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O’Donnell, R. (2012) Performing Masculinity: The Star Persona of Tom Cruise. PhD Thesis. University of London.
Related to the industrial context of the star, and demonstrated by the box office success of Cruise‘s films, is the popularity of the actor. People pay to see his films, many of which are overt star vehicles, because they want to see him. The high earnings of Tom Cruise‘s films are associated with the specific characteristics of his image and its relation to social issues in modern America, especially those that coincided with his rise to fame in the 1980s. His films‘ great appeal suggest that, more than any other star at the time, Cruise was able to articulate the anxieties of American society. The thesis proposes that Cruise is an exceptional star; functioning in a manner perhaps unrivalled by any of his contemporaries, his persona gives expression to the era‘s social concerns while simultaneously articulating the psychodynamic preoccupations of the viewer.

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Redmond, S. (2013) Celebrity and the Media. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
"For the most part, in answering these questions, you will Houston encapsualtes what celebrity involves, and how it functions like a mechanical metronome moving in and between media platforms, social interactions, and ritualised events, with similar stories, representations, reactions, and emotions being aligned and activated." (2)

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Tom Cruise Reacts to Slow-Mo Footage of How He Broke His Ankle | The Graham Norton Show

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We are made to ask is this "really" Tom Cruise, breaking his personable façade and becoming noticeably irritated.

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Dyer, R. (1986) Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars & Society. 2nd edn. Oxon: Routledge
“Stars are obviously a case of appearance – all we know

of them is what we see and hear before us.

Yet the whole media construction of stars encourages us

to think in terms of "really?" (2)

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This famous scene from Jerry Maguire has become instantly recognisable and widely quoted, even outside the context of referring to the film

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Cruise's distinctive smile has become a meme in itself, demonstrating his ability to permeate all types of popular culture besides cinema.

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Cruise has been satirised in Family Guy as "Tiny Tom Cruise". His short stature is wildly exaggerated and the character is an adrenaline junkie, riffing on Cruise being his own stunt performer and seemingly going to new extremes with each subsequent release

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Cruise's instantly recognisable persona has become the target of some satirical humour, but also a staple of online meme culture. This demonstrates the idea of the 'celebrity metronome' and how Cruise is one of those stars that is able to permeate multiple aspects of people's lives.

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Cruise's speech at the 2002 Oscars has him talk of his love for cinema from a young age and his insistence that cinema and the joy of movie-going needs to be even more prevalent in the wake of 9/11.

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Tom Cruise's Post-9/11 Opening: 2002 Oscars

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Cruise often speaks of how he feels privileged to be in his position, signifying an appreciation for his fans and an understanding that he has a responsibility to please the fans who consistently pay to see him

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Tom Cruise's Freedom Medal of Valor acceptance speech at the church of Scientology.

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Cruise's highest grossing film and the highest grossing of 2022 so far. Cruise is now 60 years old, and still dominating the box office

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Tom Cruise, The Top 100 Celebrities - Forbes.com

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Tom Cruise ranked 1 among The Top 100 Celebrities In 2006

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Ranked most powerful actor in the world in 2006

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The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20070120121741/http://www.premiere.com:80/best/2816/the-power-list-2006.html

The Power List 2006
PREMIERE's June 2006 issue profiles the 50 most powerful people in Hollywood, a place that is full of mavericks, black hats, and would-be sheriffs. Read an excerpt from the list and find out who some of the biggest guns in town are.

The 2006 Power List is PREMIERE's 17th annual power ranking. PREMIERE.COM presents a look at the Power present and past. Click below to read an excerpt of the list, or to browse through some fun lists and facts from throughout the list's 17 year history.
To read the full Power article, pick up the June 2006 issue of PREMIERE, on sale now.

The June 2006 issue, featuring Tom Cruise, 2006's most powerful actor. Who else made the list? Click here to read an excerpt.

