“I never made a movie to just go make a movie, it was always an exploration of filmmaking”: our world exclusive interview with Tom Cruise

It took just a pink shirt, white socks and a slide. Into the public consciousness glided Tom Cruise, his bare left leg snapping taut in the beat before the intro to Bob Seger’s ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’ kicked in again in Risky Business (1983). He’s never left it. Over 40 years and 40 films after this nifty move into an empty frame and his raucous dance, lip-syncing into a candlestick, at 62 he’s still the world’s pre-eminent – and, some would argue, in our fragmented entertainment age the last – movie star.

Cruise had already appeared in several films – he’d been a blur of motion in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders (1983), skidding into the action, clutching the side of the rival gang’s moving car, but Risky Business was his first lead role and announced him as an actor you couldn’t take your eyes off, his energy providing a hint of the high jinks to come.

He’s been on the move ever since. Restless in his films – running, diving, flying, jumping, climbing, falling, all with abandon, for our enjoyment – but also restless in the roles and projects he selects. From the mid-1980s to the end of the 90s Cruise averaged a film a year, rarely working with the same director or same genre twice and singling out auteurs to work with, when heart-throb roles with journeymen directors would have been far easier. 

Whether he’s a philosophising bloodsucker, a sports agent or (again and again) a pilot, Cruise almost always plays a high-achieving dynamo. The thrill is watching him, as his status – or the world – is under threat, being pushed to desperate lengths to save it. There have been a few exceptions: a lesser-seen vulnerability and tenderness came to the fore in Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Most memorable of all was Cruise’s Bill Harford in the relationship drama Eyes Wide Shut (1999). There, working with his then-wife Nicole Kidman, directed by Stanley Kubrick, he was everything his usual onscreen persona wasn’t: sexually thwarted, a frantic and rejected social climber, forever walking and drifting rather than running.

Cruise’s thrusting male supremacist in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) is one of his most chilling and prescient characters, and showed he was not above being part of an ensemble. That aptitude for dark characters recurs in his filmography, from Taps (1981) to Collateral (2004) to the Jack Reacher films (2012, 2016). On the flipside, the underrated Edge of Tomorrow (2014) showed his less-flexed gift for comedy – and in the case of his cameo as a grotesque studio exec in Tropic Thunder (2008), his willingness to transform himself with prosthetics in the service of satire.

Cruise is notorious for undertaking rigorous training for roles, from sword-fighting to landing helicopters in high altitudes. Back in 1986, Martin Scorsese said Cruise could have played the final pool trick shot in The Color of Money [1986] himself if they had had longer to shoot it. In that picture’s increasingly elaborate pool sequences you can spy the template for the ever more spectacular set pieces of Cruise’s later Mission: Impossible films, a series that also ushered in the start of his producing career. Later, an attempt to revive the Chaplin, Fairbanks, Pickford and Griffiths production venture United Artists demonstrated his commitment to the old institutions of Hollywood. Today, he is the industry’s best-known and most fervent advocate for the primacy of the big screen.

Cruise has represented traditional Hollywood values in a ceaselessly churning industry. A dependence on IP and CGI has snuffed out the magic of original and handcrafted fantasy films like Ridley Scott’s curio Legend (1985). The spectacular battle sequences in The Last Samurai (2003) were among the last of their kind to be actually shot on location. Does Hollywood even bother with big-budget romantic comedies any more? Let alone films with such quotable dialogue as Jerry Maguire (1996)?

Over almost 30 years, Cruise has overseen the Mission: Impossible films rather as if he were an auteur, eager to surprise the audience with one of his signature spectacular stunts (always executed in-camera). These feats, combined with the films’ hurtling pace, screwball-style comedy beats and an old-fashioned love of camaraderie have provided both critical acclaim and commercial success.

When we talk, Cruise is – as always – in motion, being ferried between two sets on a film he’s making with Alejandro González Iñárritu – the Mexican filmmaker’s first English-language feature since The Revenant (2015) – in which “the most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s saviour before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.” Cruise is perhaps even upping the pace. The latest, and possibly last, Mission: Impossible film is about to be released and he has a number of projects with director Christopher McQuarrie, his longtime creative partner, in the pipeline. We spoke about his wide-ranging career working with some of Hollywood’s greats and how onscreen charisma is a skill to master.

