Rebecca De Mornay knew ex-boyfriend Tom Cruise before he became an international superstar and the actress is thrilled with the success he’s achieved more than 40 years after they worked together.
The actor, 63, who has been traveling around Europe with rumored girlfriend Ana de Armas, 37, was an up-and-coming star when he and De Mornay, 65 starred in the bawdy 1983 comedy Risky Business, which launched both their careers.
‘I’m really proud of him,’ De Mornay, 65, explained in an interview with Page Six while promoting her new film, Saint Claire.
In Risky Business, Cruise starred as a college-bound teen who turns his home into a brothel for a weekend while his parents are away after hooking up with De Mornay’s sex worker.
As for their career trajectories, the NCIS actress, who dated the Mission Impossible star for three years, compared him to one of his most famous films.
‘He’s like, “I am ‘Top Gun,” and that’s what America really wanted and so he’s fulfilled it,’ she told the outlet.
Rebecca De Mornay, 65, knew ex-boyfriend Tom Cruise, 63, before he became an international superstar, and is thrilled with the success he’s achieved more than 40 years after they worked together; seen in 1983
‘He is a brilliant, brilliant interpreter of what the zeitgeist is,’ the Jessica Jones star said.
‘I’m really, really proud of knowing him from when we were in the suburbs of Chicago [filming Risky Business], and knowing what he wanted and where it is now.’
‘We started this together and look what he did with it,’ she added.
As for her own career, De Mornay told The Independent in 2024, ‘I had no real plan for what to do next. I knew I didn’t want to be typecast as ‘the sexy woman’, but it was all so difficult to navigate.’
She seemed to lose more direction after her mother died three years later. ‘I was suddenly kind of orphaned, and everything after that just felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants.’
In Saint Claire, De Mornay plays a former actress and the grandmother of Bella Thorne, a young woman who kills sexual predators.
‘It’s very rare that I read scripts about a female serial killer who’s obsessed with Joan of Arc, which I thought was just brilliant,’ she explained to Page Six about why she signed on for the role in the independent film. ‘I just wanted to be a support to this project,’ she explained.
She went a little further about her admiration for psychological thriller with The Independent. ‘It was guerrilla feminist filmmaking! she exclaimed.
‘I’m really proud of him,’ De Mornay, 65, explained in an interview with Page Six. ‘He is a brilliant, brilliant interpreter of what the zeitgeist is’ she said of her Risky Business co-star
De Mornay, who dated Cruise for three years, compared him to one of his most famous films. ‘He’s like, “I am ‘Top Gun,” and that’s what America really wanted and so he’s fulfilled it,’ she told the outlet
The actress is currently starring in the psychological thriller Saint Clare as Bella Thorne’s grandmother; Pictured in Burbank, CA in February 2024
In Saint Claire, Bella Thorne stars as a young woman who kills sexual predators. ‘I just wanted to be a support to this project,’ De Mornay said
‘It’s experimental. It’s hallucinatory. And Clare’s not a victim, you know? I love that message, and I love that they chose me to play this archetype of maternal protection.’
When she first read the script a few years ago, De Mornay said she didn’t see any parallels between current events, including the current scandal over who might be on the purported Jeffrey Epstein client list.
‘I never even thought of that,’ she admitted, adding, ‘It’s freaky that that would come into it…Like, I didn’t see that coming when I read it.’
Saint Clare is available for streaming on Apple TV and Amazon Video.