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Hollywood is full of mavericks, black hats, and would-be sheriffs. Find out where the likes of Spielberg, Clooney, and Hanks rank in the quest to be the biggest gun in town., Greatest performances, finest screenplays, and best comedies of all time

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Cruise's films have consistently earned profit at the box office

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We see a glimpse of the "real" Tom Cruise or a "different" Tom Cruise. Prodding into his private life provokes an irritable reaction from him.

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Peter Overton's infamous interview with Tom Cruise | 60 Minutes Australia

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A now very famous interview, in which a number of issues related to Cruise's star image come out.
- His demeanor and attitude can be seen to change the moment that Lauer brings up Scientology and Cruise's aggression is foreshadowed.
- His relationship with Katie Holmes is pushed by Lauer and Cruise is reluctant to give him any personal details, suggesting a desire to keep a private life
- His dismissal of psychiatry and anti-depressants was criticised as a belittling of people's mental health struggles

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Tom Cruise's Heated Interview With Matt Lauer | Archives | TODAY

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Cruise's performance of hyper-masculinity directly relates to his career as an action star. Cruise excels in Magnolia at performing the subtleties of an insecure, hyper-masculine male. Ironically, his career since Magnolia has predominantly been him performing as hyper-masculine action heroes

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He has been criticised for his involvement in Scientology, especially this video in which he was considered to talk around the subject and explain very little

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Tom Cruise Scientology Video - ( Original UNCUT )

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Cruise acted bizzarely on an episode of Oprah in 2005 whilst promoting War of the Worlds (2005). He gave what some considered to be a massively over enthusiastic declaration of love for Katie Holmes

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Tom Cruise loses his mind on Oprah - Original Video - Hilarious!! - Celeburbia.com

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There have been numerous instances of real life events that have threatened to tarnish Cruise's star image

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Tom Cruise does his own stunts and it's remarkable what he's been able to pull off.

Hanging on the side of a plane, skydiving, climbing the world's tallest building, he's done it all.

Here we recap his greatest stunts.

10. In "Edge of Tomorrow" Cruise acted in a suit that weighed up to 130 pounds.

Cruise's 2014 fantastic sci-fi action movie featured a lot of grueling days in a massive costume.

Cruise's character repeats the same day while battling deadly aliens alongside Emily Blunt in the movie. And the armor worn for the film was heavy, with versions weighing between 85 and 130 pounds.

9. For the cargo-plane crash in "The Mummy," Cruise did the stunt inside a NASA plane that trains astronauts for zero gravity.

In 2017's "The Mummy," Cruise finds himself stuck in a cargo plane as it crashes. To pull off a scene like this, actors would typically film it in a controlled setting like a sound stage surrounded by a green screen.

Not Cruise, though.

The star shot the scene in a plane that NASA uses to train astronauts.

The scene was filmed in the plane which had to go up to 25,000 feet to get the look that Cruise was in zero gravity. The plane then did a free fall for 22 seconds.

Cruise did the flight four times to pull off the scene.

8. Cruise flew a helicopter in "Mission: Impossible - Fallout."

For the thrilling helicopter-chase scene in the finale of "Fallout," Cruise spent 16 hours a day training to get to the required 2,000 hours to fly a helicopter on his own.

But Cruise didn't just fly the helicopter. He also pulled off a 360-degree corkscrew dive in it, which would challenge even the most veteran pilot.

7. Cruise is really in a F/A-18 jet for the flight scenes in "Top Gun" Maverick" and had to deal with the G-forces.

When you see Cruise and the cast looking like they are battling G-forces in the jets, complete with distorted faces, it's because they really were.

Cruise and the cast went through training so their dogfight scenes could look as realistic as possible - which meant sitting in the F/A-18 jets as they were spun around and took dramatic dives.

5. Cruise held his breath for six minutes for an underwater stunt in "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation."

In one scene, Cruise's Ethan Hunt has to dive into an underwater safe to retrieve the computer chip that will lead him closer to the villain.

Along with having to hold his breath the whole time, he must keep away from a large crane that's circling around the safe.

