Here's a blind item in the Page Six section of the New York Post:
"WHICH top leading man interviewed three different starlets for the job of girlfriend/future wife before picking his new beloved? 'Mark my words: They'll have a baby,' said our source. 'Maybe he or she will be conceived in a petri dish, but they'll procreate'"
Sorry, this was the only thread I could think of to post the above.
Have you had a chance to read the Entertainment Weekly interview with Tommy? If not, it's here.
Some snippets:
EW: Your comments about antidepressants on Access Hollywood — do you think going after Brooke Shields for her book about postpartum depression might have made the argument a little too personal?
Cruise: It's not a matter of making it personal. I care about Brooke. I want to see her do well. I think she's really talented. But she's misinformed. And, you know, from that Access Hollywood interview, I've gotten over 154,000 responses from people thanking me. You should see some of the letters I get. People go for help but their lives don't get better because of these drugs. They get worse. They feel numb and they're told that's a good thing. It's becoming like Huxley's Brave New World. It's like what the English did to China with opium [in the 19th century]. How is this different? It's how you degrade a society — by drugging the piss out of it.
EW: You are aware that your views about psychiatry come across as pretty radical to a lot of people.
Cruise: In the 1980s, you were supposed to say no to drugs. But when I say no to drugs, I'm a radical? 'He's against drugs — he's a radical! He's against electroshock treatments — he's a radical!' [Laughing] It's absurd!
EW: Yeah, but Scientology textbooks sometimes refer to psychiatry as a ''Nazi science''...
Cruise: Well, look at the history. Jung was an editor for the Nazi papers during World War II. [According to Aryeh Maidenbaum, the director of the New York Center for Jungian Studies, this is not true.] Look at the experimentation the Nazis did with electric shock and drugging. Look at the drug methadone. That was originally called Adolophine. It was named after Adolf Hitler... [According to the Dictionary of Drugs and Medications, among other sources, this is an urban legend.]
EW: Well, Freud wasn't a Nazi, but the point I'm getting at here is that expressing these views isn't necessarily a public relations bonanza for you.
Cruise: What choice do I have? People are being electric-shocked. Kids are being drugged. People are dying.
---
What a @$#! moron. Apparently, he doesn't seem to realise he's addicted to a drug as well, and it's called Scientology. I will never watch another Tom Cruise movie for as long as I live.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
Somewhere at the intersection between aberrant star behavior and insatiable audience voyeurism, we've created a new entertainment form: celebrity reality TV.
By Patrick Goldstein
Times Staff Writer
June 14, 2005
The last few weeks have been a Lollapalooza when it comes to our unending fascination with strange celebrity behavior. Just consider: Russell Crowe has been on an apology PR tour after heaving a telephone at a hotel desk clerk. Lindsay Lohan has been reduced to denying reports that Disney had her much-gossiped-about breasts digitally reduced to avoid offending families coming to see "Herbie: Fully Loaded." Brad Pitt took "Primetime Live" sob-sister Diane Sawyer all the way to poverty-ridden Ethiopia to avoid talking about Angelina Jolie, only to find himself inundated with insinuating queries about his busted marriage. Jolie had her lawyer warning interviewers about discussing her personal life. Christian Slater managed to get arrested for allegedly groping a woman's bottom on a New York street corner.
And all this against the backdrop of the carnival-like Michael Jackson molestation trial in lovely Santa Maria.
But when it comes to melting down in the spotlight, no one can hold a candle to Tom Cruise. His public displays of affection for new gal-pal Katie Holmes have appeared so breathtakingly weird that even the most casual showbiz observer now assumes that, whatever the reason for all this jumping on talk-show sofas, it couldn't possibly involve real romance.
Somewhere at the intersection between aberrant star behavior and insatiable audience voyeurism, we've created a new entertainment form: celebrity reality TV. Our obsession with eavesdropping on people's private lives, combined with our fascination with the inner workings of showbiz, has created a new rogue genre in which celebrities act out their own reality show, free from the constraints of a network time slot or a staged setting, like a boardroom or a desert island.
