The Low Way to the Danger Zone: Tom Cruise on Autopilot

He’s the biggest movie star in the world. He’s starring in one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters, “War of the Worlds.” And he’s robbing Dawson’s cradle (see the press frenzy over his recent outings with Katie Holmes). But Tom Cruise demonstrated both his characteristic humility and a general lack of coherent thought in a recent press conference.

THE CRIMSON: So looking back on your career what have you found to be your most rewarding acting experience? Which roles do you think were ultimately your best? Are those two necessarily related?

CRUISE: [E]very experience has been distinctly unique and has been rewarding and has added to the journey of who I am now as an artist and a man. It is like saying which one of your children was the best child? That is how I feel about it because I don’t just go to work. I spend sometimes years working on developing a project. So it is hard to say.

THE CRIMSON: As an actor do you have any defined goals that you try to strive for?

CRUISE: Yes. You know what I look for is not limiting myself. It is important as an artist that you find your own voice and that you find your own voice in a character. There are people out there who want to invalidate. The artist’s job is to create and you have to just create and just creating and creating and creating.

It is important that in film and even in the theater that I have done when I work with people. I am sure you have been there where you think how did that person think that idea? The way they thought it was they just thought it. It was just creative. They just created it; it just happened. It is important that that process be protected. So that, in a few words, is how I feel about that.

—Staff writer Ben B. Chung can be reached at bchung@fas.harvard.edu