For the scene, Cruise first jumped off a 120-foot ledge. Then, in a 20-foot deep-water tank, Cruise held his breath for six minutes.

4. Cruise broke his ankle jumping between buildings while making "Mission: Impossible - Fallout."

Tom Cruise loves to run in his movies; it's become his trademark. But his ability to continue running came into question after a stunt went wrong on the set of "Fallout."

While jumping from one one building to another, Cruise hit the wall of the building the wrong way and broke his ankle.

The accident halted production for months and doctors told Cruise his running days might be over. But, six weeks later, Cruise was back on set doing sprints.

3. Cruise climbed the tallest building in the world for "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol."

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest building in the world, and Cruise climbed it.

For "Ghost Protocol," the actor's climb got him up to 1,700 feet in the air.

He also fell four stories down by rappelling on the surface of the building.

2. Cruise hung on the side of a plane as it took off for "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation."

Cruise clung to the side of a massive Airbus A400M plane as it took off and went up to 1,000 feet dealing with speeds of 100 knots.

To protect the actor, he was secured with a wire attached to the plane. He also had special contacts on to protect his eyes from debris.

Cruise did this stunt eight times.

1. Cruise did 106 skydives with a broken ankle to pull off the HALO jump in "Mission: Impossible - Fallout."

While Cruise was healing the broken ankle he sustained earlier in the "Fallout" production, he went and pulled off the most amazing stunt he's done in his career so far.

In the movie, Cruise's character and CIA tagalong August Walker (Henry Cavill) decide to do a HALO jump - a high-altitude, low-open skydive, in which you open your parachute at a low altitude after free-falling for a period of time - out of a giant C-17 plane to get into Paris undetected.

Cruise did this for real by executing the jump 106 times over two weeks, many of them done during golden hour, a very brief period of perfect lighting that occurs just before sunset.

Features Movies Tom Cruise

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Tom Cruise's 10 best stunts of all time, ranked

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Tom Cruise does his own stunts and it's remarkable what he's been able to pull off. Hanging on the side of a plane, skydiving, climbing the world's tallest building, he's done it all. Here we recap his greatest stunts. 10. In "Edge of Tomorrow" Cruise acted in a suit that weighed up to 130 pounds.

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Peberdy, D. (2010) 'From Wimps to Wild Men: Bipolar Masculinity and the Paradoxical Performances of Tom Cruise'

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Peberdy, D. (2010) 'From Wimps to Wild Men: Bipolar Masculinity and the Paradoxical Performances of Tom Cruise'

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"The softness of male characters in Magnolia is amplified through their juxtaposition with men’s seminar leader, Frank T. J. Mackey (Cruise), Bly’s Wild Man taken to the extreme. In his ‘‘Seduce and Destroy’’ seminars, he vents his anger against women and tells his audience members that to ‘‘prove’’ their male identity, they need to put women back in their place. Mackey’s mission is to reeducate men, to guide them into fulfilling their potential as men, to teach them how to become ‘‘masters of the muff,’’ and to bed the women that would ordinarily turn them down. Like the spiritual leaders of the mythopoetic movement, Frank adopts the role of initiator, leading men through the ‘‘bucketing out process’’ where they must reject their softer, more feminine side, toward a manhood defined by virility, potency, heterosexuality, power, and domination over women" (242)

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Cruise's performance in Magnolia (1999) was widely acclaimed and considered the defining performance of the ensemble cast. He plays a hyper-masculine motivational speaker who is misogynistic and sex-obsessed. This scene deconstructs that hyper-masculine image, and Cruise is effectively able to juggle the two very different sides to the role.