Isabel Stevens: Let’s start at the beginning. Was there a particular theatre-going experience that you recall from your childhood that made you love the cinema experience itself?

Tom Cruise: There wasn’t one in particular, there were many. Since I was four years old, I wanted to make movies. I dreamed of flying airplanes and making movies and travelling the world. And I would create characters. I would ad lib or write skits and play different kinds of characters, like Donald Duck, being W.C. Fields, John Wayne, Charlie Chaplin or many, many different characters to make my three sisters, my mother, laugh.

I was also quite adventurous. As soon as I could walk, I left the house, and I would ride my tricycle through the neighbourhood and into the forest and hang out on the roof and look at the stars at night. Just doing all kinds of things, climbing the tallest trees, and just dreaming. I was very much – and I am still – that kind of person.

Very early on, I think I was seven or eight when I had my first job. With the money I had, I’d save it to go to movies. And that meant a lot to me. I loved being in that theatre. I was always pushing my parents and friends and their parents to let me see different kinds of films. And as I got older, I would kind of sneak in the back door of movies as people were going out. You know… that old trick.

You’ve mentioned before that you grew up on the great silent comedians, Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. What did you learn from them?

It was not just the silent films, but as a teenager, I was looking at [them] more and more. And seeing the influence of vaudeville and the origin of cinema, the frame and lenses. When you look at vaudeville – how they had to understand staging. They knew how to set up and pay off a joke.

I watched movies and I evaluated cinema. I didn’t realise I was doing it but I’d look at a film and I’d wonder, “Do people feel the same way about this movie that I do?”

I didn’t tell people this but I wrote my goals down on a piece of paper and put it up on my wall – what I wanted my life to be, what I wanted to accomplish, my goals, and that’s what I did.

Were there any filmmakers who loomed large for you? Christopher McQuarrie has mentioned Alfred Hitchcock in M:I interviews, and I know you wore a suit modelled on Cary Grant’s in North by Northwest [1959] for Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation [2015].

It’s not just Hitchcock. I know everyone wants one movie or one director. There are so many different filmmakers that I’ll look at in terms of how they use the camera, their staging, the development of the camera, the structural storytelling, the diversity of films that they made and how they challenged themselves. But also, how movies were made.

As a young actor in a movie, [people would] say, “Well, you’re in the film, it’s gonna work.” I was like, “No no no, we have to make the story work and the film work, and every person in it. I’m interested in every character.”

I want to be in a film that engages an audience in every aspect of storytelling. My favourite films have that. I would basically study careers. I would take one director, an actor or any artist… a cinematographer, producer and I’d just watch everything they did. What I’m interested in is, what elements, what environment can I put together to make the best possible film?

I knew if I didn’t cut the grass well, the next guy’s gonna cut the grass better. I had to learn a skill. The derivation of art is skill. There’s not a mystery like everyone thinks. Train yourself. These were my goals: to learn this craft, to be competent and not compromise it.

Taps was a formative experience.

I didn’t go to film school, I didn’t have acting classes. I watched movies. And I was fortunate enough to be on those sets and see the lens choices, what film was, what these marks were. I just kept going to each department and I would sit and watch them work. I was interested in how were these films were put together. I would hear [cinematographer on The French Connection, 1971] Owen Roizman’s point of view of cinema, and I’d hear the producer, the director, hair and make-up.

Old Hollywood, they used to train you, they taught people about camera and lenses, colours, and the production designer was actually the production designer – he designed the entire production. So there were very specific ways and successful actions on how they made movies, and I studied those [and thought] how can I become more and more competent at different skills, so that I can then apply them to film, so… taking dance class on my own and singing class and training in fighting or stunts. Or can I put the camera in a different place? Or I would take on a particular genre – whether it’s a courtroom drama or a legal thriller or a comedy – and look at it, study that genre. Study comedy. Study character comedy. Understand what the difference between the lead protagonist is versus supporting character. And studying different structures. These things that I really had to institute from my own curiosity and that has been a lifelong journey for me.

