Among the genres that Tom Cruise (Syracuse, New York, 60 years old) has touched during his prolific career, comedy doesn’t exactly stand out. Over the years, the actor has become a wingbuster, a mainstream action film hero, a safe bet for producers looking for blockbusters. Perhaps for this reason, as he approached his sixties, Cruise sought new interpretive challenges. This led him to meet director and film producer Judd Apatow, creator of recent comedy hits like Virgin at 40 and Embarrassing Mess, and Canadian actor, director and comedian Seth Rogen. It seems that no project emerged from this meeting, but rather an attempt to recruit the Church of Scientology, of which Cruise is the most famous member.
As Seth Rogen himself put it in a 2021 interview on The Howard Stern Show, the content of which has since gone viral and has already amassed 839,000 views: “They say the meeting was a little weird,” Stern begins asking. “Yeah, let’s see, I adore Tom Cruise,” Rogen begins, “I’ve seen all his movies in the cinema.” Stern then frames the meeting: It was during the time Tom Cruise was married to Katie Holmes, from who he divorced in 2012, the subject of Scientology came up, you know how strange it all was to see in the press. According to the interviewer, aware of the anecdote Rogen is about to share, Cruise explained that the press was trying to drive him nuts about the economic damage he was causing drug companies. Scientologists believe that many illnesses are actually psychosomatic and can be cured through specific auditing, sometimes using a device to measure the electrical resistance of the human body. “Yes,” Rogen replies, “and then there was a moment when he looked at me and said, ‘If you would just let me tell you what Scientology really is. If you would give me just 20 minutes to tell you the truth, I’m sure you would say, “This can’t be.”
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Seth Rogen says he was speechless: “I kept thinking, ‘But is that a good thing or a bad thing?'” he admits in the interview between laughs. “It’s like I said to him: ‘If you let me talk to you for 20 minutes about the Jews, you tell me: That can’t be.’ The Canadian interpreter says there was an awkward moment afterwards when he wasn’t sure how to answer: “I looked at Judd and I thought, ‘Will he buy this train from me? Will I buy it? Are we strong enough ‘to resist? Will we end up getting caught?’ I’m a weak man, I won’t fool you when they capture him [por Tom Cruise]What options do I have? Matters were settled when Apatow ended the call: “Nah, Tom, we’re good. What do you think when we talk about movies again? “I dodged that bullet,” Rogen adds.
Tom Cruise learned about Scientology in 1986 thanks to Mimi Rogers, his first wife (they were married 1987-1990). According to The Telegraph, his fanaticism even led him to buy and reform the English mansion where Ron Hubbard, the founder of this religion, lived, to make it his home in the United Kingdom. “Scientologists are told that Tom Cruise saves the world, so within the Church he is considered a deity. He is the second most powerful person after David Miscavige: the savior of the free world,” actress Leah Remini, a former member of the Church, stated in the third season of the series Leah Remini and Scientology.
In the ranks of Hollywood, Scientology has critics and defenders. Among the first there are many who, without speaking out against it, admitted that they had abandoned this religion for various reasons. Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley, did it in 2012; Paul Haggis, screenwriter of One Million Dollar Baby, published a letter in 2009 explaining the reasons for his resignation; and writer William Burroughs, one of the main figures of the Beat Generation, was with the organization in the early 1960s and left because he felt it did not allow for critical discussion. Stars who have expressed their support for the organization include John Travolta, Juliette Lewis, Elisabeth Moss, Kelly Preston, Jason Lee, Giovanni Ribisi, Jenna Elfman and Erika Christensen. Seth Rogen dodged that bullet at the moment.