did tom cruise live in ottawa

Capital Facts: Tom Cruise's little-known Ottawa roots

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In celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, the Citizen is rolling out one fact each day for 150 days until July 1, highlighting the odd, the fascinating and the important bits of Ottawa history you might not know about.

Actor Tom Cruise can trace his acting roots to Ottawa. He lived in Beacon Hill for a few years as a youngster, attending Robert Hopkins Public School, where he got involved in drama for the first time. A report in Hello Magazine in 2015 quoted the star of action franchises such as Mission Impossible, saying he had always been a risk-taker.

“I remember in Ottawa I used to do flips off the roof,” Cruise said. “That was the first time I broke my leg! I landed right on the sidewalk.”

— Christina Spencer

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Showbizz Daily (English)

Tom Cruise's younger years: from seminary student to world famous actor

Posted: February 25, 2024 | Last updated: February 25, 2024

Humble beginnings

Tom Cruise may be one of Hollywood's most famous actors, but he didn't have an easy start in life. Cruise experienced a lot of instability from a young age, in fact, over the years, Tom Cruise would attend 15 different schools!

Tom wanted to be a priest!

Join us to look at Tom Cruise's early years and how he eventually went from wanting to become a Catholic priest to becoming a Hollywood actor.

Tom grew up with three sisters

Tom Cruise, born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV to mother Mary Lee (pictured), a special education teacher, and father Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. Tom Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York, and has three sisters.

Tom's father was abusive

Cruise has spoken in interviews about his life growing up and said that his family was poor and his father was abusive. In an interview with Fox News, Cruise said, "[My father] was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you."

"It was a great lesson in life..."

Tom continued, "It was a great lesson in my life—how he'd lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang! For me, it was like, 'There's something wrong with this guy. Don't trust him. Be careful around him.'"

Cruise's family was constantly moving

If dealing with an abusive father wasn't enough, the family was constantly moving due to their low income, which meant that Tom was often bullied at school.

"I was always the new kid..."

According to TheThings.com, Tom Cruise once said in an interview, "I had no really close friend. I was always the new kid with the wrong shoes, the wrong accent."

Being new all the time was hard

According to Wikipedia, the family moved so often that Tom Cruise attended 15 different schools in 14 years, over the course of his primary and secondary education years. Cruise has said that constantly being new was very difficult for him.

Tom was diagnosed with dyslexia

To make matters worse, he also had a learning disability. The actor said, "I didn't have a friend to share things with and confide in. And being diagnosed with dyslexia did not help matters."

Cruise and his family lived in Canada

In 1971, when Cruise was just nine years old, his father accepted a job as a defence consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces. So young Tom and his family moved north to Beacon Hill, Ottawa.

Tom discovered theatre in the fourth grade

In Ottawa, Cruise attended Robert Hopkins Public School, and thanks to his Drama teacher George Steinburg, Tom became interested in theatre while in the fourth grade.

Tom's interest in acting grew while in Canada

During his time in Canada that Tom's interest in acting continued to grow. In addition to Robert Hopkins Public School, Cruise also attended Henry Munro Middle school in Ottawa.

Tom chipped a tooth playing hockey

While living in Canada, the actor also became quite interested in hockey and, in particular, was talented at playing floor hockey. In early pictures of Cruise, you can see that he has a chipped tooth. The star told reporters in a 1985 interview that it was due to falling during a hockey game during his time in Canada.

In 1974 Tom moved back to the US

After just three years in Canada, in 1974, Tom's mother decided to leave his father and return to the United States with Tom and his sisters. Eventually, Tom's mother would remarry Tom's stepfather Jack South (pictured).

But still life was unstable...

Unfortunately for Tom and his sisters, their life continued to be quite unstable once his mother left his father. The family continued to move around frequently for the rest of Tom's childhood and teen years.

Tom once wanted to become a priest

Even though Tom Cruise is closely associated with the Church of Scientology these days, Cruise actually grew up in a devout Catholic household. Tom even considered becoming a priest at one point.

A place of solace for Tom

According to the Daily News, the Catholic Church was a place of solace in Cruise's youth, and Father Ric Schneider convinced young Tom to apply to St. Francis Seminary School in Cincinnati, Ohio.

"Tom was instantly hooked..."

The Daily News reported that the priest said, "Tom was instantly hooked, I think he wanted a good education. With his parents going through a divorce, it was tough on him, that's maybe one of the reasons why he came here."

He was the drama club leader at seminary

The news outlet reported that Tom barely passed the test required to enter into the seminary in 1976. And while he wasn't a promising student, he seemed to have a knack for acting and was the drama club leader.

"We thought the priests had a great lifestyle.."

Tom's best friend from his time in seminary, Shane Dempler spoke to the Daily News about Tom's time studying to be a priest. Dempler said, "He had a very strong Catholic faith. We went to Mass, spent time in the chapel and enjoyed hearing stories from the priests. We thought the priests had a great lifestyle and we were really interested in priesthood."

But Tom was no angel...

Despite his interest in becoming a priest, Tom Cruise was certainly not a saint during his time at the seminary. Shane Dempler said the pair would skip school to drink and smoke and eventually were asked to leave the seminary when they were caught stealing alcohol from the priests.

Tom knew that acting was his true calling

Tom then went on the finish his education at Glen Ridge High School in New Jersey. During his final years of high school, he participated in many school plays, and it was no surprise to friends that he decided to move to New York to pursue acting after graduating. Little did they know he would end up becoming one of the most famous actors in Hollywood.

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• The Fascinating Life of Tom Cruise: From Canada to Hollywood Stardom

Tom Cruise is one of the most famous actors in Hollywood. Before he became a household name, Tom Cruise had a complicated and busy life starting from Ottawa, Canada. Read about his journey from Canada to Hollywood stardom.

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, better known as Tom Cruise , is one of the most famous actors in Hollywood. He has starred in some of the most iconic films of all time, from Risky Business to Top Gun and Mission Impossible. But before he became a household name, Tom Cruise had a complicated and busy life. Tom Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York in 1962. When he was four years old, his family moved to Ottawa, Canada, where his father had found a job.

Tom attended the new Robert Hopkins Public School for fourth and fifth grade studies. During this time, he discovered his love for acting while improvising at a Carleton Elementary School drama festival. In 1974, when Tom was in sixth grade, his mother Mary Lee took him and his sisters back to the United States. Tom continued his education in New Jersey and eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.

Tom Cruise's first major role was in the 1983 film Risky Business, which is widely recognized as the film that brought him to the public eye. This success continued when Tom Cruise received more Academy Award nominations, this time for his role in Born on the Fourth of July. He also starred in Losin' It with Shelly Long and Top Gun with Nicole Kidman. Tom Cruise won't play action hero Jack Reacher when the franchise restarts on television, because the star is too short. The film will see Tom Cruise reprise one of his most famous roles, Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell, 34 years after he first put on the costume of a United States Navy pilot. Tom Cruise has denied hilarious rumors that he was wearing a “fake ass” during his film Valkyrie several years ago, after a memorable screenshot went viral earlier this year.

Nicole Kidman has made a rare public statement about her adopted children with her ex-husband Tom Cruise. Scarlett Johansson has strongly denied a new claim by a former Scientologist that she once “auditioned” to date Tom Cruise after his split from Nicole Kidman. Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise has reportedly not seen the daughter he shares with his ex-wife, actress Katie Holmes for years. This week, Tom Cruise sent a message of support to fellow actor George Clooney after the latter was injured in an unpleasant motorcycle accident. Tom Cruise is one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood and has been for decades. His incredible career has spanned over four decades and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

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61 Fascinating Facts About Tom Cruise

1. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV  was born on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, N.Y., to  Thomas Cruise Mapother III , an electrical engineer, and Mary Lee Pfeiffer , both of Louisville, Ky. (His grandfather and great-grandfather were both Thomas Cruise Mapother, as well.)

2. He has two older sisters, Lee Anne and Marian , and one younger sister, Catherine , nicknamed Cass. 

3. Cruise wanted to act from around the time he was 4 and started doing impressions of everyone from Donald Duck to Humphrey Bogart and Elvis Presley .

4. In 1974, when the family was living in Ottawa, Mary Lee packed up and took the kids back to Louisville. She officially divorced Tom III in August 1975 and, six weeks later, he remarried, briefly. Joan Lebendiger , recently widowed, had four kids, one of whom later told biographer Andrew Morton that they never saw their stepbrother Tom again after the wedding.

"As a kid, I had a lot of hidden anger about that. I'd get hit, and I didn't understand it," Cruise  recalled to  Vanity Fair  in 1994.

"He was the kind of guy who really got picked on a lot at school himself when he was growing up," he said of his father. "He had also been small, though he ended up being six foot two. People had been quite brutal to him. Inside, I believe he was a really sensitive individual." Tom III could also "actually be quite loving." 

But in 2006 he told Parade  that his dad was "a bully and a coward—the person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life, how he'd lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang!"

Cruise visited his father in the hospital before he died of cancer in 1984 and Tom III said he'd get better and they would "'talk about the whole thing,'" the actor told  VF , but that never came to pass.

