Tom Cruise reveals the weirdest myth about him to director Chris McQuarrie

In anticipation of the highly-awaited release of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, director Chris McQuarrie has shared details of his first meeting with Tom Cruise in 2006.

McQuarrie, who has worked closely with Cruise as director of the last three Mission: Impossible films and as producer of Top Gun: Maverick, collaborated with Cruise on Valkyrie. McQuarrie told The Times newspaper that Cruise, a seasoned action star, informed him, "I make mass entertainment."

McQuarrie said, “There is an outsized importance placed on Oscars,” McQuarrie says. “Films that not many people are going to see. A wedge has been driven into the industry. Are you an artist or an entertainer? Tom doesn’t see them as mutually exclusive.”

According to the director, Cruise shared with him the strangest myth he had ever heard about himself, which was that people working on set were prohibited from making eye contact with him.

Meanwhile, Simon Pegg, a close friend and frequent co-star of Cruise, told The Times that the actor's strong commitment to keeping the film industry afloat during the pandemic was the reason behind his outburst at a crew member who violated social distancing protocols on the set of the seventh Mission: Impossible movie.

Pegg told The Times: “Everything that Tom cares about, in terms of his job, was at stake due to the pandemic. For him there was a danger this virus could wipe cinema off the face of this earth.”