Take Tom Cruise, please. Who would've imagined that the world's biggest movie star would jeopardize his $25-million-a-movie mystique by acting like a contestant on "American Idol" in other words, like someone who'd lucked into his 15 minutes in the spotlight? Racing from one media event to the next, always on camera, Cruise has conjured up a hybrid of "The Bachelor" (his lovey-dovey "Oprah" appearance), "The Apprentice" (his "Access Hollywood" chat in which he said of his split with über-publicist Pat Kingsley, "If I don't feel that [my people] are doing what I need from them ... hey, I fire them!") and "The Contender" (his interview with Aussie journalist Peter Overton in which, after one too many Nicole Kidman questions, Cruise silenced his interviewer with an icy challenge: "Peter, you're stepping over a line now.... I'm just telling you right now, put your manners back in").
Everywhere you look, celebrities are acting like reality TV wannabes, to the point where it's impossible to tell the difference between an episode of "Britney and Kevin" and the real escapades of Tom and Katie. Is it any wonder reality TV producers are having trouble coming up with a hot new show? How could "The Swan" offer anything as deliciously strange as Lohan, who has so radically transformed her image in the last few months: When she scampered up to Brad Pitt at last week's premiere for "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," he had no idea who she was. (His publicist was seen on TV whispering to him, "Lindsay Lohan.") The effect is only accentuated by the way tabloid rags such as US Weekly run unflattering paparazzi shots of stars leaving the nail salon or installing their kids' car seats, leaving the distinct impression that they're even less glamorous than the average participant on "Survivor."
I'd been counting the days until the debut of Bravo's new celeb-reality show, "Being Bobby Brown," figuring it would be a meltdown of epic proportions, but it's hard to imagine that it could top Cruise's mad-scientist interview in Entertainment Weekly, in which he doggedly contends that the drug methadone was originally called adolophine because "it was named after Adolf Hitler." Or try deconstructing this: While Brad and Angelina vehemently deny they're a couple in real life, saying the media is confusing their steamy movie behavior in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" with their chaste real-life relations, they pose for an elaborate 60-page photo spread in the new issue of W pretending to be (ahem) a suburban married couple.
In the case of Cruise, most observers believe that if his unhinged display of puppy love was meant to make him seem more "real" and less manufactured, the strategy backfired. "I don't see how Tom gets out of this," says Bumble Ward, longtime publicist to Quentin Tarantino and other filmmakers, who recently closed up shop to work on a novel. "When you reveal everything, you have no mystique left everyone feels like you're fair game. The problem with too many stars is they have no sense of reality. They believe that the world revolves around them, so anything that they do, the world should harmoniously follow them."
We should've seen this coming. In recent years, Hollywood has become obsessed with poking and prodding its fragile psyche, engaging in a furious barrage of meta-navel-gazing. As far back as the 1950s, it was commonplace for comedians to play themselves on TV, be it Burns and Allen or Lucille Ball, who frequently used top-shelf stars as comic foils in her shows. But the modern era of meta-storytelling probably dates to "The Truman Show," the unsettling 1998 portrait of a man whose entire life was, unbeknownst to him, a TV series.
Since then we've had "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation" and all sorts of TV fare blurring the lines between image and reality, including "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Unscripted," "Fat Actress" and "The Comeback," which stars Lisa Kudrow as a needy sitcom actress whose comeback attempt is being filmed for a reality TV program.
"Bewitched," due later this month, stars Will Ferrell as a sitcom star who hires Kidman, a real witch, to play his wife in a remake of the old sitcom. It couldn't be more timely that the must-read script in town today is "The Mirror," a cannily written comedy about Ben Stiller, who awakens one day to find his mirror image passing himself off as the real star. The Scott Smith script, commissioned by Stiller, features Stiller's real-life wife and family, pal Owen Wilson, agent Nick Stevens and Jolie, who plays, well, an irresistible sex goddess.