5. Tom was very close to his mother, whom he described to James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio   as "a very warm, charismatic woman, very kind, very generous." She worked four jobs at any given time to take care of them, and Tom had a paper route to pitch in. "Every night I'd come home, bathe my feet and sit in the family room, and Tom would massage my feet for a half-hour," Mary Lee recalled to Rolling Stone . (She died at 80 in 2017.)

6. He was also protective of his sisters and, as the man of the house, took on the role of scrutinizing their boyfriends when they'd come by to meet the family.

7. Cruise was raised Catholic and he spent his freshman year of high school at St. Francis Seminary in Cincinnati, after a priest named Father Ric Schneider gave a talk at his (also Catholic) school in Louisville. "He was a typical teenager, trying to find his way in life," Schneider told the New York Daily News in 2013. "We would give them an IQ test, and he just about made the cut. The cutoff is 110, and he scored exactly 110."

It's been rumored that Cruise considered entering the priesthood, but he doesn't it remember it that way. "We didn't have the money back then, and I went for the education for a year, and it was free," Cruise has explained.

8. Mary Lee got remarried to Jack South in 1978 and the whole family moved to New Jersey when Tom was 16.

"In the beginning, I felt threatened by my stepfather," Cruise told Rolling Stone . "There's a part of you that's in love with your mother. But he is such a wise, smart man. He loved my mother so much that he took us all in, four young people. We'd bet on football games, and he was a terrible bettor, so I'd make lots of money."

As for his dad, Tom III, who had recently passed away, "I think that he felt remorse for a lot that had happened. He was a person who did not have a huge influence on me in my teens; the values and motivation really came from my stepfather. But he was important. Really important. It's all sort of complex. There wasn't one thing I felt."

9. He was always a daredevil, jumping off things, riding his bike too fast, sometimes into walls and, here and there, breaking bones. In high school he joined the glee club and did plays. He was also an athlete, over the years dabbling in soccer, baseball, basketball, football and ice hockey, and he wrestled. Sports and acting were where he really stood out and, shocker, the ladies have loved him since grammar school.

"I was a wild kid," Cruise admitted. "I'd cut school. Everything had to do with my wanting always to push the envelope to see: where do I stand with myself? How far can I go?"

10. Cruise has been open about his battle with dyslexia, calling himself "a functional illiterate" in school, though he "loved learning. I wanted to learn, but I knew I had failed in the system."

"My energy was always all over the place. Reading was not at the top of my list, because it took me so long," he told Cameron Crowe for Interview in 1986. "When I wrote a paper, my mother would help me with it. I would take a test and get very nervous. I would skip questions and skip lines. I've gotten better. I've learned to control my eyes. I used to have to use my finger all the time. I just wasn't relaxed about it."

11. Senior year of high school he got kicked off the football team after he was caught drinking, according to Morton, but that left him time to audition for the school musical, Guys and Dolls . He played Nathan Detroit, and a commercial director who happened to catch a performance told him he should pursue acting professionally. So, he started going to New York on weekends to audition for musicals—and he missed his graduation ceremony while performing in an amateur production of Godspell .

12. Cruise made his movie debut in the 1981 drama Taps , in a role that was bigger than the one he was originally cast in "because you could see right away that he had a giant talent," former Paramount head Sherry Lansing said in Stephen Galloway 's 2017 biography Leading Lady . "He was always extremely focused and exceptionally polite."

13. On the set of Francis Ford Coppola 's The Outsiders , featuring a veritable who's-who of '80s-era heartthrobs , prankster Cruise scrawled "Helter Skelter" on co-star Diane Lane 's mirror and put honey on her toilet seat.

14. The only direction Cruise received for his iconic Risky Business dance to "Old Time Rock and Roll" was one line in the script: "Joel dances in underwear through the house." He ad-libbed the rest, grabbing the candlestick, "using it as a guitar, jumping on the table. I waxed half the floor and kept the other half dirty, so I could slide in on my socks. As we went along, I threw more stuff in," he shared with Crowe in 1986.

15. Cruise dated his Risky Business co-star Rebecca De Mornay , who called him a "pure person." She told Rolling Stone in 1986, "There's something earnest and virtuous about him that's quite rare." According to Taps co-star Sean Penn , they were out at a club in New York one night and after realizing that a girl he was talking to was trying to pick him up, Cruise "screamed at her, 'I have a girlfriend I'm in love with!'" (Perhaps at the time readers thought Penn might be exaggerating.) He and De Mornay started dating in the summer of 1983 and maintained a long-distance relationship while he shot Ridley Scott 's Legend in London, but broke up when he returned to the U.S. to start making Top Gun .

16. Top Gun producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson envisioned no one other than Cruise playing Maverick after they saw a magazine story about the elite flying school at San Diego's Miramar Naval Air Station and went down to see the hot shots in person. "From the first time we went down to Miramar—even before the script was written—we said, 'These guys are Tom Cruises,'" Bruckheimer told Rolling Stone .

17. Although Cruise also told Rolling Stone in 1986 that he wasn't sure he would be able to get married in his "present state of mind," he tied the knot with  Mimi Rogers on May 9, 1987, two years after meeting her at a dinner party. Emilio Estevez  was Cruise's best man.

18. Paul Newman , his co-star in 1987's The Color of Money , turned him on to race car driving and Cruise has been feeling the need for speed on land and in the air (and sometimes on the water) ever since. Years later the student became the teacher when, in 2010, Cruise taught Zac Efron  about motorcycles. "I don't know," Efron told Details when asked why Cruise offered to do that. "I don't even want to know. It's just so cool that he gave a s--t, the fact that he cared at all."

19. Mimi and her first husband, Jim Rogers , were both members of the Church of Scientology (Jim was a high-level auditor) and she's said to have introduced Cruise to the organization, giving him L. Ron Hubbard 's Dianetics and other literature. His immersion in Scientology coincided with the release of Top Gun and the actor becoming one of the biggest stars in the world, and to this day Cruise remains the most famous member of the church.

20. Despite being critically panned, 1988's Cocktail , starring Cruise as a playboy bartender, gave Disney its biggest opening weekend ever at the time: $11.8 million.

21. According to Morton's 2008 biography  Tom Cruise , director Oliver Stone wanted Tom to be injected with a chemical that would have rendered him temporarily paralyzed so he could better identify with the role of real-life Vietnam War veteran and activist Ron Kovic in 1989's  Born on the Fourth of July . The insurance company understandably shut that idea down. The film still won two Oscars, best editing and best director for Stone, so it worked out.

22. People named Cruise its "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1990. Soon after, he and Rogers divorced. When Vanity Fair  asked about his first marriage in 1994, Cruise replied tersely , "It was a long time ago. I really don't think about it."

23. Cruise met Nicole Kidman  during casting for the racing drama Days of Thunder and they tied the knot on Dec. 24, 1990. They adopted two children, Isabella and Connor , and starred in two more movies together, Far and Away and Eyes Wide Shut .

After Isabella arrived, Cruise told Vanity Fair in 1994 , "We talked about children from time to time, but there was always the work. But then we went, When is it ever going to be the right time? That's how the conversation started. You're lying in bed at night and you're trying to sleep, so you roll over and you go, What would happen if we had this in our life?

"One of the things that Nic and I talk about is that now suddenly we're a family. We're at that point where we're trying to define where we are. Can we still party? Are we really boring? Oh, my God . . . we're old!"

24. Disney had Cruise in mind when they created the look of the title character in 1992's Aladdin . "There's a confidence with all of his attitudes and his poses," lead animator Glen Keane said in a DVD extras feature.

25. An old tabloid go-to back in the 1980s and '90s was to claim that this or that star was gay, and Cruise was aware that the rumor was out there.

"First of all, I don't think it's an indictment," Cruise told Vanity Fair in 1994. "But I hadn't heard those rumors till about three months ago myself… I don't know why they say it. I've heard everything from I've cheated on my wife to my wife was there on the set of  The Firm  because she was pissed off about my love scene on the beach. It's not true, but people are going to say what they want to say."

26. Cruise wanted Brian De Palma to direct Mission: Impossible , which would mark his debut as a producer with his agent turned partner Paula Wagner , even though De Palma was in movie jail following several flops. Cruise even deferred his $20 million salary (not including his back-end deal) so they could raise the movie's budget. Mission accomplished: M:I made almost $500 million worldwide and spawned a franchise . De Palma, however, didn't attend the film's premiere in May 1996, reportedly because he and Cruise didn't always see eye to eye during production.

27. Shooting M:I , Cruise insisted they use a fan big enough to create the 120 mile-per-hour wind he'd be facing if he was really clinging to a bullet train while a helicopter exploded behind him. A crew member told Galloway, "He said, 'I want the wind blowing in my face and I want my jaws to be blowing.' That's Tom. He's a guy's guy."

28. The intense Eyes Wide Shut shoot was scheduled to last four months but ended up keeping Tom and Nicole in London for 18 months. Also during their time in England, as fate would have it, they attended Princess Diana 's funeral in September 1997, as did with Tom Hanks  and Steven Spielberg , who were in town making Saving Private Ryan .

