New Delhi: Tom Cruise has been averse to interviews for a while. Recently, though, the Hollywood star revealed to GQ magazine why he has largely stayed away from them.
“I just haven’t had the time, with the amount of things that I set in motion and decided I was going to do and looking back on those things that I felt worked,” he said.
Cruise, 64, appeared on the cover of GQ’s October issue. It has been more than a decade since Cruise last gave an in-depth interview to a US magazine and 20 years since he last appeared on the magazine’s cover.
The actor shared that he had been focused on the projects he had set in motion and on learning from each experience.
“I went for competence. I went for skill, for whatever level that was, of learning something and being able to then go, ‘Oh, this is what I need to focus on,’” he added.
Cruise also shared that his hesitation to discuss himself is connected to what interests him about cinema. He added that he is more fascinated by story, character and the process of making films than by talking about himself.
“Less about talking about myself, believe me…I’m more interested in you than hearing myself talk,” he said.
The Top Gun actor said that he often looks back at his previous works and does so primarily to understand what worked and what did not. He shared that he is not someone who lives in or is stuck in the past.
“I look back to evaluate how I can do things better. Where I’m going, ‘What worked and what didn’t work?’” he said.
During the interview, he also discussed the Mission: Impossible films, which he also produced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cruise described it as a “dead sprint” in which the main mission was to keep production moving and operating at a high level.
His upcoming film Digger is directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, in which he portrays Digger Rockwell, an oil mafia boss whose company has triggered an ecological disaster with the potential to start a nuclear war. The film is set to be released on 2 October.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)