Smith had initially conceived of the idea as a novella. But after getting to know Stiller, he turned it into a script about an actor who can't handle the notion that everyone, even his own parents, prefer his crafty mirror image to himself. "I love Philip Roth, who has written lots of novels that feature a character that's a fictional version of himself," says Smith. "But my initial inspiration came from a friend who was trying to become more authentic by stripping away her social persona, only to discover that the world wanted the more fake version of herself."
You can imagine why the concept would be a snug fit for celebrities, who often find to their dismay that their public image has little in common with their vision of themselves. "It's a strange focus, isn't it?" Pitt told Sawyer. "That my relationships or relationship mishaps take precedence over something like [children starving in Africa]." One of the funniest scenes in "Bewitched" plays exactly like a scene from reality TV, with us watching Ferrell at home, doing a slow burn as an "Access Hollywood"-style host cheerfully recounts his recent career missteps.
The only problem with celebrities' lives becoming indistinguishable from reality TV is that it puts a damper on the whole reason why they're out in public to plug their movies.
If there was ever a moment when you knew that Cruise's antics had caused a panic, it was when a spokesman for director Steven Spielberg said "War of the World's" normal press activities had been curtailed because there had been enough promotion already. (Anytime you hear a publicist saying there's been enough publicity for a big summer movie, you should grab a hold of your wallet.) In fact, everyone is alarmed. One studio publicist put a stop watch on Cruise's "Oprah" appearance, discovering in horror that the star didn't bother to plug "War of the Worlds" until the show was half over. And imagine being the Warner Bros. brass watching "Extra's" coverage of the "Batman Begins" premiere, where the Tom and Katie love fest so overshadowed Christian Bale (the film's actual star) that he got only one clip during the show.
The other night, one of my friend's 11-year-old daughter mockingly performed Cruise's "Oprah" appearance for me, jumping up and down on a couch, putting her face 2 inches away from my nose, shrieking, "I'm in love! I'm in love!" When she was finished, she rolled her eyes and said, "Yuck!"
You mean you wouldn't want to meet Tom Cruise, I asked. No way, she said. Being a loyal "American Idol" fan, she prefers a good reality show to a celebrity knockoff. "Do you know Bo Bice?" she asked hopefully, referring to the Southern rock crooner from "American Idol." "I'd like to meet him. He's much cooler than Tom Cruise."
London : Tom Cruise's estranged wife Nicole Kidman is of the opinion that Cruise should clear up public's doubts over his romance with Katie Holmes. Kidman, who had separated from Cruise in 2001 after nearly 10 years of marriage, refuses to comment on her ex -husbands relationship with Holmes, and justifies the rumours about the relationship being nothing but a publicity stunt. "In terms of your life, if you start to exploit it, then what's real, and what's not? What's yours, and what isn't?", Femalefirst quoted Kidman as saying.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
From the London Independent:
TOM CRUISE: MISSION IMPROBABLE
Is Hollywood's shortest, hugest leading man really in love with the girl from Dawson's Creek? Or is it all just a publicity stunt? Aw, who cares? What Hollywood really wants to know is: has he totally lost the plot?
By Neil Norman
12 June 2005
The debate over his sexuality is so last year. The question currently on everyone's lips is, is Tom Cruise mad? His recent performance on The Oprah Winfrey Show suggests that he is either a) so besotted with his latest girlfriend, Katie Holmes, that he has temporarily regressed to the status of adolescent virgin in the first gush of love as in his breakthrough movie Risky Business or b) that he has gone finally and irrevocably tonto.
"I can't be cool ... I can't be laid-back," he said. "It's something that has happened and I feel I want to celebrate it and I want to celebrate her. She's a very special woman." Jumping up and down on Oprah's sofa, punching the air and generally talking gibberish, he delivered one of the most over-the-top performances of his career. It was, by all accounts, hugely embarrassing.
