I’ve never been a Tom Cruise fan. I don’t think he is a good actor. I don’t like the parts of him that I can see. Don’t get me wrong. Acting well is a harrowing proposition. Living the part, letting go of every thing you are, is scary and most people can’t do it. I watch Joaquin Phoenix and see him live the parts he plays. The key is to have enough of your self so that you have some self to go back to. Tom Cruise acts like a pretty pathological liar. If he weren’t so pretty, he would be equally comfortable telling lies on Wall Street, but no less successful.
I’m not the only one who feels this way.
I can’t name another American icon who has been so popular, and for so long, and yet so hard to like, and for so long. (When the studio sent the then-mostly unknown Cruise to Paul Brickman, the writer-director of Risky Business, Brickman recoiled, saying, “This guy’s a killer. Let him do Amityville 3.”)
I don’t hate the guy. I just find the movies that he is in to be uninteresting.