29. "All I can say is that I hope we are together when we are 80," Nicole Kidman told  Talk  in 2000. "I can't say we will be, but I will be so devastated if we are not." Alas, they announced their separation on Feb. 5, 2001. "She knows why, and I know why," Cruise cryptically told Vanity Fair later that year. "She's the mother of my children, and I wish her well. And I think that you just move on. And I don't say that lightly. I don't say that with anything."

30. Penélope Cruz  successfully sued an Australian tabloid in June 2003, winning damages and a retraction over a story claiming she and then-boyfriend Cruise had postponed their impending marriage because she had cheated on him. They broke up in January 2004 after more than two years of dating, a source telling People the relationship "just ran its course."

31. The Church of Scientology denied a 2012 Vanity Fair report that Homeland actress Nazanin Boniadi , then a church member, had basically been recruited to date Cruise for a few months, starting in October 2004 with a group outing that included renting the skating rink at Rockefeller Center and dinner at Nobu. "I'd rather not talk about that," Boniadi told the New York Post in 2013.

32. Cruise specifically held out for J.J. Abrams to direct Mission: Impossible III —Abrams' feature film debut—after watching some episodes of Alias . Paramount was freaking out, wanting M:I3 for a summer 2005 tentpole release, which wasn't going to happen if Cruise and Abrams—busy at the moment with a show called Lost —got their way, but it turned out Cruise had an ace up his sleeve. Spielberg was ready to roll with War of the Worlds in time to give Paramount the summer blockbuster it needed while they waited for Abrams to become available.

33. On May 23, 2005, a giddy Cruise raised his arms in victory, got down on one knee and did a couple of fist pumps, and then jumped up on Oprah Winfrey 's couch (also twice), fueled by love for his new girlfriend, Katie Holmes . "You're gone," the talk show host observed.

"I've got so much energy, I can't help it," Cruise said.

They were both laughing hysterically and the studio audience was cheering, but… maybe you had to be there?

Lest anyone forget, Holmes was at the taping and Winfrey led a chant for her to come out. "She's gonna run!" Cruise exclaimed. "She is freaking out ." Then he took off for backstage to go get her, the camera trailing him, and once they had emerged Cruise enveloped the Dawson's Creek star in a hug.

That moment unwittingly set the tone for Cruise and Holmes' entire relationship, romantic to many but to everyone… just a lot .

34. A month later, Cruise accused Matt Lauer  of being "glib" when the Today host questioned his take on mental health care—specifically, his dismissal of psychiatry and his criticism of Brooke Shields ' "irresponsible" use of medication to treat postpartum depression.

35. Cruise and Holmes' daughter, Suri Cruise , was born on April 18, 2006.

36. Mission: Impossible III came out on May 5, 2006, and did… fine. It was (and remains) the lowest-grossing installment of the franchise, making $134 million domestically, but more memorably it marked the moment where folks started wondering if Cruise had lost his movie-star mojo, if his unadulterated zeal had turned off audiences for good. Not making it better: Paramount severed its 14-year relationship with Cruise's production company that August, and then-Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone actually told the Wall Street Journal , "We don't think that someone who effectuates creative suicide and costs the company revenue should be on the lot. His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount."

37. Suri was introduced to the world on the September 2006 cover of Vanity Fair , zipped up in her father's leather jacket akin to how Paul McCartney   snuggled daughter Mary on the cover of his 1970 solo album McCartney . The first glimpse at the cover was a huge get for Katie Couric 's first night as lead anchor of the CBS Evening News .

38. Cruise and Holmes' wedding at the 15th-century Castello Orsini-Odescalchi in Rome on Nov. 18, 2016, reportedly cost upward of $3 million . Guest Giorgio Armani designed the bride's ceremony and reception dresses and attendees included Will Smith  and Jada Pinkett Smith , John Travolta  and Kelly Preston , David  and Victoria Beckham , Jim Carrey  and Jenny McCarthy , Leah Remini  and Angelo Pagan , and Jennifer Lopez  and Marc Anthony . Andrea Bocelli performed.

39. Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige was Cruise's best man. According to Remini, who left the church in 2013, a traditional Scientology wedding ceremony includes the vow "to never close their eyes in sleep on a disagreement or an upset."

40. Shields and husband Chris Henchy were also in attendance, Cruise having apologized for publicly disparaging his Endless Love co-star's use of medication to treat postpartum depression. "If you get invited to that wedding, you go," Shields recalled on The Jenny McCarthy Show in 2016. The actress even provided the bride's "something old": an antique enamel compact.

41. 2010's Knight and Day with Cameron Diaz  was widely treated as some sort of "comeback" movie for Cruise, a test to see if he could still have a monster action movie hit after Mission: Impossible III underwhelmed.

"I don't understand why people think that," he marveled to the U.K.'s Telegraph . "I've been working the whole time."

42. His roles in the interim had included his unrecognizable—and hilarious—surprise turn as crass, bullying, bald and fat studio exec Les Grossman in Ben Stiller 's Tropic Thunder , for which he earned a Golden Globe nomination.

"I had about a dozen people making the silicone prosthetics for his head, neck, chest, and hands," makeup designer Barney Burman recalled to Grantland . "We made him special gloves. I did the sculpting, someone else did the molds, someone else was casting them. I had six different people punching hairs into the scalp piece, so his entire head was one-at-a-time, hand-punched hairs; his arms were hand-punched one at a time; his chest was hand-punched."

Added Aida Caefer , "I made the fat suits for Tom Cruise. He was all for  the more ridiculous, the better . The suit went from his neck all the way down to his ankles…The character moved around a lot and he was so soaked in sweat that we had rotating suits for him—one in the morning and one after lunch."

"Tom choreographed all his own moves," Stiller said. "I remember watching him do this stuff and thinking this is so frigging funny."

43. The rumor that Cruise turned down the role of Iron Man, which would have changed the whole vibe of the Marvel Universe, is not true, he says. "Not close," he told ComicBook.com in 2018 when asked if he was really almost Tony Stark. "Not close, and I love Robert Downey Jr. I can't imagine anyone else in that role, and I think it's perfect for him."

44. For 2011's Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol , Cruise hung off the edge of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai—the world's tallest building—without a double (though with the appropriate wires). And while he'd been doing as much of his own physical laboring as possible for decades, this reinvigorated Cruise's reputation as the guy who does all the death-defying stunts the insurance companies will allow. The film's $695 million worldwide box office also signaled that Cruise's reputation had preceded him—in a good way.

45. Holmes filed for divorce in June 2012. Her father, attorney Martin Holmes , had helped draft their prenuptial agreement and all was remarkably settled within weeks. And neither of them have ever talked about what happened . They've acknowledged that they were once married to each other, but why it ended has remained anyone's guess. And, oh, how the people have guessed.

46. Eyebrows were raised when the 5-foot-7 Cruise was tapped to play 6-foot-5 vigilante Jack Reacher from Lee Childs ' best-selling novel series.

"Size in my books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force," Childs explained. "Cruise portrays that in his own way."

47. Not as initially OK with the creative license was Interview With the Vampire   author Ann Rice , who according to Vanity Fair was livid in the early '90s when Cruise was cast to play Lestat, having written the character with Rutger Hauer in mind.

"It always helps if one is controversial in casting a movie," director Neil Jordan said. "I just thought that if Tom was willing to go the distance this character demands—and he was—then we could end up with something quite extraordinary, and we did."

48. Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation was legendary before it hit theaters in 2015 for Cruise's viral airplane stunt, in which he hung onto the door of an Airbus A400M as it took off. For real. He also did his own motorcycle chase and learned how to hold his breath for six and a half minutes for the underwater document swap.

49. He was back on the bike for Mission: Impossible—Fallout and "when the [safety] rigs didn't work, we just went for it," director Christopher McQuarrie told the New York Times . "Everything that you're seeing Tom doing, he's doing free riding on cold cobblestones. Sometimes there was rain; sometimes there was morning dew. There was always a danger of skidding and wiping out."

Cruise also did his own skydiving along with Henry Cavill 's stunt double, dangled from a rope attached to a flying helicopter, and piloted a helicopter for a mid-air chase scene, getting his certification in six weeks. It normally takes three months, McQuarrie said, but Cruise trained for 16 hours a day to cut the time in half.

"Tom was having the time of his life," the director said.

50. Cruise has social media accounts but they are strictly for un-risky business, and he prefers to not know everything that's happening online. "Sometimes I have to for work, but I keep it very limited," he told E! News in 2016. "I don't spend time doing that kind of stuff."

51. Cruise isn't one to let himself go in between physically taxing roles. "Sea-kayaking, caving, fencing, treadmill, weights, rock-climbing, hiking… I jog… I do so many different activities," he has said.

In fact, he refers to his personal workout space—a version of which he takes with him everywhere—as the "Pain Cave."

"Only the motivated can enter," he explained to the AP at the 2017 premiere of The Mummy . "All you got to do is just be motivated. Anyone can come in, we have the crew come in, and we just make it available to everyone."

