Tom Cruise knows he can be intense — and he has no plans to apologise for it.
The Hollywood star has opened up about his personality in a new interview with GQ, admitting that he tends to give everything he does his full attention.
“I expect a lot and I’m upfront about it. It’s like, ‘The rumors are true and do you want this?’” he said.
Cruise says he has been described as intense since he was a child.
“Even when I was a kid, they were like, ‘Oh, come on, Tom. You’re so intense.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know what to say. I am intense!’”
He has certainly earned that reputation through his approach to making films, particularly when it comes to performing his own stunts.
Cruise has become known for carrying out many of his own action sequences in the Mission: Impossible films, regularly putting himself through demanding and dangerous stunts rather than relying entirely on a stunt double.
In Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Cruise took that approach even further.
The actor set a Guinness World Records title for the most burning parachute jumps by an individual after completing 16 jumps during filming in South Africa.
For the stunt, Cruise jumped from a helicopter at around 7,500 feet with a parachute that had been soaked in fuel and set on fire. Once the burning parachute disintegrated, he cut it away and deployed a second parachute before landing safely.
It was another example of the level of preparation Cruise is willing to put into his films.
His stunt history also includes hanging from aircraft, motorcycle jumps and a HALO jump filmed for Mission: Impossible – Fallout. He previously became the first actor to complete a HALO jump on camera for a film.
Cruise has also spoken about his desire to make action sequences feel as authentic as possible, with the Mission: Impossible team explaining that audiences can tell when a stunt has been “cheated”.
So when Cruise describes himself as an “all-in kind of guy”, his film career certainly backs that up.
“Life, I’m coming right at it!” he told GQ. “It’s coming at me and I’m coming right at it! I’m 100%. I am not a halfway kind of person.”
At 64, Cruise is still taking on major physical challenges while continuing to work across different types of films.
His latest project, Digger, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, sees him move away from the action franchise territory he has become so closely associated with.
But even while discussing the more dramatic side of his career, Cruise insists that the intensity people see in him is simply part of who he is.
“I’m an all-in kind of guy,” he said.
