandemic was behind his meltdown at a crew member who broke social distancing rules on the set of the seventh Mission: Impossible movie. 

Cruise was famously recorded shouting, “Do that again and you’re gone,” to the errant crew member. Pegg told The Times:

“Everything that Tom cares about, in terms of his job, was at stake due to the pandemic. For him there was a danger this virus could wipe cinema off the face of this earth.” 

Cruise is a pretty intense guy. But for all of his peculiarities, you have to admit he makes a pretty good movie! Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One hits theaters this week.

via: Deadline