As co-star Jake Johnson   revealed: "You start every morning with the daily challenge. So before work starts, you're in there. His hair and makeup team is in there, his crew is in there, so there's about 15, 20 people every day doing their squats and jumping jacks. And then I kinda got into it with him…I wanted to be in a Tom Cruise movie and do it the Tom Cruise way."

That includes, alas, avoiding sugar.

"I love sugar," Cruise assured James Corden  on The Late Late Show in 2018, "but I can't eat it because when I'm training, I'm doing all these movies—so I send it to everyone." And then, "I wait for the calls. Like, 'tell me about it.'"

52. Don't tell anyone, but Cruise is human: Aside from what he did to himself running around in childhood, he threw out his back making Legend ; developed an ulcer while shooting Eyes Wide Shut ; tore his labrum scaling a cliff at Dead Horse Point, Utah, for Mission: Impossible 2 ; and broke an ankle on Mission: Impossible—Fallout .

"It was the easy one where I'm running and I jump from one building to the next," Cruise later described the fateful stunt on  The Tonight Show .

53. But this guy commits . In addition to doing three months of helicopter pilot training in six weeks and learning how to hold his breath like he's David Blaine , he played pool for 12 hours a day to play Fast Eddie Felson's protegee in The Color of Money. He lost 18 pounds and read classic books out loud to work on his diction to play centuries-old Lestat in Interview With the Vampire. He learned German to better embody a World War II-era officer in Valkyrie . He actually spent a year and a half learning how to fly a helicopter for  Mission: Impossible—Fallout  (before his whirlwind certification).

54. "I haven't seen him in awhile, but he has sent me a birthday gift every year since I was 11 years old," Dakota Fanning  said on Watch What Happens Live in 2016 about her dad in 2005's War of the Worlds . "Beautiful gifts, it's really kind. I always think, 'Oh, when I'm 18, he'll probably stop. Oh, 21, he'll stop. But every year."

What does Team Cruise pick out? "It's usually shoes," the actress, then 22, shared.

55. In 1986, he told Cameron Crowe , "Let's face it, I'm not saving lives here. I feel fortunate, but this is just one aspect of my life. I love my work, but my family is very important to me, too. You pick up the paper and see that there are many things happening outside my little world."

Since then, the real-life heroics include, all within a few years in the '90s: He lifted two boys over a barricade to prevent them being crushed at the Mission: Impossible premiere in London; he sent his own yacht's skiff to rescue a family whose sailboat was on fire in the Mediterranean in 1996; he rushed to the aid of a woman who had been mugged in London; and he paid the $7,000 emergency room bill for an uninsured cashier who was injured in a hit and run—an accident Cruise witnessed.

"It's just an impulse," Cruise told People in 2000 about his spate of good deeds. "I was never a Boy Scout, so maybe I'm making up for it now."

Or, as he said in the video of an interview for his church that went viral in 2008, "You can't drive past an accident, because as a Scientologist you are the only one who can help"

56. Though he's the most famous face of Scientology, Cruise is incredibly protective of his beliefs and doesn't say too much about it publicly. But in October 2016, he told ITV at the London premiere of Jack Reacher: Never Go Back , "It's something that has helped me incredibly in my life. I've been a Scientologist for over 30 years. It's something that is, you know...without it, I wouldn't be where I am. So, it's a beautiful religion. I'm incredibly proud."

Where Did Tom Cruise Grow Up?

Though he would eventually become one of the biggest movie stars in history, Tom Cruise had a complicated and busy life long before he was a big-screen superstar. He grew up in multiple locations and never called just one city his home. 

Tom Cruise was born in the city of Syracuse, New York on July 3, 1962. Cruise grew up in different cities across North America. After his childhood in New York, Cruise and his family moved to Canada then eventually back to the U.S. in various cities.

Cruise’s journey through his youth was winding and often troubled but it eventually led to the fame and fortune that made him a Hollywood legend. 

Cruise’s Early Years

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV was the son of Mary Lee, a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. Born in Syracuse, New York, Cruise was just one of four children; he has three sisters named Lee Anne, Cass, and Marian. 

Aside from his sisters, Cruise also has a cousin, William Mapother . William is an accomplished actor who has appeared in Lost , In the Bedroom, and other projects. 

How Tall Is Tom Cruise? Exact Height Revealed

What is tom cruise’s daily routine, where does tom cruise live.

Growing up, Cruise’s family didn’t have it easy and the actor has stated that they lived in near-poverty for much of his youth. 

His home life was also hard because of his abusive dad. The actor has repeatedly referred to his late father as a “bully” and “coward.” Their relationship was incredibly strained right from the beginning. 

Because of his low income and constant relocating, Cruise was frequently bullied as a kid. The actor has said he grew up without friends and was ridiculed for everything from his choice of shoes to his accent. 

His father took a job as a defense consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces in 1971 so nine-year-old Cruise and his sisters and mother moved to Beacon Hill, Ottawa. He attended Robert Hopkins Public School for elementary school and it was in fourth grade that he first became involved in theater, thanks to his drama teacher George Steinburg. 

Cruise attended several other schools in Canada around that age, including Henry Munro Middle school in Ottawa. His interest in acting continued to grow throughout this time in his life. 

Cruise was also becoming a budding athlete at that young age and excelled at floor hockey. Sadly, during a hockey game Cruise fell hard and chipped a front tooth, something that is quite noticeable in early photos of the star. 

Return to the U.S. 

In 1974, when Tom was in sixth grade, his mother Mary Lee left his father and took Tom and his sisters back to the United States. It was there she would remarry after meeting Cruise’s stepfather Jack South. 

Tom would have little-to-no contact with his dad until his death years later.  

After his mother remarried, Cruise’s family wound up moving around America a lot without ever fully settling. His family lived in various locations, including his mother’s home state of Kentucky . All told, Tom was enrolled in 15 schools during this time in his life. 

Eventually, Cruise planted roots in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he received a church scholarship and attended a seminary school while briefly considering a career as a priest. He left Ohio, however, and his family traveled to the east coast. 

Tom ended his schooling career in Glen Ridge, New Jersey where he graduated from Glen Ridge High School. 

As Tom graduated from high school, his interest in acting had blossomed even more. His final years saw him starring in multiple high school productions including Guys and Dolls .

Growing Up and Moving On

After high school, Cruise was intent on pursuing his career in acting. At the young age of 18, he moved from his family in New Jersey and started his acting quest across the river in New York . 

Cruise worked hard to achieve his goals and would soon relocate across the country to Los Angeles where he secured an agent and began to land bit parts. In just a few short years, Cruise went from small roles in films like Endless Love to career-making turns in Risky Business and All the Right Moves. 

After that, Tom Cruise’s career skyrocketed to heights that few have reached. From Mission: Impossible to Top Gun and War of the Worlds , Cruise is certifiably one of the largest names in Hollywood history. 

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OTTAWA REWIND

Join me as we wind back the time in ottawa., beacon hill named after lost lighthouse.

A concept sketch of how the lighthouse in the Ottawa River may have looked based on a photo taken by Lou Bouchard and aerial images from the 1960s.

The east-Ottawa community of Beacon Hill has a history of celebrity upbringing since the early 1970s when the suburban neighbourhood was originally developed. Tom Cruise, then known as Thomas Mapother, lived in Beacon Hill in the early 1970s along with another Hollywood Tom, the home-grown comedian Tom Green. Bryan Adams and former Saturday Night Live cast member and Weekend Update anchor Norm MacDonald also spent their youth in this east end suburb located a few kilometers downstream from the Nation’s Capital.

Having attracted a number of celebrities, the area also has a history of keeping people away from its shores with the construction of a warning beacon, the very beacon that gave the community its name.

This old 1880 map clearly shows a lighthouse in between the Duck Islands on the Ottawa River. (Gloucester Township Map 1880)

A few hundred metres north of the shore near Beacon Hill lie the remains of one of the Ottawa River’s lost lighthouses. Constructed in 1860 between the gaps of the the Ducks Islands near the provincial border, the lighthouse structure was built as a navigational aid to warn sailors of the dangerous reef of rocks known as “Green Shoal”. Navigating ships on the Ottawa River was a relatively new adventure in the mid-19th century, but with the construction of the Rideau Canal in 1832 and the Carillon Canal in 1833, the Ottawa River became a busy shipping and tourist route between Ottawa, Lake Ontario and Montreal before the advent of area rail travel. The waterway was busy with steamships plying the waves between cities, but a number of shoals and islands created hazards for the vessels and required the need for warning lights to mark their location. The government at the time gave the order for the construction of approximately 30 lighthouses on the Ottawa River to assist in the safe passage of growing river traffic. Pre-Confederation Canadian lighthouses were usually built of stone or brick, but with the need to build so many new structures in time, the newly formed Department of Marine and Fisheries required cheaper and faster lighthouse construction techniques.