Having weeks of preparation on Taps and being able to create that character and explore every part of filmmaking. The filmmakers saw my intensity and opened the door for me. Harold Becker did a really great thing. He allowed me into the rushes. He let me see Sean Penn, Tim Hutton and myself – and he said, “I want you to know, this is in the movie. You may not like the way you look, you may not like your voice.” He says, “What I want you to do is you have to be the audience watching this.” And he said, “Tom, you love movies.” He said, “You have to try to be the audience.” And that is a skill I have never forgotten. I try to be the audience when I’m reading my scripts, when I’m watching a performance, when I’m watching other performances.

I’m 62, gonna be 63, and the journey is, you never arrive, it’s always a learning experience. What you’re looking for is lightning in a bottle. When I was doing Risky Business, man, there were scenes that we were writing on the day! You’re discovering the movie as you go along. That’s how I learned to make movies. Yes, you have a game plan, but you have to learn to allow your story and your characters to develop. And jump on it, and see, here’s lightning in a bottle.

I’m very interested in what you say about lenses. People don’t always appreciate that side of filmmaking.

It’s not taught, listen, it’s not taught. It’s something that I’ve always taken actors through. In Risky Business, look at the lens choice and composition – very well-composed cinema. You look at, obviously, the influence of The Graduate [Mike Nichols, 1967] on that movie, and the lens choice. Both films that are exploring capitalism during their time period, and sexuality. 

When you look at the 1970s, the French New Wave really had a big influence… Then there was the British invasion with the long lenses and the commercial lenses from Adrian Lyne and the Scott brothers and the sexiness of those lenses and when you look at Flashdance [Adrian Lyne, 1983] and Top Gun [Tony Scott, 1986]… you’re looking at the movement of different toys that we had, different lens choices.

You look at Collateral [2004], which Michael Mann and I did with digital. We were playing with digital and film. And Collateral, what opened up that film and allowed us to really expand that story was [shooting with] digital at night. It was the first time you saw LA at night. And Michael was kind of experimenting with digital, he did a little bit on Ali [2001], and was like, “OK, how do we do this?” We were using very soft LED lights. And it was very thoughtful in terms of the lens choice, very thoughtful in terms of the use of digital versus film, and very experimental. 

When you look at Rififi [Jules Dassin, 1955], look at the composition on those films or the staging, you know, The Big Country [William Wyler, 1958], those cameras were so difficult to move, and the lighting, they didn’t know what they were getting, pretty much. Those cinematographers and that director knew the composition and had such ability to say, “This is what it’s going to look like.” But even then, and even when I started out, we didn’t quite know how it was going to go until we saw it on the screen at rushes every night. Was it fully in focus? Was our composition correct? [Filmmakers] had to have discipline with the kind of composition, filmmaking, staging. Now, with the speed of film and lenses and the speed of the sensors, there’s a tremendous amount of room, but I’m still going for that discipline of staging, of composition, and motion.

Risky Business is best known for the electric scene where you slide in to Bob Seger’s ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’. How did that move come about?

It was in the script that I danced. [Director] Paul Brickman, the guy’s got a great eye, and his composition in the opening doorway, how he built the house, that opening frame. And those close-ups. But how we travelled through that living room was, we mapped it out. And I said, “Look, let me slide in.” So, I wanted to slide into the centre of the frame. He was like, “Let’s just dance from here,” and I said, “Let me try.” I tried to do it with no socks, and then I tried it with socks, and then I basically had to wax the floor. And you can see there are certain outtakes where I go sliding all the way across the floor because I waxed too much of it. So, I waxed right to where that centre frame was. And I could see where I hit that centre frame. And then I would just figure that out, I just moved throughout it, we were ad-libbing as we were going through it. When Paul was editing it, I was in the editing room and he was just taking me through the edits.

Around the same time, you also made All the Right Moves [Michael Chapman, 1983], which I think is an underrated film. It was interesting as a flipside of Risky Business, in that they’re both critiques of society and capitalism at that time. Was that important to you at that point?

