Tom and Oprah, together again. Nice view. Nice house, too. Plus that couch -- also a beautiful thing, unsullied by feet. A happy couch.
Actually, today's encounter, ending just a little while ago, was fascinating -- seriously. Strange fascinating, but that's OK, too.
This was an air-clearing, let-it-all-hang-out (and please, keep both feet off the couch) affair.
The Queen came to Cruise and Cruise came to talk -- about, really EVERYTHING, and in fact so much of everything that after a bit, the head started to spin. The stuff about Suri. The pregnancy. The couch. Brooke Shields. It was enough grist to satisfy a platoon of paparazzi -- assuming they believed any of it.
Plus, the interview -- eventually -- turned into a string of denials. "Never happened ... not true ... all bogus ... lies, lies and damn lies." He didn't exactly say those words but you know the kind of interview: O fishes stuff out books and National Enquirer articles, and Tom says the stuff is bogus.
But it was better than that.
The couch, of course, came up immediately: "I'm on your couch," Oprah says. "I'm sitting." Tom says of the couch jump -- jokingly -- "you were egging me on. You were egging me on." And one wonders -- did he really believe that? Given the chance to do it all over again, he'd probably still do it all over again: the jump, the inane, hyped nuttiness of that encounter three years ago. Said O, "I had no idea it was going to turn into an international brouhaha." (It was bigger than even that, O -- it was the beginning of Cruise's box-office decline, and the beginning of the end of his long relationship with Paramount, and the beginning of a long, pitiless slide into ridicule; the interview that he would rue.)
O wouldn't give up on the couch: Was he angered, sad, hurt by the jokes? "Those are things you just have to take in stride ... it became sort of a confluence ..."
Yes, a confluence.
Like, the comments about Brooke Shields' postpartum depression, and the Matt Lauer death match. Said Tom, "It came out wrong. Brooke and I have always been friends." He still doesn't believe in meds, "but I was feeling pressed in the interview with him." So he came out sounding like a nut. "Obviously I could have handled it better." Obviously.
Scientology? Much on that, too, with Cruise insisting that he "believes in God," but declining to explain what Scientology -- what he called a "religion" -- is about. People should just "read about it." Read about it?! Ha! The unintentionally funniest line of the chat. Right: go out and buy "The Invaders Plan: Mission Earth." Nice bedside reading.
Then, the second funniest line, from O: "I gotta take a break. I gotta pee so bad."
Ah, daytime TV. Where it all hangs out.
Bottom line: Chastened and bowed, Cruise will soon have another movie to sell and a reputation to salvage. (This is all tied to the 25th anniversary of "Risky Business," and O's 25th year in the biz.) This was a first step, a big one. Calm, cool, collected, feet on floor and head together, Cruise did a good job of actually looking sane.
Comments (3)
Cruise did a good job in answering questions. The whole bit about the papparzzi having to see the sonogram of his child is a sad statement on the lies and propaganda and gossip perpetrated by those who don't care.
Steve, are'nt you just saying that because you're
a Scientologist? I've never heard that anything about the "whole bit about the papparzzi having to see the sonogram of his child", he bought a sonogram for fun and because he has the money to, they passed a law banning people doing because of Tom, to protect people form their own stupidity.
In watching this interview with Tom Cruise, Oprah herself made a statement to the effect that the "Tom Cruise" video had been heavily edited, to which Tom Cruise responds that it had been taken out of context.
This statement by Oprah is completely false, and I am amazed at the lack of research on this. The man who produced this video, Mark Headley, has himself stated that the version seen on youtube was unedited! If Oprah is not aware of this, I would hope she would correct this statement as soon as possible. The reason that so many people found this video strange is because it is a strange video, not because it was edited to appear that way.
Mark Headley is a former Scientologist and Executive Producer of many of the videos produced by Golden Era Productions, including the now-infamous Tom Cruise video where he states that Scientologists are the only ones who can help at the scene of an accident, among other things. The Church of Scientology and its supporters have repeatidly stated that this video was heavily edited and taken out of context, and that is why it appears so strange to many people.
However, Mark Headley, who produced this video, has stated that the version seen on youtube and on the internet has NOT been edited in any way.
Quoting Mark:
"And those videos, the way they appear, they are not been edited after the fact. That is actually what aired and that is what played to the Scientologists. I know people will tell you different but those were straight off the DVDs."
source:
Mark Headley Interview with Kevin and Bean, KROQ 4/8/08
http://kroqfs.com/kbpodcasts/KBpodcast_4808.mp3
Mark Headley interview occurs from 41:43 - 55:24 on this mp3.
The quote above can be heard at 48:30 minutes.
I ask all media, PLEASE don't leave your viewers or readers with the false impression that someone purposefully edited this video just to make Tom cruise look strange. The video appeared exactly as it was produced. Opinions about its strangeness should be left to the individual viewer to decide for themselves. Oprah shouldn't be doing damage control for Tom Cruise by spreading a lie.