A 1904 map shows lighthouses in red, a number of which were on the Ottawa River. The Beacon Hill lighthouse, on Green Shoal, is the furthest red dot on the left. (bytown.net -Department of the Interior, Atlas of Canada 1904)

Built as four sided tapering wooden clapboard towers, these structures had the advantage of being cheap to build, and in some cases could be relocated if the site needed attention. The water hazard known as Green Shoal would seen see the construction of such a beacon structure in 1860 on a conical pedestal sheathed in iron boiler plates, riveted together like some kind of Jules Verne rocket to withstand the strong river current and sheets of crushing ice carried downstream. Atop this iron clad pedestal was placed a 4 sided white wooden pyramidal tower 21 feet in height. Using a standard design used for many of the Ottawa River lighthouses, the structure housed a fixed light that was initially fueled by Kerosene, a fuel invented by the Canadian geologist Abraham Gesner in 1846. The Green Shoal light was visible to passing ships from a distance of nine miles and eventually was rebuilt in 1900 when it was most likely converted to using an electric lamp.

In 1862 the Sessional Papers of the Province of Canada reveal a house was requested to be built for the keeper of the lighthouse, yet its location or fate is unknown. In 1891 the lighthouse keeper by the name of A. Laberge earned an annual salary of $250 for his duties maintaining the light at Green Shoal.

A close-up of a 1965 aerial image shows that the beacon was still in place on its pedestal on the Ottawa River. (geoOttawa)

The beacon remained in operation for more than a hundred years, being dismantled and replaced by an automated light marker sometime in the 1970s. It was at this time that a new suburb was being developed nearby, and from atop the hill on what is now Naskapi Drive, the neighbourhood got its name from the old beacon that was visible on the river below.

The location of the ruins of the lost lighthouse that gave Beacon Hill its name. (Google Maps)

Today Beacon Hill residents and those on the Quebec side of the river can catch a glimpse of the iron-clad lighthouse ruins sitting in the Ottawa River. Bashed by years of crushing river ice, the rusty remnants now list to one side, a forgotten sentinel literally frozen in time during the winter months.

All that remains of the lighthouse are the iron-clad rusty remnants of the beacon’s pedestal. (Bing Maps)

The rusting beacon ruins, literally frozen in time, encased in ice on the Ottawa River. The neighbourhood of Beacon Hill, which got its name from this very lighthouse, is in the background.

Beacon Hill, a neighbourhood that could also be called “Celebrity Hill”, continues to carry the name of the structure that once warned sailors to keep away. What’s left of this namesake slowly slips under the waves from where it emerged.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_Hill,_Ottawa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cruise

http://www.bytown.net/lighthouses.htm

Lighthouse Digest Magazine Database http://www.lighthousedigest.com/Digest/database/uniquelighthouse.cfm?value=2998BING MAPS

1891 Sessional Papers Canadian Parliament -Report Of Dominion Fisheries Canada

1862 Sessional Papers Of The Province Of Canada

GOOGLE MAPS

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Very cool. Of course, the name makes sense! You answer questions I never even thought of! Keep up the good work!

I am very fond of lighthouses; as usual, this was a fascinating read.

Thanks! I love lighthouses also!

I love lighthouses. Thanks for this fascinating post.

So do I! they are beacons of history and a mariners way of life.

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• Born July 3 , 1962 · Syracuse, New York, USA
• Birth name Thomas Cruise Mapother IV
• Height 5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
• In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history. Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences. With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986) ; The Color of Money (1986) , Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) . By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) , Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996) , for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise. In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom McDonough, Grant failor
• Spouses Katie Holmes (November 18, 2006 - August 20, 2012) (divorced, 1 child) Nicole Kidman (December 24, 1990 - August 8, 2001) (divorced, 2 children) Mimi Rogers (May 9, 1987 - February 4, 1990) (divorced)
• Children Isabella Jane Cruise Suri Cruise Connor Cruise
• Parents Thomas Mapother III Mary Lee Pfeiffer
• Relatives William Mapother (Cousin) Amy Mapother (Cousin) Katherine Mapother (Cousin) Lee Anne De Vette (Sibling)
• Often plays romantic leading men with an edge
• Often plays characters caught up in extraordinary circumstances
• Frequently plays intelligent yet laidback and likeable characters
• Beaming smile and intense eye contact
• Boundless off-stage energy
• His acting idol is Paul Newman . Much to the delight of Cruise, they became good friends during work on The Color of Money (1986) . Newman got him into racing, and Cruise ultimately raced on his team.
• Stopped to help a hit and run victim and paid her hospital bills. The victim was aspiring Brazilian actress Heloisa Vinhas (1996).
• Insists on performing many of his own stunts in his films, including climbing the exterior of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, during the filming of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) , and driving during the car chases in Jack Reacher (2012) .
• Cruise earned roughly $75 million for Mission: Impossible II (2000) . He did this by turning down any upfront salary, for instead taking a back-end deal that landed him 30% of the film's gross for both his producing and acting duties.
• He did not stay for the remainder of the 2002 Academy Awards after opening them because it was his turn to look after his and ex-wife Nicole Kidman 's children. He reportedly left the Kodak Theatre by a back door after opening proceedings and dashed home to watch the rest of the event on television with his kids Connor and Isabella.
• The thing about filmmaking is I give it everything, that's why I work so hard. I always tell young actors to take charge. It's not that hard. Sign your own checks, be responsible.
• [to Jay Leno regarding his topless Vanity Fair cover shoot] I don't drink but I had a beer that night and they only did one setup like that. I'm a cheap date. What can I say?
• [on Eyes Wide Shut (1999) ] We knew from the beginning the level of commitment needed. We felt honored to work with Stanley Kubrick . We were going to do what it took to do this picture, whatever time, because I felt - and Nic [ Nicole Kidman ] did, too - that this was going to be a really special time for us. We knew it would be difficult. But I would have absolutely kicked myself if I hadn't done this.
• I have cooked turkeys in my day but when Mom's around I let her do it.
• I was 18 when I saw Akira Kurosawa 's Seven Samurai (1954) . After about 30 seconds, I realized that this was not just a cultural thing, it was universal. Years later, I read Bushido. It talked about many things that I strive for in my own life: loyalty, compassion, responsibility, the idea of looking back on your life and taking responsibility for everything you've ever done. I'm fascinated by the samurai and the samurai code - it's one of the main reasons I wanted to make The Last Samurai (2003) .
• Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two (2025) - $13,000,000 + % of back end
• Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) - $13,000,000 + % of back end
• Top Gun: Maverick (2022) - $13,000,000 + % of back end
• The Mummy (2017) - $13,000,000 + % of gross
• Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) - $12,500,000 + % of back end

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Cruise’s made-in-Canada movie ‘Cocktail’ celebrates 25 years

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This article is more than 10 years old and some information may not be up to date.

TORONTO – Cocktail , the movie that cemented Tom Cruise’s leading man status in Hollywood and made audiences dream of a place called Kokomo, celebrates its 25 th birthday on Monday.

The simple tale of a bartender who tossed bottles and landed a wife – which opened in theatres on July 29, 1988 – was largely filmed in Toronto.

“Everybody was in awe of Tom Cruise because he was just ascending and he was definitely in control of the movie,” recalls Stuart Aikins, the movie’s Toronto casting director, from his home in B.C.

“But it wasn’t a movie that stood out for me.”

Written by Heywood Gould (previously a writer and producer of TV’s The Equalizer ) and directed by Roger Donaldson (who had just made No Way Out starring Kevin Costner ), Cocktail was Cruise’s tenth movie and came hot on the heels of Risky Business, Top Gun and The Color of Money .

The movie earned $11.8 million on its opening weekend and remained in the No. 1 spot at the box office in the U.S. and Canada for two weeks before being bumped by Young Guns .

It gave Cruise his best opening weekend — beating Top Gun by $3.6 million – and went on to earn $172 million worldwide.

In today’s dollars, Cocktail was a $300 million blockbuster.

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Cruise was Brian Flanagan, an American soldier returning to civilian life in New York City who meets a veteran bartender (Bryan Brown) and balances college studies and a job behind the bar.

With dreams of opening his own bar, Brian takes a job at a beach resort in Jamaica and falls for Jordan Mooney, a girl from a wealthy family (Elisabeth Shue).

A quarter-century after Cocktail opened in theatres, its director explains why it still resonates with audiences.

“It’s a movie that speaks to young people and their lives. What are you going to do with your career? What are you going to do with your love life? How are you going to handle your parents? All of those issues are explored in that movie,” Donaldson said in an interview last year with Movie Fanatic .

“All of those things are themes that young people are concerned with and definitely identify with… and still do.”

Here are some fun facts about Cocktail and a look at how some of its Toronto locations appear today:

– The fancy bottle tricks – known as “flair bartending” – demonstrated in Cocktail by Cruise and Brown were choreographed by John Bandy. He recently said he’s not sure which actor broke the most bottles but recalled that Cruise was a quick learner because “he’s ambidextrous.”

– At the 1989 Razzies – which “honour” the worst in cinema – Cocktail won Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay. Cruise and Donaldson had been nominated for Worst Actor and Worst Director respectively.

– One of the soldiers in the car with Cruise’s character during the movie’s opening sequence is Justin Louis, the Toronto actor who has since starred in numerous series and currently plays Det. Oscar Vega on Motive .

Also in the car is Toronto actor Chris Owens, who went on to appear in a long list of made-in-Canada shows (including 13 episodes of The X-Files ) and was a featured dancer in 2008’s High School Musical III: Senior Year .

