Tom Cruise made a triumphant return to the Cannes Film Festival Wednesday to premiere his latest action blockbuster, “Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning,” which opens next week. Exuberant fans lined the Croisette promenade to shout, “Tom, Tom,” as the still-popular 62-year-old movie star flashed his famous smile and entered the theater with his castmates.
But 20 years ago to the day that “Final Reckoning” opens, Cruise nearly tanked his career by appearing on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” That May 23, 2005 appearance has become part of the lore about the actor’s “weirdness,” as one executive described it to veteran Hollywood journalist Kim Masters. In a story for Puck this week, Masters writes about “The Tom Cruise Reclamation Project” — all the things Cruise had to do to salvage his career in the aftermath of the Winfrey couch jump and other questionable behavior he exhibited in the spring of 2005.
In a state of manic giddiness, Cruise bounded on the stage in Winfrey’s studio. When Winfrey asked why he was so amped up, he declared “I’m in love!” And, then the “Top Gun” star jumped onto Winfrey’s couch to demonstrate his love for Katie Holmes, his soon-to-be third wife.
“No one who saw it has forgotten it,” Masters wrote. Cruise’s couch stunt “went viral before Twitter even existed” and constituted “one small hop for man, but one giant leap into career limbo for one of the world’s biggest movie stars.”
As Cruise watchers know, the actor wasn’t just excited about falling in love again at age 42, with a woman 16 years his junior. He also had rediscovered his passion for the Church of Scientology after falling away from the organization during his marriage to wife No. 2, Nicole Kidman. Masters said that Cruise became determined to make himself the “extremely intense poster boy” for the controversial, cult-like organization.
That spring, Cruise was supposed to be promoting “War of the Worlds,” the sci-fi action blockbuster he made with director Steve Spielberg. But as Scientology’s most prominent Hollywood ambassador, Cruise wouldn’t focus on the movie when engaging with reporters, Masters reported. Instead, he would instead sermonize about the church’s successful detoxification, prison rehabilitation, and education programs.
Cruise also notoriously appeared on Access Hollywood and criticized Brooke Shields for revealing that she had taken medication to combat postpartum depression, voicing the Scientology view that mental health issues could be fixed through exercise and vitamins. Then on “Today,” Cruise lashed out at Matt Lauer when the morning-show host questioned him about Scientology’s hostility toward psychiatry. Cruise created even more viral moments when he taped a promotional Scientology video, in which he laughed maniacally while speaking with wild enthusiasm about the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard and how a believer such as himself is able “create new and better realities and improve conditions.”
Cruise’s conduct tanked his “numbers with women” and prompted Sumner Redstone, the late head of Paramount studios, to fire him after a 14-year-old professional association, Masters wrote. Cruise also did serious damage to his relationship with Spielberg, another very powerful figure in Hollywood.
Spielberg later concluded that Cruise’s behavior had cost “War of the Worlds” about $30 million at box office, Masters reported. But Spielberg — and his wife Kate Capshaw — became even more “infuriated” when they learned that Scientologists had staged a protest outside the office of a psychiatrist, whom Spielberg had praised as helping a family member at a dinner Cruise attended. While Cruise told Spielberg he didn’t have anything to do with the protest, Spielberg reportedly didn’t speak to him for years.
Cruise’s career cooled for a bit, even as he continued to make movies, though some underperformed or were notorious box office and critical duds. He settled into marriage with Holmes after she gave birth to their daughter Suri in 2005. But as Suri reached the age of 6, the “Dawson’s Creek” star realized she didn’t want to build her life around Scientology. She also worried about the organization trying to exert control over how she raised her daughter. So, she “blindsided” Cruise by filing for divorce in 2012.
Holmes’ decision to leave the marriage caused “a massive public relations disaster” for Cruise and for Scientology, according to Vanity Fair and Tony Ortega, a journalist who covers Scientology. It’s been reported that Holmes was granted sole custody of Suri and that Cruise subsequently became estranged from his daughter, now 19, because she was not raised in the church.
Meanwhile, Cruise increasingly found himself in the headlines when major investigative reports or Scientology defectors, like Leah Remini, criticized the church’s practices or its alleged abuses. For example, Vanity Fair revealed in 2012 how the church conducted a search for the Cruise’s next, Scientology-friendly girlfriend after his bitter 2001 divorce from Kidman. Then, the Emmy winning, 2015 HBO documentary “Going Clear” featured a former Scientology executive explaining how the organization worked to turn Cruise’s two adopted children with Kidman against their mother because she, like Holmes, didn’t want to continue in Scientology.
Masters said that Cruise had already begun the years-long process to save his career. Cruise reportedly said to a team of advisers, “Tell me what to do.’ And he did exactly what we told him to do,” a source told Masters.
Among other things, Cruise apologized to Lauer and went to Shields’s home to express his regrets, Masters said. He also went on the David Letterman’s “Late Show” in 2008 to poke fun at himself by reading a Top 10 list of the “craziest things people say about Tom Cruise on the internet.” Some of those “hit pretty close to home,” Masters said, with No. 4 saying, “I believe all emotional and psychological disorders can be cured with Vicks VapoRub.”
Cruise also just worked hard, intensely so, at making movies that people wanted to see. He’s become known for executing extravagant stunt scenes that seemed to defy gravity and comprehension. He also pushed to produce, star in and market “Top Gun: Maverick.” Released in the summer of 2022, “Maverick” gave people a reason to go to the movies again after COVID-19. After it grossed a stunning $1.5 billion, Spielberg came around on Cruise and congratulated him at a 2023 Academy Awards event, saying, “You saved Hollywood’s ass!”
“That Cruise is still in this game, after all these years, is in part a tribute to one of his most exceptional stunts: salvaging his own career,” Masters said.