One of the most interesting things in the world that the vast majority of us will never experience is having a basic conversation with Tom Cruise. Hell, just being in a room with him would be one of the average person’s top 10 stories, no matter what anyone in that room did or said (some of us once saw Michael Bay driving a golf cart while filming Transformers: Dark of the Moon in Milwaukee and we’re still milking it). Simon Pegg is no ordinary person, although he is one of the lucky few to be in a room with Tom Cruise on a regular basis, and he briefly detailed the experience during an appearance on the BBC. Desert Island Discs radio program (via Delivery time).
Pegg says he has a “very easygoing, friendly” friendship with Tom Cruise, who appears in Five Years Mission: Impossible movies with Which seems like the most anyone could really hope for when it comes to someone as mysterious as Cruise, but there might be a secret trick to making Pegg’s simple friendship with Cruise: They never talk about Scientology. Pegg finds that “it would abuse the privilege of access” if he were to bring it up.
This is a test we will inevitably fail when speaking with Tom Cruise, ever since at some point We wouldn’t all be able to resist the temptation to say, “Hey, what’s the deal—” and then we’d hit the road when he drove away at full speed and never spoke to us again.
Pegg also says that Cruise is, somewhat unsurprisingly, someone who loves being famous and “really enjoys it.” Pegg adds that he’s “all he knows” and that he’s “energized and motivated,” which is part of what makes him seem such an interesting person just to be around. If he lives for the fame, what is it like when he’s not “on”? Did it never “work”? Simon Pegg probably doesn’t know the answer to that.
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