Yes. I did it on purpose, to go from Risky Business to that, I was looking at a totally different kind of film. And as an actor, immediately challenging myself in a different way. And just learning more about cinema. Every film I did, I walked away going, “Every decision I made, I made.” For better or worse, it was like, “OK, I did this.” And I always had a purpose why I was making the films. You know, that exploration. The cinematographers, the tone, the different characters, the ‘Here I am’, there are just different aspects to cinema, and [so that’s] why I went on to Legend after that. First of all, I wanted to go make movies abroad. And to have that opportunity to be there on set and see and work with Ridley Scott and see his viewpoint of cinema, see how he paints with light, see the development of every aspect from the major sets to every department at a whole new level, and it was a tremendous learning experience.

I knew after Legend, I’ve gotta make a different kind of film. Top Gun, they were coming after me for a year wanting me to make that movie. And Ridley said, “You gotta go meet my brother.” And so, after that, I went and met them, and that was another stepping stone for me. [Don] Simpson and [Jerry] Bruckheimer were the cutting-edge producers, commercial filmmakers and storytellers. So, I was able, then, to take the next step and in terms of being able to guarantee that I’m there, for every aspect of the filmmaking. I was there from the beginning, to go to Washington to discuss with the Department of Defense, and understand that aspect from producing and the studio.

And also, you look at The Color of Money, and working with Scorsese, editorially, I learned a tremendous amount and working with [Paul] Newman, and Thelma [Schoonmaker]. I went from Top Gun to Color of Money. As I was shooting Color of Money, we were editing Top Gun. 

We rehearsed for a month, Color of Money, so I got to be with and develop the character and work really inside the whole experience. To be able to see editorially what Scorsese did with the pool playing and how he used that, each one, each shot, how he was really inventing different camera movements for pool to give it power and speed, but it was also character and progression of story. 

When I look at Fantasia [1940], when I look at Singin’ in the Rain [Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952], there’s a visual progression in the storytelling of the sequences. You know, you start in the kitchen and then suddenly you’re going across the set, and there’s not a redundancy in colour and motion.

Not just the directors. There were so many different skilled workers underneath and everyone has a different point of view of storytelling and what’s important to them and what affects them – every actor, every cinematographer, every department, what the film means to them.

Because, there’s nothing like being there on the set and to be able to discuss with Paul Newman… and every time, like, these guys discuss their entire lives with me. Every movie – I knew all of their films. And I would go through them with them… And we’d talk about performance, we’d talk about lenses, we’d talk about story, we’d talk about how things came together, the challenges they faced, every single one of them.

Scorsese’s understanding of where to put the camera, Newman’s understanding of where the camera was. You could see they had a broader understanding of cinema. And there were so many things that I learned about what to do and, for myself, what not to do. Look, I’m the kind of person that, just ’cause someone says it, doesn’t mean it’s true for me. No matter how successful they are. You know what I’m saying? I admire what these guys created and their abilities, and it was fascinating hearing those different eras of things that they were up against and, of course, how things evolved through the decades. I did Risky Business in 1982, we’re now in 2025. And I think of that time for other [filmmakers]. What was that like for Liz Taylor? What was that like for Cary Grant or Sophia Loren? 

With [Dustin] Hoffman, I spent over two years developing Rain Man, and we went through four directors. I met Hoffman when he was doing Death of a Salesman [a 1984 Broadway revival directed by Michael Rudman] and met him at a restaurant. My sister was like, “There’s Dustin Hoffman, go up and say hello to him.” I’m shooting Legend at the time, I’m like, “I am not gonna go up to Dustin Hoffman!” and my sister says, “If you don’t go up and say hello to him, I’m going to say hello to him,” and I was like “Oh my god,” and I went up and said hello, and suddenly he knows my name, you know what I mean, it was so weird hearing these people know my name, like, oh my gosh. And inviting me backstage at Death of a Salesman at the last days of that performance and saying, “OK, you and I are going to make a movie together one day,” and I was like, “OK, sure.” And then, you know, two years later, he sends me Rain Man.

I always had my own viewpoint of what I wanted to do. I wanted to make a wide range of cinema and understand it. I never made a movie to just go make a movie. For me, it was always an exploration of that kind of filmmaking. I interviewed filmmakers, and even when I didn’t have the ability or power to greenlight movies, [I decided] I’m gonna make the movies that I wanna make, and if I can’t get it then I’m not gonna do it.

