Thandie Newton talks working with Tom Cruise
Thandie Newston said she was, 'so scared,' of Tom Cruise while filming the 2000 movie Mission: Impossible 2.
She opened up to Vulture this week about what it was like working with the Hollywood megastar.
Thandie told the publication, 'I was so scared of Tom. He was a very dominant individual.'
'He tries superhard to be a nice person. But the pressure. He takes on a lot.'
'And I think he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done,' the actress revealed.
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'It wasn’t going well...'
The 47-year-old recalled a night scene between his character Ethan and her character Nyah on a balcony.
She admitted, 'I don’t think it was a very well-written scene. I get angry with him. We’re frustrated with each other.'
'And we’re looking out over Spain. It wasn’t going well.'
Thandie said that director John Woo wasn't there at the time.
She explained, 'He was downstairs looking at everything on a monitor.'
'And John had made a decision at the beginning of the movie, unbeknownst certainly to me, that he didn’t speak English.'
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Thandie admitted this, 'was extremely unhelpful to the rest of us.'
'So this scene was happening, and Tom was not happy with what I was doing because I had the shi**iest lines.'
'And he gets so frustrated with having to try and explain that he goes, "Let me just - let’s just go do it. Let’s just rehearse on-camera."'
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'I can’t think of anything less revealing'
Thandie continued, 'So we rehearsed and they recorded it, and then he goes, "I’ll be you. You be me."'
'So we filmed the entire scene with me being him - because, believe me, I knew the lines by then - and him playing me.'
'And it was the most unhelpful… I can’t think of anything less revealing,' she admitted.
'It just pushed me further into a place of terror and insecurity. It was a real shame,' Thandie said.
'And bless him. And I really do mean bless him, because he was trying his damnedest.'
'I remember at the beginning of the night, seeing this slight red mark on his nose, and by the end of the night, I kid you not - this is how his metabolism is so fierce - he had a big whitehead where that red dot was.'
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'...it was like the zit was me...'
Thandie pointed out, 'It would take anyone else 48 hours to manifest a zit.'
'I saw it growing, and it was like the zit was me, just getting bigger and bigger.'
She called her good friend and American director Jonathan Demme after the fact to chat about her day.
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She told him it was an absolute, 'nightmare.'
'As I was describing it, it was clear that I thought I was the big fucking problem.'
'And Jonathan was like, "Thandie, shame on you for not backing yourself." He was really sweet.'
'And then Tom called and I thought, Oh, this is it. The apology. No, he was just like, "We’re going to reshoot this next week."'
'And the next time we shot it, I went in there and I just basically manifested all the - because I realised what he wanted.'
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She continued, 'He just wanted this alpha bi*ch. And I did as best as I could. It’s not the best way to get the best work out of someone.'
Thandie went on to say her co-star, 'wasn't horrible.'
She defended that he was just, 'really stressed.'
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Tom Cruise hasn't commented.