– The Cocktail soundtrack was a huge hit, reaching No. 1 in Australia and #2 in the U.S. (and making it into the Top 10 in Canada). It included tracks by Ry Cooder, John Cougar Mellencamp, Starship and The Beach Boys. A number of songs that appeared in the movie were not on the soundtrack album – notably Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love.”

– “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys – without Brian Wilson – was the first single off the Cocktail soundtrack. Released two weeks before the movie, the song went to No. 1 in the U.S. and Australia (it made the Top 10 in Canada) and earned Grammy and Golden Globe nominations. The video for the song was shot in about two hours on a fake beach at Walt Disney World’s Grand Floridian Resort prior to its opening to the public. Full House star John Stamos can be seen playing percussion.

– Donaldson, who was born in Australia, has worked steadily as a director since Cocktail , making such films as Species and Dante’s Peak . Donaldson returned to Toronto to make 2003’s The Recruit with Colin Farrell and Al Pacino.

– Cocktail is the only movie Cruise ever made in Toronto – but it wasn’t the last time he was in the city. While his then-wife Nicole Kidman was making 1995’s To Die For in Toronto, Cruise spent time in the city learning learning to fly and earned his pilot’s license.

He returned in 1998 to attend the Toronto International Film Festival as producer of Without Limits and popped into the city briefly in the summer of 2010 to visit daughter Suri while his then-wife Katie Holmes was shooting The Kennedys .

– Making Cocktail in Canada was a bit of a homecoming for Cruise. When he was eight years old, Tom Cruise Mapother moved into a home on Monson Crescent in Ottawa with his parents and sisters and spent Grades 4 and 5 at nearby Robert Hopkins Public School and part of Grade 6 at Henry Munro Middle School.

– The classroom where Cruise’s character attends business classes is Room 3163 of the Medical Sciences Building at the University of Toronto.

– Cruise’s cousin William Mapother is credited as a production assistant on Cocktail . The on-set experience paid off because Mapother became a prolific character actor soon after, appearing in such shows as Lost and Prison Break .

– Cocktail features cameos by two then-unknown actors who went on to become TV stars. One of the customers at the beach bar in Jamaica is James Eckhouse, who only two years after Cocktail was released became Jim Walsh – father of Brenda and Brandon – on the hit series Beverly Hills 90210 .

In the wedding reception scene near the end of the movie, one of the revelers is Elisabeth Shue’s real-life brother Andrew Shue, who became famous as Billy Campbell on Melrose Place in 1992.

– Paul Benedict played Cruise’s finance professor in Cocktail . At the time he was best known as Bentley on the hit sitcom The Jeffersons . He returned to Toronto to appear in 1990’s The Freshman .

– The reggae band featured performing in the Jamaican club scene is Messenjah, which was formed in Kitchener, Ont. in 1980 and became the first Canadian reggae band signed to a major record label. The Juno-winning group performed all over the world and performed for former South African president Nelson Mandela at Toronto’s SkyDome in 1998.

– The Jamaican club scene was filmed inside The Dance Cave on the second level of Toronto’s iconic Bloor Street venue Lee’s Palace.

– When he made Cocktail , Brown was best known for his role on the TV mini-series The Thornbirds. The Australian actor was also the star of the 1986 movie F/X and its 1991 sequel. F/X became a short-lived TV series (made in Toronto) but Brown declined to reprise his role, which was taken over by fellow Aussie Cameron Daddo.

– The New York City bar Cruise’s character walks into to apply for a bartending job was a TGI Friday’s at First Ave. and 63 rd St. The interior scenes, however, were shot on a soundstage in Toronto.

– Cruise’s character Brian is twice shown in the elegant lobby of the apartment building in which Jordan’s wealthy father lives. In reality, it’s the lobby of the Canada Life building on Toronto’s University Avenue. There are, in fact, no residences there.

– Cocktail was made in a much more carefree time. The movie opens with Cruise’s character Brian and his army buddies driving in a car without wearing seat belts. Throughout the movie, patrons happily smoke inside bars. Brian doesn’t hesitate to drive Kerry (Kelly Lynch) home after a night of drinking. And Elisabeth Shue’s character – who is pregnant – is seen toasting her marriage with a glass of champagne.

Donaldson told Crave Online last year: “Well, you know, listen, times have changed. People have become more educated. They realize the impact that alcohol has on pregnancies.”

– The brief funeral scene in Cocktail was filmed at St. John’s Norway Cemetery and Crematorium on Kingston Road in Toronto.

– The Cell Block nightclub, where Brian tends bar and gets picked up by a photographer (Gina Gershon), is actually the rotunda of Toronto’s Don Jail.

– Luther Hansraj, who had one line in Cocktail as an ambulance attendant, is a Dora Mavor Moore Award winner with more than 100 theatre credits. A respected figure on the Canadian arts scene, he won a Harry Jerome Award in 1996 and an African-Canadian Achievement Award in 1997.

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Tom Cruise: 11 wild facts about the Syracuse-born actor

• Updated: Jul. 03, 2019, 5:43 p.m. |
• Published: Jul. 03, 2019, 8:50 a.m.
• Geoff Herbert | [email protected]

Leon Bennett | Getty Images

Tom Cruise with the Lumiere Award for Best Scene or Sequence for "Mission Impossible: Fallout" attends 10th Annual Lumiere Awards at Warner Bros. Studios on January 30, 2019 in Burbank, California.

Happy birthday, Tom Cruise !

The famous actor was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in Syracuse , N.Y. on July 3, 1962, just one day shy of being "Born on the Fourth of July." He and three sisters were born to Thomas Mapother III, an electrical engineer who died in 1984, and Mary Lee Pfeiffer , a special education teacher who died in 2017.

The Mapother (rhymes with "may bother") family didn't stay in Central New York long, moving around a lot when Cruise was a child. His parents divorced in 1975, and he stayed with his mother and sisters, living in places like Ottawa and Cincinnati before eventually graduating high school in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

Cruise made his acting debut in 1981 with "Endless Love" and "Taps," eventually becoming one of the biggest movie stars of all time, bringing in more than $10 billion at the global box office. Nominated for three Oscars, his credits include "Mission: Impossible," "Top Gun," "Jerry Maguire," "Minority Report," "Rain Man" and "Jack Reacher." He was also named People's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1990 and remains popular in celebrity magazines, thanks to his many high-profile relationships and controversial religious beliefs.

But how much more do you really know? Here are 10 wild facts about the man who's played everyone from Frank "T.J." Mackey and Cole Trickle to Joel Goodsen and Les Grossman:

1. Tom Cruise nearly became a Catholic priest.

Cruise is said to have been baptized Catholic at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Liverpool, N.Y., and originally planned to become a priest before finding success as an actor. He attended a Franciscan seminary school at age 14 in Cincinnati, but a classmate says "Tommy" was asked to leave for stealing booze in 1976.

( E! News reports Cruise later downplayed the idea that he chose the school to pursue the priesthood. "We didn't have the money back then, and I went for the education for a year, and it was free," he once said.)

But it's there that Cruise reportedly fell in love with acting at the school's drama club, 15 years before his big screen debut in "Endless Love." Cruise later became a Scientologist after his first wife, Mimi Rodgers, introduced him to the religion that he once claimed helped cure him of his dyslexia.

Frazer Harrison | Getty Images

Actor Tom Cruise and mother Mary Lee Mapother arrive at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 11, 2009 in Beverly Hills, California.

2. Cruise's ancestors include Irish knights.

The actor received a certificate of Irish heritage from Ireland's government in 2013 after genealogists traced his family tree back 840 years to Anglo-Normans who invaded Ireland between 1169 and 1176. His ancestry reportedly includes barons, knights, rebels and "hero landlord" Patrick Russell Cruise. (Yes, "Cruise" is a real family name.)

Amazingly, the actor has never played a knight (his name wasn't even Knight in "Knight and Day"), though he has played a current or former soldier in 8 different movies: "Taps," "Top Gun," "Born on the Fourth of July," "A Few Good Men," "The Last Samurai," "Valkyrie," "Jack Reacher" and "Edge of Tomorrow."

3. Did Cruise turn down Iron Man?

Cruise was long rumored to have turned down the superhero role that launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Iron Man. Cruise told ComicBook.com in 2018 that he was "not close" to actually playing Tony Stark, though. "Not close, and I love Robert Downey Jr. I can't imagine anyone else in that role, and I think it's perfect for him," he said.

4. He almost starred in "The Matrix" and "Enemy of the State."

It's hard to imagine anyone but Keanu Reeves as "the one," but IMDb reports Nicolas Cage, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cruise were all considered for the lead role of Neo in the Wachowskis' 1999 sci-fi film. A year before that, Cruise was supposed to star in "Enemy of the State," but his scheduling conflicts with "Eyes Wide Shut" forced him out and the part eventually went to Will Smith.

5. Cruise is nearly a foot shorter than the "Jack Reacher" character.

Cruise has played Jack Reacher in two movies based on the books by author Lee Child, despite the actor being 10 inches shorter than the character's description of 6'5" and 220-plus pounds.