Going back to Legend. That was a film you fought for, because the American studio wanted to use a different score [by Tangerine Dream rather than Jerry Goldsmith]. Was that the first time where you really tried to use your influence to fight for something?

I always did that. I was there kind of learning and seeing and going how, what is the best for the audience, and what is the best in terms of filmmakers. I was always pushing for 65mm in the late 80s [Far and Away, Ron Howard, 1992, was shot on 65mm], meeting with distributors very early on, and theatre owners, and going, “What is it you’re up against? How can I help? Please don’t do those small screen cineplexes. Let me create big screen entertainment for you.” 

When you’re looking at how beautiful film was during that time period but the limitations and how Ridley Scott was able to push those limitations. I still think back on those moments of when we’re on the Bond stage [at Pinewood] and to the eye was one thing, and then he would go in and show me on the big screen what it looked like, oh gosh… what an artist. It just takes you to that place of the possibilities of cinema.

Tony Scott once described his brother as a classicist, and himself as more rock and roll. Would you agree?

I don’t know. I think that Ridley can be rock and roll too… I mean, you look at some of the commercials that he did and the wide range of films he’s done. It was fun working with him. You see each personality, and they’re very distinct, like any filmmaker with their movies.

Can you tell us about working with Val Kilmer on Top Gun. There’s a great scene with the two of you in the locker room, where he gnashes his teeth at you.

First of all, I felt so grateful that he decided to make the film. We did a lot to get him in the movie. Originally, he just didn’t want to make the movie, “I don’t want to be a supporting, I want to star in films.” I was calling his agent, and Tony Scott was hunting him down and meeting in an elevator with Val, and he was like, “Please, Val, please.”

You 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’m saying? And I remember those scenes like they were yesterday, acting with him, where he did the bite thing. You know when you’re acting with somebody and you just see they’re just on fire. It’s exhilarating. I love when the scene just goes to a different place. If you look at Top Gun, I think he’s in the movie maybe ten minutes. That’s the impact of an artist like that.

And to come back all those years later, and it was amazing being on set for Top Gun: Maverick [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’s just, you see it… 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… you take Iceman from the first film and you look at it here, that whole journey, he became Iceman. And he didn’t even have to speak. That’s what he’s able to do. Beautiful, really beautiful. A gift that he had and that he shared with all of us.

Another memorable showdown you had was with Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men [Rob Reiner, 1992], where you are roving about the courtroom while Jack is rigid in the witness stand and he almost spits his lines at you.

I couldn’t wait to do that scene with him. And I know he couldn’t wait to do the scene. What we did was we started on me. We were shooting at Culver Studios. And word got out. It was when LA more had a cinema community. I remember going halfway through the scene and you looked up and there were just people in the rafters. People came from all over town to see Jack and I go at it.

Jack is very much an actor’s actor, and was there off-camera the whole time, very giving and gracious. We’re discovering the scene and the performances… and Rob [Reiner] would come in and we’d talk the three of us. Jack would just give every now and then a good note or acknowledgement to stuff that worked.

He 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’s sitting. He’s actually holding his hat quite tautly to generate power. He understands that lens. He’s a wordsmith, Nicholson. He’s 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’s not by chance. He knows what he’s doing. He has command over his body and his voice and he knows the camera.

Great actors make it look easy. They make it look effortless. When you look at Brando at the beginning of The Godfather. 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.

It’s 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’m acting, that’s my home. Acting is every moment new. Every take new. Even though you’ve got all these notes and you want to hit these certain beats. But it’s in a new unit of time and you have to let it fly. And when you’re working with such a great actor like that, you’re just bouncing back and forth and just really discovering it together. You see it, it’s on screen, it’s just there.

One thing I did find very interesting was that you directed an episode of a TV series called Fallen Angels [1993-95], which was a neo-noir.

Yeah, for Sydney [Pollack]. It was fun. So fun.

And you cast Isabella Rossellini as the femme fatale.

Oh, she was amazing. Oh my god. What a light. It was so fun. And Ron Howard’s parents!

Oh! I didn’t realise that.

