Tom Cruise has given a rare in-depth interview about his life and career and in the new chat, the thrill-seeking star has revealed he doesn’t have any issues facing death
Tom Cruise famously does his own stunts, and there is no filming mission that he sees as impossible. So it is perhaps not totally surprising that he says he enjoys living on the edge.
In a rare interview, Cruise said: “I think you could look at my life and go: I like standing on the edge of a cliff physically and metaphorically. Meaning, I look at life as an adventure, and I always have, my whole life. Do I fear death? No. I don’t. It’s not like I’m not afraid. I don’t mind the feeling.
“I’m not afraid to feel afraid. I don’t know how else to say it. I’m not afraid to go, ‘Okay, I know this is a leap, and let’s take the jump. Let’s go.’”
The Top Gun and Mission: Impossible actor won his first Oscar in 2025, marking a tribute to his career in movies of more than four decades.
He made his film debut in 1981 and was previously nominated for Best Actor for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire. He was also nominated as best supporting actor in the film Magnolia and for producing Top Gun: Maverick.
In the interview with GQ magazine, he spoke of the deliberate risks taken throughout his career. Cruise, 64, who has made eight Mission Impossible films between 1996 and 2025, said: “Things that I’ve never talked about—the things that I’ve done and why and what I’m exploring—have been very deliberate. I’m exploring my skill, learning new skills, constantly pushing myself.
“What you don’t know, is how many of the films people didn’t want to make. I’ve always felt like if I get to do it and it does well, I can take all the chips that I had and put it back in and kind of be like, ‘Let’s put it back in all on the line and in a way that is as creative as possible.’”
He added: “I’m not stuck in the past. There’s that joy of creating something, in the accomplishment, and then there’s always a new dream. There’s always the bigger dream.”
Cruise has appeared on eight covers of US GQ magazine but this is his first interview with them in more than a decade. He says he struggles to find time for in-depth interview, added: “I just haven’t had the time, with the amount of things that I set in motion and decided I was going to do.”
“We were in a dead sprint at a very long pace up against a lot of things—we wanted to keep everyone going and going through it and operating at a very, very high level. And just this is the time to be able to talk about it.”
* Read the full feature “Tom Cruise: Hollywood’s Most Elusive Star Speaks” by Zach Baron in GQ’s October issue and on gq-magazine.co.uk.
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