When you've been a star as long as Cruise, you can get away with a lot of things, but generally he has been too much in control, too aware of his profile to need much forgiveness. But recently it appears he has slipped from Cruise control to out of control. He has made a prat of himself. And, let's face it, he is a Scientologist.
Cruise is still the biggest male movie star in the world. Attach him to a movie and you've got it made - in more ways than one. True, you have to organise a paycheck of somewhere around $25m plus a back-end deal that devours the profits of your movie like a whale shovels up plankton. For Mission: Impossible III, for example, which is due to start shooting on 18 July, he has just negotiated a deal for 30 per cent of the profits in his capacity as actor/producer. When you consider that similar deals on the first two Mission: Impossible films saw him pocket $145m, he stands to make a pretty penny. And Hollywood insiders are speculating that his deal on the forthcoming Spielberg blockbuster War of the Worlds may bring him in around $200m, if the movie performs to expectations.
Leaving aside the rumours that his recent erratic behaviour (including his insistence on having a Scientology tent on set and that movie executives had to spend four hours at Los Angeles' Scientology Institute before they were allowed to talk to him), Cruise is still the name that every producer wants on his marquee. What Tom Cruise wants, Tom Cruise gets. However, this situation may not last much longer. This could prove the last summer for the 21st-century Golden Boy.
His Top Gun co-star Val Kilmer told me recently that Cruise is very challenging to work with - "no one who is successful doesn't have strong opinions" - but that he admires his "winning style", something which has netted Cruise more than money over the years.
Following his first marriage, to voluptuous actress Mimi Rogers, a fellow campaigner on environmental issues through the Earth Communications Office, Cruise has charmed his way into the affections of über-beauties such as Nicole Kidman, to whom he was married for 11 years, and Penélope Cruz, with whom he had a four-year relationship. Aside from a rumoured dalliance with Colombian beauty Sofia Vergara that fuelled the more reckless gossip columns for a while, Cruise is now hot and heavy with Batman Begins star Holmes who, he says, is The One.
Yet how many times did we endure his earlier gushings about how great Nicole ("Nic") was and how happy they were? How many times did we suffer through the Cruz/Cruise matrix in which he was making goo-goo eyes over the fiery Spanish actress until, er, he wasn't? His very public behaviour over his current squeeze reinforces the belief it is all a publicity stunt. And if Holmes is a publicity stunt, maybe they all were.
Consider the facts: both Cruise and Holmes are appearing in forthcoming blockbusters - he in War of the Worlds, she in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins - which would benefit from a summer of spin and hype. It seems that Holmes was courted by Cruise in a manner similar to that employed by the young Prince of Wales. She, it is said, was summoned by "his people" to Los Angeles to discuss a movie and they ended up going out on a date in his private plane above the city. It is almost as if he thumbed through the Suitable Partners for a Superstar catalogue before alighting on the pretty (and much younger) Holmes, just as she was poised to make the move from television to film.
Things started to go awry when Cruise sacked his publicist, Hollywood's legendary Pat Kingsley, at the end of last year, and handed the job to his sister and fellow Scientologist, Lee Ann DeVette. Since then, his increasingly erratic behaviour has turned him into "a laughing stock", claims one Hollywood insider. Perhaps most damning was the moment that Nicole Kidman, when asked on a television chat show whether she thought that this was "true love" for her ex-husband, replied: "In terms of your life, if you start to exploit it, then what's real and what's not?" In Cruise World, it appears that the difference between the two is being erased.
Clearly, he is good at acting being in love. He is good at a lot of things: being a star, doing walkabout for fans and saying hi to their mums on mobile phones; smiling; action heroics; he could probably fake an orgasm as well as Meg Ryan should the need arise. But this is all play.
On the one occasion I met Cruise, I was rewarded with a gushing monologue about the benefits of fatherhood. Having just adopted the secondof two children with Kidman, he gave every impression of having fathered the child himself. Such was his sincerity and conviction that I almost believed that he had.