Yeah. Ron Howard’s mom is in it! It was awesome. And Peter Gallagher!

Were you never tempted to direct again?

Look, I’ve been asked, I was asked since I was a kid to direct. People were like, direct it, direct it, direct it! You know, produce it, produce it, produce it! Basically, I was in a situation where I’m responsible for the movie and I would help, I helped friends and the film in any way that I can. But I wanna create characters and I want to work with a wide range of directors and writers and have that broad experience.

Mission: Impossible [Brian De Palma, 1996] was your first film as producer.

Yes, with Sherry Lansing, who was the first female head of a studio – Twentieth Century Fox. I met her when I was doing Taps. And she was always a huge supporter of mine. And when she moved to Paramount, she came and said, “Look, please start a production company.” And I looked at the landscape, and I wanted something that was exploring motion in a different way. I wanted to go make a film foreign, it was always my passion to go to different countries. And I said, “Look, I will take Mission: Impossible, and I want to produce this as my first producing gig.” And I remember, at that time, people were like, “What are you making a TV series for, into a movie?” You know what I mean? I remember, I was like, “I think it ’s gonna be cool, you know, we’ll see what happens!”

I’m fortunate that my first time that I produced a film was with Brian De Palma, an incredibly skilled filmmaker. He started his career in the 60s and the guys that he was training with, some of them were from the 30s and 40s and 50s. So, that wealth of knowledge, that craftsmanship that has been passed down to me, that’s stuff that I very much value.

How do you start working on a character like Ethan Hunt? Do you start envisaging every single aspect of his life? Is that how you work as an actor?

It’s back and forth. Sometimes, if you’re looking at different characters, sometimes what I’ll do, I know that there’s a character that I’ll create that I’m gonna put into a movie at some point. And I will go and learn skills and know that at some point, I’m gonna put those skills to use. So, I will go and learn how to fly an airplane, knowing that I’m going to be able to eventually put that into American Made [Doug Liman, 2017] or I’m gonna learn to fly a helicopter or I’m going to learn to do hip-hop or sing and then I’ll apply it. Or certain things where I’m studying comedy or different characters, Jerry Maguire or A Few Good Men or Les Grossman [in Tropic Thunder]. Then I’ll put that character into that movie. So, I’ll have a movie and maybe the character’s not there, but I choose the film first and then I build the character inside the movie. So, you just get instincts on it. I don’t know how to describe it outside of sometimes it’s just there and it comes to me and that’s it.

You know, Magnolia, I just read it and I said to Paul Thomas Anderson… “Talking about characters is useless, let me show you.” So, I set up the light in my screening room, I set up the opening music for my character in my screening room, and I built the stage, and I just said, “Sit here,” and I wrote the opening monologue, and I just basically showed him the character. And that was the character. And then we expanded upon it. But, in the same way, with Les Grossman, I kept saying, “No, I want fat hands” and Ben Stiller was like, “I don’t get it, I don’t get it” and then finally, when we were testing the make-up, I showed him what I was doing and he was like, “I get it.” 

When I started on Taps, I was given the freedom to create character. And it was four weeks of rehearsal. And I didn’t know that you didn’t do that… I went into town one day, we were in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. I had a morning off, and I went in and I went to the barber, and I shaved my head, and I showed up on set, and I had my hat on. And on set, we were rehearsing the parade ground, you know it was during rehearsals, and I was rehearsing my marching and all that stuff on the parade ground. And I got really into it, and I took my hat off, and Harold Becker, the director, was like, “What the hell did you do!”… I said, “Look, this is my character. You said that it’s my character and I can create my character, so I did that.” I was so naive that he had to sit me down and explain that, “I’m the director.” [Laughs] “You have to ask!” And I was like, “Oh, oh, I’m so sorry sir, I’m so sorry!” But as an actor, sometimes you just get into a groove.

And with Ethan [for Mission: Impossible], we went from, “OK, we’re gonna take this from a Cold War series,” and it was me really finding the right tone, and the right film. And I originally went to Sydney Pollack, who was my friend since I was a kid, you know, 18. And I asked him, we’d done The Firm [1993], and I spent a lot of time trying to convince him to do it, he finally had me over to his house and he said, “Look, kid, it’s just not for me. It’s not what I wanna do next.” And I was so bummed.