"I completely agree that he, you know, doesn't look like Reacher in the book, so he knows that, too," Child told syracuse.com . "And I completely understand readers who are passionately involved with this series of books are very, very suspicious about it and about the translation to the screen. I understand that and in fact I take it as a huge compliment that people care so much."

"But the issue was, if not Tom Cruise, who else? It wasn't like we were walking past a mass rank of giant actors in order to choose Tom Cruise. You know, there aren't any giant actors. It seems to be a fact of life that all actors are pretty compact human beings. And so there's nobody, really, who would've done it better, so we decided to forget about the external physicality of Jack Reacher and instead try to capture the internals, the intangibles. And I think Cruise -- because whatever else Cruise is in terms of a superstar and celebrity and all that kind of stuff, he is also technically a very fine actor -- and so he was able to capture the inside of Reacher perfectly, I thought."

6. Cruise almost became paralyzed for "Born on the Fourth of July"

E! News reports Andrew Morton's 2008 Tom Cruise biography detailed how director Oliver Stone wanted the actor to be injected with a chemical to make him temporarily paralyzed to play real-life Vietnam War veteran and activist Ron Kovic in "Born on the Fourth of July." The insurance company shut down the risky idea (for obvious reasons), but Cruise still went on to win a Golden Globe for his acting performance and Stone won an Academy Award for best director.

7. Cruise's ex-wives are all 11 years apart in age.

Mimi Rogers was born in 1956, Nicole Kidman was born in 1967 and Katie Holmes was born in 1978. Cruise has been previously romantically linked with everyone from Rebecca De Mornay and Cher to his "Vanilla Sky" co-star Penelope Cruz, but is reportedly single now (until he meets the right lady who was born in 1989). He has two adopted children with Kidman -- Isabella and Connor -- and a 13-year-old daughter, Suri, with Holmes.

Side note: Have you ever noticed Suri Cruise sounds like "Syracuse?"

Patrick Riviere | Getty Images

Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise are pictured in Sydney, Australia, in 1993.

8. Cruise almost played Spider-Man.

Cruise was also almost in the recent Oscar-winning animated film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." Filmmakers Rodney Rothman, Bob Persichetti and Pete Ramsey explained on the Digital and DVD releases that they originally planned to create a movie within the movie, directed by James Cameron and starring Cruise as Spidey, as a nod to past film versions of the web-slinging superhero that never happened. Cameron previously wrote a 47-page script/treatment for a film version of "Spider-Man" in the '90s before Sam Raimi took over the franchise (with Tobey Maguire in the Peter Parker role), and Cruise was once in line to play Spider-Man in the '80s (for a movie that never happened), so it would've been a super-geeky easter egg for longtime fans of the character.

Getty Images; Video still

9. Cruise sends Dakota Fanning a birthday gift every year.

According to E! News, Cruise has sent a birthday gift to actress Dakota Fanning every year since he played her father in 2005's "War of the Worlds." "I haven't seen him in awhile, but he has sent me a birthday gift every year since I was 11 years old," she told "Watch What Happens Live" in 2016. "Beautiful gifts, it's really kind. I always think, 'Oh, when I'm 18, he'll probably stop. Oh, 21, he'll stop. But every year... It's usually shoes."

10. Aladdin modeled after Tom Cruise?

Disney recently released a live-action remake of "Aladdin," starring Will Smith as the blue Genie, but the 1992 animated film's hero actually resembled Tom Cruise -- on purpose. "There's a confidence with all of his attitudes and his poses," lead animator Glen Keane said in a DVD extras interview.

11. He really does his own stunts.

That's really Cruise dangling 1,700 feet off the ground in Dubai, climbing the 123-story Burj Khalifa to get to a computer server in 2011's "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol." And hanging off the side of a plane in mid-air for 2015's "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation," reaching heights of 5,000 feet. And riding motorcycles for chase scenes in "Knight and Day" and "Mission: Impossible - Fallout." And tumbling around in zero gravity for a plane crash in 2017's "The Mummy." And free-climbing in 2000's "Mission: Impossible II." And... you get the idea.

Part of it is his dedication to intense training, such as learning how to hold his breath for over six minutes underwater in "Rogue Nation," swordfighting in "The Last Samurai" and even playing pool 12 hours a day for a role in "The Color of Money." Part of it is about entertaining the audiences at any cost, including his own health -- he broke an ankle filming a stunt for "Mission: Impossible 6," threw out his back making Ridley Scott's "Legend" in 1985, and tore his labrum while scaling a cliff for Mission: Impossible II."

Upcoming movies

At 57 years old, Cruise is still going strong as an action star. His upcoming movies include a "Top Gun" sequel ("Top Gun: Maverick") in 2020 and two more "Mission: Impossible" films in 2021 and 2022.

Oh yeah, and maybe he'll fight Justin Bieber .

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Where Does Tom Cruise Live And How Big Is His House?

With a  net worth of $600 million , Tom Cruise and the word "movie star" are practically synonymous. Given his impressive resume, spanning from his breakout 1983 role in "Risky Business" to his ever-more-momentous "Mission Impossible" blockbuster franchise, the actor has not stopped making the big bucks for both himself and everyone around him — with his films earning hundreds of upon hundreds in the three decades he's been a star.

Like many of Hollywood's biggest stars, Cruise's life story was as close to rags-to-riches as they come. "For years, all I had were a bed, a desk and a chair," Tom Cruise told Roger Ebert in 1986. "When I was making a movie, they put me in hotel rooms. Between jobs, I moved back into my apartment, and my lifestyle dropped considerably." Coming from an underprivileged childhood, Cruise quickly learned the value of hard work no matter one's net worth.  "It's a strange thing, being handed so much power," Cruise also related to Ebert.  "My point of view and my values haven't changed. Everybody wants to push and pull me, but I refuse to change my lifestyle."

Nonetheless, Cruise's lifestyle has changed on the surface at least. Given that he has no doubt ditched that scarcely decorated apartment for cushier digs since, let's explore just where and what type of home Cruise inhabits these days!

Tom Cruise's penthouse is cool — even for Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise has called Florida his home base since 2018. Per Architectural Digest , Cruise fetched a pretty $55 million when he sold his Los Angeles and New York properties in 2016, moving into a multimillion-dollar penthouse in Clearwater, Florida. Planned by a wealthy Scientologist — Cruise is controversially tied to the religion — the 10-story SkyView condominium is one block from the Church of Scientology, per People . With Cruise reportedly close friends with church leader David Miscavige, a source told the outlet that the movie star was "very relaxed when he's here." 

In addition to occupying the entire top two floors, according to AD, Cruise's pad packs amenities like a roof deck, a nearly 40-foot pool, a bar, and more.What sets the pad apart from other celebrity dig, however, is the passageway that leads to a private, smaller condo on the second floor (which houses a flight simulator, for one). Additionally, there is a nine-car garage and private car elevator (what a cool phrase to say). Now that's  on par with expectations for the "Mission Impossible" star.

Tom Cruise sold his vacation home in Colorado for millions

Although Clearwater, Florida, might be Tom Cruise's personal headquarters, he also owns property in West Sussex, England — for one. Per The Sun , the estate was purchased by Cruise in 2006 for a reported $4.2 million. Bearing the regal title of "Rede Place," the property is located in Dormans Park, East Grinstead, which is reportedly close to the British headquarters of the Church of Scientology. Boasting 14 acres of land and an 11,331-square-foot interior, per insider , the manor was constructed in 2003, meaning Cruise would likely be one of its very first owners.

Cruise parted ways with his longtime 320-acre Telluride, Colo. ranch, which was reportedly a vacation refuge frequented by Cruise with ex-wife Katie Holmes and his children. Putting the ranch on sale for $39.5 million in March, per Forbes , the home sold without a hitch two months later for the asking price . Ardent followers of Cruise's career might remember this was the shooting location for a follow-up to his infamous 2005 interview with Oprah Winfrey , as noted by  Town & Country . However, Cruise's Telluride ranch's main draw, aside from being a ski haven known for its celebrity denizens, is the cozy seclusion it provides for the uber-famous. No wonder it sold so fast! 

8 Celebrities You Had No Idea Lived In Canada At One Point

While we love to flaunt our Northern pride here in good ol' Canada, it's no surprise that others want to visit and really see it for themselves — including celebrities of course!

Whether they were here to visit with family, filming for their latest feature film role, or maybe just taking a relaxing long vacation, here are 8 celebrities you had no idea lived in Canada at one point in their lives.

Circa 1971, Tom Cruise actually lived with his family right here in Ottawa! Rumour has it that his family moved to Canada because his Dad accepted a new position with the Canadian Armed Forces. They lived in Beacon Hill for years before eventually moving back to the US after his parents split.

Neil Patrick Harris

Neil Patrick Harris owned property in Vancouver's Yaletown at one point after falling in love with the area while filming Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events . There was lots of talk in 2017 after NPH tweeted about acquiring a penthouse in the area. A few months later he sealed the deal and tweeted about getting settled into his new home, making us all wonder — does he still own property in Yaletown?!