It's not that he is unlikeable. Like Tom Hanks, Cruise has based his entire professional persona on "likeable". But he is a tough cookie. He will customarily adapt scripts to suit his requirements and his philosophy. And he doesn't only do this for himself. Recently, he forbade Holmes to take part in a projected film about the Andy Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick because it contained drug scenes.
As a former Catholic, brought up in a roving family (attending 15 schools by the time he was 14), a would-be priest who spent a year at a Franciscan seminary before dropping out and the world's most celebrated Scientologist, Cruise is opposed to drugs in fact or fiction, although he allowed himself to play a drug user in Spielberg's Minority Report.
One of the perils for actors is that constant exposure to other personalities will eventually cause their own character to atrophy. They simply forget how to be who they really are. Of course, it must be difficult being harried by the media and gay lobbyists about the state of his sexuality. Some years ago he put paid to the rumours with a successful $100m lawsuit against the porn actor Chad Slater, who claimed that they had a gay affair and this was what ended Cruise's marriage to Kidman. And it must have been galling to have a freshly divorced ex-wife cracking jokes about how she can wear high heels again, as Nicole Kidman famously did in Cannes.
One of the reasons behind Cruise's success is that his screen machismo is essentially non-threatening. It's a starry machismo, laced with fairy dust. It is almost the exact opposite of Russell Crowe's. The Australian is incapable of separating himself from his screen personas; he cannot conceal his true self. Cruise has made a career out of concealment. Look at the movies. It's as if he is challenging himself to be masculine and virile in every film - the dances he performs in Risky Business, and with the pool cue in The Color of Money, the rock-climbing and the fight scenes in Mission: Impossible, the elaborate swordplay in The Last Samurai, the sex evangelist in Magnolia. They are constructs of machismo; not exactly fake, but hollow.
Dougray Scott, who played the villain Sean Ambrose in Mission: Impossible II, once told me: "Tom is very single-minded. You'd better be on your mettle when you're working with him. He'll push you to the limit. Because that's what he does to himself." Maybe Cruise pushes himself so hard because it is the only way that he can define who he is.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
LONDON - Katie Holmes says she's embracing Scientology, the religion of her boyfriend, Tom Cruise.
Holmes, in London to promote her new film, "Batman Begins," was asked if she is taking lessons in the Church of Scientology, a religion founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.
"Yes, I am, and I'm really excited about it," she said Monday.
The 26-year-old actress and Cruise went public with their romantic relationship in April. The former star of television's "Dawson's Creek" grew up with a poster of Cruise on her bedroom wall and has said she grew up wanting to marry him.
"We all keep dreaming, and luckily, dreams come true," Holmes said.
She dismissed critics who have accused the couple of staging a relationship for publicity of their new movies.
"It doesn't hurt me at all. There are a lot of people really, really happy for us. It's really exciting. We are so happy. I don't really care about the critics," she said.
Asked about wedding plans, Holmes replied: "There's nothing official to report."
Cruise was in Tokyo Monday for the premiere of his new film, "War of the Worlds."
In an interview in the June 17 issue of Entertainment Weekly, the 42-year-old actor was asked if Holmes is curious about Scientology.
"Yeah, absolutely. She digs it," he tells the magazine.
In response to a question about whether he'd asked Holmes not to do "Factory Girl" — about Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol — because of the drug use in the movie, Cruise says: "I don't even know what `Factory Girl' is."
He adds: "Listen, the thing you've got to know about Katie is that she's an incredibly bright and self-determined woman. She makes her own decisions."
Cruise was previously married to Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, and dated
Penelope Cruz for several years.
Holmes and actor Chris Klein recently called off their engagement, after dating for five years.
A-Rod Deserves Gold Glove In Defense Of Mental Health
Published: Jun 9, 2005
Baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez surely knew he was handing opposing fans and lazy columnists loads of bean balls.
Yet as the New York Yankee third baseman and his wife donated $200,000 to a mental health program in a poor neighborhood, he revealed he has been seeing therapists.
Rodriguez, 29, told an interviewer, ``I don't know where I'd be'' without therapy.