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Magnolia (1999) - Catharsis Scene (Tom Cruise)

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Cruise's response to the questioning of him doing his own stunts demonstrates how he considers it a part of the job; it is a natural and vital part of his status as a performer

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Tom Cruise explains why he still does his own stunts in movies, comparing his stunt work to the dancing talent of iconic Hollywood actor Gene Kelly.

explains why he continues to do his own stunts in movies, despite the danger involved. Movies like Risky Business, Top Gun, and Rain Man put Cruise on the map in the 1980s, but the actor has since become synonymous with big blockbuster action filmmaking and stunt work, largely thanks to the Mission: Impossible franchise. Starting from humble beginnings in 1996 with the original Mission: Impossible from director Brian De Palma, the franchise has since transformed into a vehicle for Cruise to carry out increasingly dangerous stunts, often under the direction of Christopher McQuarrie.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout, the most recent entry in the franchise, took Cruise's Ethan Hunt to new heights - literally - and saw Cruise carry out dozens of HALO (high altitude, low opening) jumps from a large transport plane for one of the film's signature set pieces. The sequel to Mission: Impossible - Fallout, now officially titled Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part I, has already been confirmed to feature still more death-defying stunts, including one particularly impressive sequence where Cruise drives a motorcycle off a cliff. For Top Gun: Maverick, the action-packed upcoming sequel to Cruise's 1986 hit, the actor and producer remains similarly committed to real-world stunts, with real fighter jets being used for many of the film's aerial sequences.

Related: Top Gun 2's Huge Early Praise Continues A Tom Cruise Franchise Trend

Ahead of the screening of Top Gun: Maverick at the Cannes Film Festival, Cruise sat down for what was described as a " MasterClass Conversation" and explains why he remains so committed to doing his own stunts. The actor's response, courtesy of , is short and sweet (and suitably confident), with Cruise essentially implying that doing his own stunts is simply a part of who he is. Check out Cruise's full comment below:

"No one asked Gene Kelly, 'Why do you dance? Why do you do your own dancing?'"

Kelly, an actor known for his performances in classic hits like Singin' in the Rain and An American in Paris, was renowned for his particularly energetic dancing style, something that Cruise clearly feels a kinship with. Cruise's comment suggests that, just like Kelly was good at dancing and showing off that talent in his movies, the Mission: Impossible actor is good at doing his own stunts and making them an integral part of his movies. Cruise, who is currently 59 years old, is in the midst of filming his eighth and perhaps final Mission: Impossible film and his comment at Cannes teases that his stunt work won't be slowing down anytime soon.

While Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part II is sure to feature a number of stunts that are bigger and bolder than anything audiences have seen from Cruise thus far, the actor's untitled SpaceX project, which will supposedly film in outer space, would suggest that he is committed to death-defying stunts even outside of the Mission: Impossible franchise. It remains to be seen what surprises Cruise has in store for fans over the next decade of his career, but his recent comments affirm that stunt work is very much a part of who he is and, instead of asking " Why?" audiences should just go along for the ride.

More: Tom Cruise & Mission: Impossible 8 Both Have The Same Tom Cruise Dilemma

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Tom Cruise Explains Why He Still Does His Own Stunts

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Tom Cruise explains why he still does his own stunts in movies, comparing his stunt work to the dancing talent of iconic Hollywood actor Gene Kelly. explains why he continues to do his own stunts in movies, despite the danger involved.

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Cruise's career began in the 1980s, with Top Gun (1986) being the film that launched him into stardom. He went on to acheive critical acclaim during the rest of the 1980s.

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Cruise demonstrated a talent for dramatic acting initally in Rain Man (1988) alongside veteran Dustin Hoffman

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For his performance in Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Cruise was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe award, demonstrating that he was becoming a well-known name in Hollywood

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The 1990s is when Cruise's career reached a peak. This period is interesting because Cruise had a variety of acclaimed dramatic roles, most notably a defining performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999), as well as a breakthrough into action films with Mission Impossible (1996).

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A commercially successful film, grossing over $230 million worldwide, A Few Good Men (1992) demonstrated Cruise's ability to lead a film as a commercially viable star

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Also made in 1996, Mission Impossible launched Cruise as a true action star, a perception of him that is strong to this day due to the series still running, and being expected to run until at least 2024. He has played Ethan Hunt in every film of the series and is well known for performing his own stunts.

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Cruise plays a romantic lead, demonstrating yet another style of role he is able to perform.