Mission accomplishable: Tom Cruise draws a crowd

Entertain me: Patton, Toda, Cruise, Bird at Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol press conference, Ritz Carlton Hotel, Tokyo, Dec. 1, 2011 (photo Lucian Capellaro/Paramount Pictures Int'l)

Who’s the biggest movie star today? If you say Tom Cruise or Will Smith, it’s not because they’re the biggest box office draws, but rather because they act like movie stars, and that’s because they love being movie stars. It’s what they always wanted to be and now that they are they’ll do whatever it takes to remain movie stars. It’s why they throw themselves so fully into promotion, why they answer every dumb interviewer’s question as if it were a matter of life or death, why they spend that extra few minutes with fans and give photographers whatever they ask for. Julia Roberts looks upon reporters the way the rest of see tax auditors, and while Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp do the press conferences, photo sessions are like dentists’ appointments, necessary but highly unpleasant. One assumes that they like being movie stars but would prefer the old-fashioned protocols, when personal appearances were purposely limited to preserve the mystery of personality. That model went out with the studio system and the subsequent stars of the 60s and 70s were born too early for the press junket. Tom Cruise was practically born into it. Except for the occasional European who somehow thinks that drilling him about his status as an alpha dog Scientologist counts as serious journalism, the press treats Cruise like a king because he treats them like old pals. Most Hollywood actors as seasoned as Cruise would cringe at the idea of the current whirlwind world press tour to promote Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol — 9 cities in 14 days, and Tokyo was the first. To Cruise, such a schedule is a challenge, something, he’ll be quick to tell you, that he thrives on.
Locals may grumble that Tokyo is the only one of these cities that isn’t getting a premiere, but actually Cruise did even better: He set up a fan meeting/screening at Roppongi Hills on Dec. 1, probably because he knows more about Japanese fans than most American movie stars. Whenever he’s in town to promote a movie, Cruise not only does the press conference, the interviews, and the premiere, all with that huge, sparkly smile and the sincerest form of flattery, but also a few TV shows where he invariably rubs shoulders with local celebrities and not-so-celebrities, happily making just as much of a fool of himself as they do.
Because he, as star and producer, along with director Brad Bird and costar Paula Patton, had to be in Seoul the next day, he didn’t have time for the variety shows this trip, so that’s why the fan meeting trumped a premiere. I didn’t make it to the fan meeting, and not because I’m not a fan, but because I saw the movie that morning and then went to the press conference, and there’s only so much Tom Cruise you can take in one day.