Rodriguez didn't dwell on details but admitted he was haunted by the loss of his father, who abandoned the family when Rodriguez was 9.
His message was pointed to young men, particularly Hispanics, who tend to see therapy as unmanly. He doesn't want them to feel ashamed should they need help.
It was a selfless act, one that is already generating some ridicule. But his candor will surely salvage many lives by encouraging troubled youths to follow his example.
Suicide is the second leading killer of young adults and the third leading killer among teens. Close to 4,000 Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 commit suicide each year. And countless Americans, young and old, suffer with depression or other afflictions without seeking help.
They fear the stigma of mental illness or don't think they can be helped. But these anxieties are commonplace, and medical treatment - which can include therapy, lifestyle changes and sometimes medication - usually can dispel the dark clouds. Rodriguez offers reassuring proof.
His quiet example stands in stark contrast to the antics of Tom Cruise, who has been appearing on talk shows to promote his latest flick and advance Scientology's vendetta against psychiatry. Cruise is a member of the Clearwater-based church, which opposes mental health counseling or psychotropic drugs. The movie star prefers vitamins.
Cruise, who hopped around the Oprah Winfrey set as if he were taking more than vitamins, even denigrated Brooke Shields for taking drugs to treat postpartum depression.
Her response was apt: Mind your own business.
Scientology may have worked wonders for Cruise - though his recent behavior raises doubts - and there is nothing wrong with saying that. But he has no clue about what treatment is best for others and no business trying to frighten people from seeking professional care.
Families should ignore the tomfoolery and heed A-Rod's mental health advice: ``Why let the train wreck come before you fix it?''
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
Tom Cruise is the best off-screen actor there is. Nicole Kidman was on Oprah today and pulled no stunts like did. And look who has the Oscar to go home to. Tom Cruise = fraud.
"Winners make the rules. Losers live by them" - the only good line from a horrible movie
I can see by the hostility on the walls it may be time for me to go again ...
I did not have an "argument", thinly supported or not. I had an opinion based on what I heard, know, and think of Nicole. It's those who disagreed with me and asked for proof of a point of view that made it an argument. I made an off hand comment, it was challenged, that's your problem, not mine.
The problem is, you are saying she's not as bad as Tom, I never said she was. I said I'm not as impressed with her as a person as I have been of Holmes. So Mann, your point being that she doesn't flaunt relationships really has nothing to do with what I was saying.
As for what I saw in her that I haven't seen since. I saw depth and layers in her work in To Die For, Eyes Wide Shut, Dead Calm, Malice, heck, My Life, that despite the complexity of her role in The Hours, was clearly missing (but keep in mind, I went from cool to ice cold on that film). The fact that her scripts aren't high brow is not my problem, it does make her choices odd, but it is what she doesn't do with a role, no matter what it is, that bothers me. The hype just doesn't add up with what she's put up on the screen since the split IMO. But like has been pointed out, she's not the only one. Jolie, like Kidman had great work behind her when the HFPA originally lauded her, but then an Oscar baiting performance in a sea of better nominees gets her an Oscar, and she gets plenty of work and press and it's for what? She's done some okay work, but lord almighty, really, what has she done besides look hot? Now, Jolie, as talented as she is, is overrated.
But back to the subject at hand ... I know that talking about religion at work, depending on how accepted that religion is in the community can be frowned upon. I don't know for example, if offices let people pray in their office if they are Muslim or burn incense. But see the tent is something I don't know that any other religion has. Sure, many religions have publications that people pass around and stuff (and I know that happens on film and TV sets), but a tent?! Am I forgetting another religion that does something similar?