I remember I went up to Spielberg’s, [who] lived up the street from me. I used to go over to Steven’s place, and his wife would make us dessert, and we’d talk about movies. And I went over there for dinner, the next night, and there was Brian De Palma. And the three of us were talking about movies, and I was just looking at De Palma, and I was thinking, “Of course.” And I went home, and I went to the video store – then it was, I guess, Blockbuster – and got all of his movies. And I stayed up almost for 24 hours and I watched every single one of his films that I could get a hold of, back to back. And I called Sherry [Lansing] and I said, “Look, I’m going to offer Brian De Palma this movie.” And I explained to her why I felt he was the one to direct it. So that’s how Brian and I started working together on it. I knew in terms of his designs and what he was going to create, he understood how to create a sequence and build it.

As you’re building those sequences… looking at how to apply stunts in a way where you had a very sophisticated structure. And suspense. And once you had suspense, then I can have humour and drama.

What I particularly like about the Mission: Impossible films is the mixture of tones – they have some very screwball moments.

I like wit. And having humour in movies, you want that, I want that ride. You know, finding those elements. Like, even in Born on the Fourth of July, with its dark humour, you know what I’m saying, where there’s that point where you hold an audience, and how do you release the audience to have them engage in those things? You know, we laugh at illogics. And understanding that when you’re invested in a character, you want to give them that relief. I want that. And to invite them into the humanity of these characters.

Your rapport with children on screen is very memorable – particularly with Jonathan Lipnicki in Jerry Maguire. Hitchcock warned against working with children but I suspect it’s something you like doing?

I love working with children. If you look at Interview with the Vampire [Neil Jordan, 1994; with a ten-year-old Kirsten Dunst]… Jonathan Lipnicki. Hoffman and I spent two years working together. One of the things he took me through is everything he did on Kramer vs Kramer [1979]. Dustin told me how he structured the scenes based on the talent of his son in the movie and how to film it so that that actor really was what you needed. And also to have that discovery of the actor, where you’re watching them and seeing the magic. When I’m working with children, I have a very specific thing where I’m making sure that the crew doesn’t all of a sudden disrupt the creative flow. And they do great work. Which they want to. They’re professional. They want to be great in the movie. They know it ’s a job and they are very proud of that. I never make less of that. I’m very respectful with them, just like I am with every actor that I work with, and everyone on set.

Eyes Wide Shut has been re-evaluated recently, with many critics recognising it as a masterpiece. What do you think of it now?

It was a great experience. I was very excited to do it. I knew Stanley’s movies very well and I was introduced to him through Sydney Pollack. So Stanley called Sydney ’cause he wanted me to make a movie. He sent me a fax.

I 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… 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 to play the role [of Alice]. Because obviously she’s a great actress.

I knew it was going to be a long shoot. He was like, “No, no, no. We’ll finish in three or four months.” And I said, “Stanley, look, I’m here for you. Whatever it’s going to take we’re going to do this”… 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.

It was a very unique experience – not a large crew. We arrived in the summer and basically we just started testing… 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.

How did you work with Kubrick on the film’s dream-like quality?

We were working on lenses and finding the composition, the rhythm of the scenes. How to move the camera. Each scene had a very particular rhythm… It creates a hypnotic, dream-like experience, [which is] what my character was going through also. And [then there’s] the use of [György] Ligeti that he eventually landed on. He loved Ligeti.

Producer Jan Harlan told S&S that he bought all the masks in Venice. How did you and Kubrick then select the gold-detailed one you wear in the film?

Stanley was just exploring all of them, and we would go through the different wardrobe, the masks, and figure out what style and what to wear. The staging throughout that whole scene, the party scene, just lighting that was really challenging because if you look at the speed of film, in terms of how much light was needed, the depth of the frame, the utilisation of the colours, the blacks… and finding each. You look at those movements where my position is in between each person, it is a very difficult thing to accomplish… And also the pacing of the camera… these things were things that we were working on relentlessly throughout.

You’re known for running in films but here it’s noticeable that you walk a lot. How did you work with Kubrick on your gait to give the sense of your character sleepwalking?

