{"id":90002,"date":"2025-05-10T12:06:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T12:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/90002\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T12:06:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T12:06:13","slug":"tom-cruise-offers-rare-praise-to-kidman-lauds-nicholson-brando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/90002\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise Offers Rare Praise To Kidman & Lauds Nicholson & Brando"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTom Cruise<\/a> has spoken for the first time about how he suggested to Stanley Kubrick<\/a> that his then wife Nicole Kidman<\/a> star opposite him in 1999s\u00a0\u00a0Eyes Wide Shut\u00a0\u201cbecause obviously she\u2019s a great actress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor makes the rare public acknowledgement of Kidman\u2019s thespian abilities in the May issue of Sight and Sound, the film magazine published by the British Film Institute.<\/p>\n

\n\tCruise will be honoured by the BFI on Monday with the awarding of a distinguished BFI Fellowship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe joins the ranks of other BFI Fellows including giants of the calibre of David Lean, Bette Davis, Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, Thelma Schoonmaker, Derek Jarman, Martin Scorsese, Satyajit Ray, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson, Spike Lee and Christopher Nolan.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actor-impresario will also discuss his career In Conversation at the BFI cinema complex on London\u2019s Southbank on Sunday evening. Cruise activity is at full speed ahead of the world premiere screening on Wednesday,May 14, at the Cannes Film Festival of\u00a0Mission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning, the latest,and likely final, instalment of Paramount\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0Mission: Impossible\u00a0franchise that began three decades ago with director Brian De Palma\u2019s\u00a0Mission: Impossible\u00a0released in 1996.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe brief declaration about Kidman comes as no surprise to this reporter. When Kidman starred at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre in Covent Garden in the 1998 production of\u00a0The Blue Room, an adaptation by David Hare\u00a0\u00a0of Arthur Schnitzler\u2019s La Ronde, directed by Sam Mendes, Cruise watched the first preview through a small window of a production booth on the side of the stage. I recall him being in complete awe after watching her performance.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Sight and Sound, Cruise describes his collaboration with Kubrick.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tDr. William Harford (Tom Cruise) and Alice Harford (Nicole Kidman) in Stanley Kubrick\u2019s \u201cEyes Wide Shut.\u201d (Photo by Warner Bros)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\u201cIt was a great experience. I was very excited to do it. I knew Stanley\u2019s movies very well and I was introduced to him through Sydney Pollack. So Stanley called Sydney \u2019cause he wanted me to make a movie. He sent me a fax.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI flew out to his house and I landed in his backyard. I read the script the day before and we spent the day talking about it. I knew all of his films. I spoke to Scorsese about him and Sydney Pollack\u2026 so I knew what he did and how he worked. Then it was basically he and I getting to know each other. And when we were doing that, I suggested Nicole play the role [of Alice]. Because obviously she\u2019s a great actress.<\/p>\n

\n\tCruise continues:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI knew it was going to be a long shoot. He was like, \u2018No, no, no. We\u2019ll finish in three or four months.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Stanley, look, I\u2019m here for you. Whatever it\u2019s going to take we\u2019re going to do this\u2026\u2019 I thought the film was very interesting, and I wanted to have that experience. When I go to make a movie, I do a lot of detailed investigation and a lot of time with the people before I commit so that I understand what they need and want and they understand me and how we can work together and really create something very special.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a very unique experience \u2013 not a large crew. We arrived in the summer and basically we just started testing\u2026 the script was just an idea. We [were] constantly rewriting the scenes and shooting the scenes and then reshooting the scenes to really find the tone of the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn working with Val Kilmer<\/a> on Top Gun:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIn the wide-ranging interview with Isabel Stevens, Cruise also talks movingly about working\u00a0\u00a0on the\u00a0Top Gun\u00a0movies with Val Kilmer who died on April 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI felt so grateful that he decided to make the film. We did a lot to get him in the movie. Originally, he just didn\u2019t want to make the movie, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be a supporting, I want to star in films.\u2019 I was calling his agent, and Tony Scott was hunting him down and meeting in an elevator with Val, and he was like, \u2018Please, Val, please.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou just see what a great actor, charismatic guy he was. And in that scene, what I love about what he did and how he played it, he just knew that tone to hit. He had to play it so you wanted these guys to be friends in the end. Do you know what I\u2019m saying? And I remember those scenes like they were yesterday, acting with him, where he did the bite thing. You know when you\u2019re acting with somebody and you just see they\u2019re just on fire. It\u2019s exhilarating. I love when the scene just goes to a different place. If you look at\u00a0Top Gun, I think he\u2019s in the movie maybe ten minutes. That\u2019s the impact of an artist like that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAnd to come back all those years later, and it was amazing being on set for\u00a0Top Gun: Maverick\u00a0[Joseph Kosinski, 2022] because it was like time had not passed. We were laughing and it was joyous. And then we started acting and it\u2019s just, you see it\u2026 he became Iceman. The power that this guy has, even not saying anything, to become that character. You see how even the sniff that he gave. He was Iceman. And you saw the dynamic between these friends. It was very special, to say the least, for me personally. I just tell people\u2026 you take Iceman from the first film and you look at it here, that whole journey, he became Iceman. And he didn\u2019t even have to speak. That\u2019s what he\u2019s able to do. Beautiful, really beautiful. A gift that he had and that he shared with all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTOP GUN, Val Kilmer, Tom Cruise, 1986, (c) Paramount\/courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tOn acting alongside Jack Nicholson<\/a> and the famous courtroom scene in\u00a0<\/strong>A Few Good Men<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe was finding his character. And you could see every movement slowed. He became more and more centred as we were going through it. You could tell from the way he\u2019s sitting. He\u2019s actually holding his hat quite tautly to generate power. He understands that lens. He\u2019s a wordsmith, Nicholson. He\u2019s like a crooner that knows how to carve up a monologue and knows how to carve up a scene. He can turn a phrase in such a unique way. And it\u2019s not by chance. He knows what he\u2019s doing. He has command over his body and his voice and he knows the camera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGreat actors make it look easy. They make it look effortless. When you look at Brando at the beginning of\u00a0The\u00a0Godfather. He knows his light. He knows the lens. When they handed him that cat. That cat was only in one take and that was the scene. That was it! Coppola handed him that cat and he did the scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not just by chance. You work towards lightning in a bottle. Doing that scene was very much like that. It was music. Jack was there to play. I was there to play. When I\u2019m acting, that\u2019s my home. Acting is every moment new. Every take new. Even though you\u2019ve got all these notes and you want to hit these certain beats. But it\u2019s in a new unit of time and you have to let it fly. And when you\u2019re working with such a great actor like that, you\u2019re just bouncing back and forth and just really discovering it together. You see it, it\u2019s on screen, it\u2019s just there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe May issue of Sight and Sound is on sale next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Cruise has spoken for the first time about how he suggested to Stanley Kubrick that his then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[42671,4080,77,4936,10198,25206,33386,36611,15763,16,15,1409],"class_list":{"0":"post-90002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-bfi-fellowship","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-jack-nicholson","12":"tag-marlon-brando","13":"tag-mission-impossible-the-final-reckoning","14":"tag-nicole-kidman","15":"tag-stanley-kubrick","16":"tag-tom-cruise","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-val-kilmer"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114483454985329616","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}