Jennifer Lawrence

Known to love this Canadian city, Jennifer Lawrence actually lived in Montreal while filming for the 2017 movie Mother! in which she held the lead role. With a price tag of $1.7 million, the apartment is said to be located downtown Montreal at Simpson and Sherbrooke.

Grant Gustin

See on Instagram

Known to frequent Vancouver for his role in The Flash which is currently filming for season six, Grant Gustin has been seen living in the city during production. Typically lasting 10 months at a time, Grant appears to own or rent a condo in Vancouver's West End after posting pictures to his Instagram. I mean, look at that view!

Halle Berry

Back in 2008, Halle Berry purchased a cabin-type home in Quebec with her former beau Gabriel Aubry. With a $1.6 million price tag at the time, the cabin was located close to Gabriel's family who lived nearby in Montreal. After she and Gabriel called it quits, Halle eventually sold the property.

Mark Wahlberg

In 2011 Mark Wahlberg was the talk of the town after he purchased a $12 million penthouse in the area. The property is apparently located in Hazelton Hotel overlooking Hazelton Avenue in Yorkville. There hasn't been any talk of Mark selling the penthouse just yet, so be sure to keep an eye out for him!

Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell

While they didn't actually live in Canada full-time, the famous power couple Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have owned property in Muskoka. The couple used to frequent the Lake Rosseau area for years, along with other celebrities like Justin Bieber and Cindy Crawford. Rumour has it, they practically spent every summer there but have since sold the property.

Inspired by his friends Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, Tom Hanks also reportedly purchased a cottage home a few years ago in the Muskoka area. He is known to spend his summers there relaxing on Lake Rosseau.

These International Celebs Have Stunning Homes In Canada & Here's When They Like To Visit

5 celebrities that have had homes in bc & one put an ice rink in their basement, 8 big-name celebs who have owned property in bc, also known as 'hollywood north' (photos), these 9 big-name celebrities have lived in vancouver & some of them still do (photos), 8 big-name celebrities that have called toronto home & where you can find their cribs (photos).

Tarik Skubal shines on Tigers’ Opening Day: ‘I think he can win a Cy Young’

CHICAGO — On the third pitch of Tarik Skubal ’s major-league career, his head whipped around as the baseball screamed off Tim Anderson ’s bat. That was how it all started, a 422-foot home run crashing into empty seats during the bizarro 2020 season.

Skubal pitched only two innings that day. The Detroit Tigers lost to the Chicago White Sox 10-4. Skubal experienced all the nerves and emotions that come with a debut. But parts of the venture left him wanting.

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“It’s kind of full circle,” Skubal said Thursday evening at Guaranteed Rate Field, “because I debuted in front of no fans, so to come back and be able to start Opening Day , it makes up for it in a way.”

Less than four years after the odd debut of a funky left-hander with a funny name, Skubal entered this Opening Day riding a lightning bolt, coming off his dominant second half in 2023 and increasingly hearing his name in national conversations . The nerves of his first career Opening Day start, Skubal said, did not hit until he was walking into the White Sox’s home stadium. Hours later, a new season began with a ball missed high and outside to Andrew Benintendi . Six pitches after that, Skubal had Benintendi chasing a slider down and away, punching his first strikeout of 2024. Soon, Skubal was mowing down White Sox hitters, leaning on his powerful fastball and pulling strings on his vexing changeup. Skubal surrendered three hits over six innings, all singles, and retired his final eight batters. Dating to last season, Skubal has surrendered only three earned runs in his past 36 innings.

Thursday’s performance brought to mind what catcher Jake Rogers said only a few days ago, as the Tigers were about to depart from their spring training compound and dive into the real thing. What is the best part of catching Skubal?

“Aside from cruise control?” Rogers answered.

Tarik Skubal with an exceptional first outing for the Tigers to start the 2024 season. 6.0 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 6 K, 40.8% miss rate, 39.5% chase rate Check out all his Ks below👇 pic.twitter.com/1OJLsmRUUy — Inside Edge (@IE_MLB) March 28, 2024

Any early hitches in Skubal’s game — his slider didn’t bite with total consistency and he didn’t locate his two-seams where he wanted — faded as Skubal’s outing reached the game’s middle innings. There is a palpable confidence Skubal exudes when he’s in the zone, the look and feel of a pitcher in total control.

“He wasn’t really spinning the ball too much early, but the changeup started to come a little bit, the power on his fastball started to come,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “And then you see the head nod and you see his mojo, moxie, come out.”

The Tigers went on to win 1-0 Thursday, scoring their lone run when Andy Ibáñez hit a sacrifice fly to score Javier Báez . While Skubal was sterling through an 83-pitch outing that featured six strikeouts, Báez provided the day’s most compelling subplot. Playing his old rivals on Chicago’s South Side, Báez caught a pop fly to end the second inning, and rather than toss the ball over the netting to the visiting crowd, Báez fired the ball hard into the left-field net. He led off the third inning at the plate, greeted by massive boos. Then Báez promptly laced a single up the middle, dropping his bat and pointing on the way to first. In an instant, Báez was running, stealing second base and getting an extra 90 feet that proved crucial. After he touched home later in the inning, more boos rained down.

At his locker after the game, Báez spoke of his longstanding theatrics with the South Side fans. “When you get booed,” he said, “you don’t want to suck because they’re gonna do it louder.” The most insightful parts of Báez’s interview, however, came when he was speaking on Skubal.

“I think he can win a Cy Young if he’s got a good plan, which we do,” Báez said. “I think if he controls the 0-2 and the two strikes he’s gonna be really, really, really good.”

Báez validated the high expectations that now surround Skubal while also making an interesting point. Dominant as Skubal was, there was the potential for an ever more impressive final line. On four occasions, Skubal got ahead 0-2 but did not record a strikeout.

Not that the 0-2 lapses mattered. Skubal still made it difficult for White Sox hitters to do any damage. He induced 20 whiffs and held opposing batters to an average exit velocity of only 81.5 mph.

“Tarik was completely dominant,” Hinch said.

After the game, Báez was talking about who Skubal reminds him of, and he gave an interesting answer.

“With the angle that he pitches and how big he is, a little bit of (Aroldis) Chapman,” Báez said. Both are big-bodied left-handers with an over-the-top delivery and bits of deception.

The Chapman comparison speaks to how good Skubal has become, a dominant lefty with the stuff of a back-end reliever but the stamina of a starter.

Even on that night of his debut, the lofty comparisons were there. Former Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire had compared Skubal to Tom Seaver.

“I’ve been wrong about a lot of things,” Gardenhire said then . “I don’t think I’m gonna be wrong about this guy.”

Here we are now, witnessing Skubal blossom into one of the game’s very best pitchers, watching as milestone moments in his career come full circle.

“He’s one of a kind,” Báez said.

(Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)

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Cody Stavenhagen is a staff writer covering the Detroit Tigers for The Athletic. Previously, he covered Michigan football at The Athletic and Oklahoma football and basketball for the Tulsa World, where he was named APSE Beat Writer of the Year for his circulation group in 2016. He is a native of Amarillo, Texas. Follow Cody on Twitter @ CodyStavenhagen

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Tom Cruise Seen Sprinting Down Street in London as He Shoots Next Mission: Impossible Movie

The eighth 'Mission: Impossible' film, which does not yet have a title, is expected in theaters May 23, 2025

Mega / Dean - Click News And Media / SplashNews.com

Tom Cruise is showing no signs of slowing down in the next Mission: Impossible movie.

On Sunday, Cruise, 61, was seen sprinting down a street in London while filming a scene for the upcoming eighth film in his signature action franchise. The actor could be seen wearing a black suit with a white shirt opened at the top, with fake blood drenched over his chest while filming the sequence.

Cruise most recently appeared as his Mission: Impossible character Ethan Hunt in last year's Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning , which made $172 million at the  domestic box office . Dead Reckoning also earned the franchise its first-ever Academy Award nominations when it received nods for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound at the recent 96th Oscars ceremony.

A title for the upcoming eighth Mission: Impossible movie has not yet been announced. The next film was originally set for release on June 28, but production delays related to 2023's SAG-AFTRA strike forced the film to restart production in the fall and delay its release until May 23, 2025, as Deadline reported back in October.

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Dead Reckoning left Cruise's character Ethan Hunt and series regulars Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) at odds with villain Gabriel (Esai Morales) and forging new alliances with characters like Grace (Hayley Atwell) over a battle for control over a sentient artificial intelligence.

James Gourley/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

The eighth Mission: Impossible film is just one movie among a number of projects Cruise has in development. In February, PEOPLE confirmed Cruise will star in the next movie from The Revenant filmmaker  Alejandro G. Iñárritu , while The Hollywood Reporter  reported in January that Paramount is developing Top Gun 3 as a sequel to Cruise's major 2022 success Top Gun: Maverick .

Cruise, known for his penchant for performing his own stunts, was recently seen climbing the iconic Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills on March 16 accompanied by a film crew. A representative for Cruise did not respond to PEOPLE's request for comment Monday. While it's unclear what Cruise was filming on Saturday, the stunt did not appear related to the next Mission: Impossible film.

Mission: Impossible 8 is expected in theaters May 23, 2025.

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