I was on the treadmill for some of the walking shots and we were utilising the same technology that he used on 2001 [1968] with the rear-screen projection. The same projectionist was handling the equipment. There was a constant conversation with Stanley and I in terms of what the rhythm of the walking is and us finding it. I’m a very fast walker. We just slowed everything down and tried different speeds of walking.

You developed Minority Report with Steven Spielberg. It’s quite different from Philip K. Dick’s novella…

I’ve known Steven since I was a teenager. With Rain Man, we came close. And then I was actually making Eyes Wide Shut. I knew the short story and I read a draft. I sent it to Steven. The script wasn’t good. I said, “How about if it’s a father who lost his son?” And he and I just started going back and forth and creating it. He got Scott Frank to write it. We met with future scientists… And Steven was able to tell that very complicated story, to make it emotional and so engaging. He’s such a powerful storyteller.

Music is a key element in your films, films like Top Gun and Mission: Impossible are so well known for their soundtracks or theme tunes. How do you approach that side of filmmaking?

Oh, absolutely, it is a storytelling tool. If you look back at the origins, as I said, the operatic structure of recurring themes with characters. And how that applies to and can engage an audience in a way that when you really get it right, you’re not even hearing it, you’re just feeling the movie. And that’s what I want, I want the audience to just feel the movie and be in the film and engage, not just watching it… I don’t like editing to music. You want to edit the scene and have the scene work and then invite the music afterwards. You look at McQ [Christopher McQuarrie], McQ has such an understanding and appreciation of rhythm as an editor.

He just has a brilliance with rhythm [when] he and I edit the film, it has to have a natural rhythm and you feel it. And then the icing is the score.

The latest Mission: Impossible sees you do some incredible stunts but instead of cutting-edge planes or helicopters, you’re standing on the wings of old bi-planes.

I remember the first time as a little kid seeing that kind of aerial walking and wing-walking, and of course, I’ve always wanted to do it. The beauty of those planes… They don’t have the same kind of speed and power. So, it introduced both a positive and challenges… one challenge being that the force, the air molecules made it very, very difficult. And creating a sequence like this, obviously doing an homage to Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. And how do you develop an aerial sequence, and having it go from, if you look at the helicopter in Fallout [Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Christopher McQuarrie, 2018] or the flying that we did in American Made and the evolution into Top Gun: Maverick. McQ and I constantly were going back and forth on that.

Since this interview is linked to the award of your BFI Fellowship, are there any British films that you particularly admire?

There are so many different British filmmakers that I study, I watch, am enormously entertained by, surprised by. So, I don’t want to just give a couple of names. 

When I did Legend… to walk through the gate at Pinewood – that old gate that I love and I wish they never changed it because it’s classic… to go there and my driver was the driver who drove David Lean on Lawrence of Arabia [1962] and here I am, I’m nineteen years old and I’m entering Pinewood, meeting Ridley Scott, shooting on the Bond stage… I made [my driver] take me where David Lean edited that film and to all these different studios so I could look at all the soundstages. You feel the rich history. I’m shooting with Iñárritu right now at Pinewood. Kirsten Dunst came to set, I’m shooting with Jesse [Plemons], her husband, and Kirsten, I cast when she was a child in Interview [with the Vampire]… I will never forget walking through those gates for the first time. The lunches that I would have in the commissary with the other actors that were working there at that time…

I make sure that when actors are there on set, I’m like, “Look, here are the films that were made on this soundstage… here are the movies that I made on this soundstage.” I went from Legend at Pinewood – we burned the Bond stage down [in an accidental fire with ten days’ shooting to go] – to years later, I’m producing my first film, Mission: Impossible on the Bond stage. And today, I was back on the Bond stage shooting with Iñárritu. I shot Eyes Wide Shut with Stanley and Nicole, I shot Inter view with the Vampire there. These things mean so much to me… to be able to be part of that history. To get this acknowledgement from the British Film Institute is a tremendous honour for me. My dream was to be still here making movies at the level that I want to make them. And it’s happened and it’s happening. I’m very, very grateful and I don’t take it for granted.

► Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning is in UK cinemas now.