My brother said something the other day, that certain celebrities, whether it is Michael Jackson, Oprah, or Tom Cruise are so isolated that they don't realize it. In Jackson's case, that's obviously a huge problem. In Oprah's, not so much. But Cruise, I don't think he's accidentally isolated, it's purposeful. Anyone else pick up on what he was saying about Pat on AH? He made it clear he didn't like the direction she was giving him, he didn't agree with her, and gave her "plenty of chances". But when she didn't jive with his plan, he fired her. The man wants, nay, demands his way or none at all. I think that is why he hired his sister, someone he feels, no matter what, won't turn on him, believes his beliefs (do his other sisters and mother or just her?), and can defend him to the press. This is definitely orchestrated.
And I still contend, whether he's cracked or not, he's being far more honest than he's been before. This is why Cruise has been such a charming movie star for so long, he's said what he had to say, never revealed that other, less perfect, layer of himself beneath the surface. Now, like or not, he's showing it. Again, I don't know whether or not to applaud it, or worry for his kids.
BTW, Nicole's on Oprah tomorrow, should be interesting.
-- "Say I was Tom Cruise, where would you seat me?"
-- "In acting class."
Gilmore Girls, 10/28/03
Two new articles, one by Richard Corless in Time and the other by Sharon Waxman in the NY Times, disseminate Cruise's recent bizarre behavior.
In the Time piece, the following paragraph struck me as rather interesting (apropos of flipp's comment re Tom and Nicole's reading habits), especially when compared to another religiously obsessed individual who happens to be president:
Others, noting that Cruise's press rep is his sister Lee Anne DeVette, see an isolation from reality. "He probably feels that Oprah performance is a total, 100% success," says a Hollywood insider. "No one around him will tell him anything other than what he wants to hear," according to an acquaintance, who says Cruise doesn't read newspapers or use a computer. "He only knows what they show him." And what Cruise won't be allowed to hear is the giggling behind his back. "The worst thing for a matinee idol," the acquaintance says, "is to have people laugh at him when he's trying to be serious."
And then there's this concluding paragraph in the NY Times article:
"And Mr. Cruise's insistence on having a Scientology tent on the set of "War of the Worlds" created a conflict at Universal, where the movie was being shot, two executives involved said. The executives, who asked not to be identified to protect industry relationships, said that Mr. Cruise, his agent Kevin Huvane and Mr. Spielberg all had to appeal personally to the president of Universal Studios, Ron Meyer, for the tent to be permitted on the studio lot, where no solicitation is allowed.
The studio required that the tent not be used for recruitment purposes, they said. A studio spokesman declined to comment."
I just have to ask--does the company you work for provide space or a tent on the employer's grounds for your church and others' churches? Didn't think so.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
The Original BJ wrote:I realize Angelina is a MUCH more extreme case than Nicole, but I'm of the opinion that just because the media obsesses about an actor does not make him or her popular.
Yeah right...
So I guess Paris Hilton is popular right now...because of her talents?
I don't even remember Pamela-Marie's thinly supported original argument and, quite frankly, I just don't care.
I like Nicole Kidman. I think she's made some great choices since her split with Tom and has really become a respectable actress in her own right. Her Oscar was well-deserved, not a "pity award". In fact, I think we'll see her win another one in the future.
And word to Mann's comment about her Pulitzer Prize-winning choices in materials. Nicole reads voraciously which is more than I can say for Tom Cruise who I'm sure hasn't cracked more than a Scientology manifesto in the last 15 years.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
I dunno - out of the nominees, I thought Kidman was the best (re: The Hours).
As for which stars can open a movie - I'd argue that I think that's a fairly ridiculous standard to measure a movie star, especially given the seachange in how movies are made and marketed.
To me, the comparison to Angelina Jolie illustrates my point even further.
Angelina Jolie is the CLASSIC example of someone who is a media star but not a movie star. For some reason, the media adores her, perhaps because of all her bizarre antics.
But can she open a movie? Of course not. Her only real success has been Tomb Raider, which had very little to do with her. I haven't liked a single film she has ever appeared in, and, judging from acclaim/box office, almost every one of her movies seems to have been labeled a stinker.
I realize Angelina is a MUCH more extreme case than Nicole, but I'm of the opinion that just because the media obsesses about an actor does not make him or her popular.
