- In a recent interview with Vulture, Thandie Newton recalled her difficult experience working with Tom Cruise while filming Mission: Impossible II.
- Newton described Cruise as "really stressed" and "dominant," although "he tries superhard to be a nice person."
No one, it seems, is impervious to the fear that Mission: Impossible's franchise star and Hollywood's resident Scientology ambassador, Tom Cruise, can provoke. Not even Thandie Newton.
In conversation with Vulture, Newton described her experience working opposite a "really stressed" and "dominant" Cruise on the 2000 film Mission: Impossible II. When asked why she never filmed another movie with the action/thriller franchise, the Westworld actress merely said, "Oh, I was never asked. I was so scared of Tom. He was a very dominant individual. He tries superhard to be a nice person. But the pressure. He takes on a lot. And I think he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done."
She also regaled an incident on set in which her and Cruise attempted to finish a night scene on a balcony. "I don't think it was a very well-written scene," Newton said. "I get angry with him. We're frustrated with each other. And we're looking out over Spain. It wasn't going well. And [director] John Woo, bless him, wasn't there. He was downstairs looking at everything on a monitor. And John had made a decision at the beginning of the movie, unbeknownst certainly to me, that he didn't speak English. Which I think was very helpful to him, but it was extremely unhelpful to the rest of us. So this scene was happening, and Tom was not happy with what I was doing because I had the shittiest lines.
"And he gets so frustrated with having to try and explain that he goes, 'Let me just—let's just go do it. Let's just rehearse on-camera.' So we rehearsed and they recorded it, and then he goes, 'I'll be you. You be me.' So we filmed the entire scene with me being him—because, believe me, I knew the lines by then—and him playing me. And it was the most unhelpful … I can't think of anything less revealing. It just pushed me further into a place of terror and insecurity. It was a real shame. And bless him. And I really do mean bless him, because he was trying his damnedest."
According to Newton, Cruise grew more stressed over the course of that night, to the point of manifesting a blemish on his face. "I remember at the beginning of the night, seeing this slight red mark on his nose, and by the end of the night, I kid you not—this is how his metabolism is so fierce—he had a big whitehead where that red dot was," she said. "It would take anyone else 48 hours to manifest a zit. I saw it growing, and it was like the zit was me, just getting bigger and bigger."
She said that she later called director Jonathan Demme, telling him how much of "a nightmare" the on-set disaster was. "As I was describing it, it was clear that I thought I was the big fucking problem. And Jonathan was like, 'Thandie, shame on you for not backing yourself.' He was really sweet," Newton continued. "And then Tom called and I thought, Oh, this is it. The apology. No, he was just like, 'We're going to reshoot this next week.' I'm like, 'Way brilliant.' And the next time we shot it, I went in there and I just basically manifested all the—because I realized what he wanted. He just wanted this alpha bitch. And I did as best as I could. It's not the best way to get the best work out of someone."
Still, Newton doesn't seem to think poorly of Cruise as a person. "He wasn't horrible. It was just—he was really stressed," she said. "I had the most extraordinary time, and you know who got me that role? Nicole Kidman. I've never actually outright asked her, but when your husband is like, 'Who would you mind me pretending to shag for the next six months?' You know what I mean? It's kind of nice if you can pick together. Nicole was a huge advocate for me."
Newton later said of her Mission: Impossible II experience, "Look, creative stuff is difficult. I was so tender and sensitive. And, also, if you think about the timeline of that, it was still early in my healing, in my recovery. I'd had good therapy. I'd realized that I was precious. If it was me now, I would want to go in and go, 'Hey!' I'd be it. You wouldn't need to play me and I play you on that balcony. And I would have squeezed that spot. Bam!"
Oh, and if you were perhaps wondering what kind of gifts Cruise gives, Newton also had an answer for that: "He was very generous and open about sharing Scientological stuff. Christmas gifts would be something to do with Scientology. … Like a book with the greatest hits of Scientology, a bit like a Bible kind of thing. I was curious, because it's like,Wow, if it's going to attract people, powerful, high-profile people, there's got to be some glue that sticks this shit together. Didn't find any."
As an associate editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, Chelsey keeps a finger on the pulse on all things celeb news. She also writes on social movements, connecting with activists leading the fight on workers' rights, climate justice, and more. Offline, she’s probably spending too much time on TikTok, rewatching Emma (the 2020 version, of course), or buying yet another corset.
