Last night audio was released online which purported to be the sound of actor Tom Cruise absolutely going ballistic at a pair of crew members on the set of Mission: Impossible 7 who were not properly following COVID-19 guidelines. Cruise gets loud, he gets vulgar, and he gets threatening, promising to fire anybody who flouts the rules further. Needless to say, when a major celebrity, and there are few bigger, gets heard like this, people are going to respond, and social media has basically exploded with opinions. Some love Cruise for this, some are thoroughly unimpressed, and some are just having a good time.
A lot of people are questioning the authenticity of the recording. To them, it feels like the whole thing might have actually been more planned and not so much of a leak. It seems like a performance. Of course, it's possible that's because it does sort of sound like a performance that Tom Cruise has actually given before. You can sort of see Les Grossman being the won delivering this entire rant.
Generally, the online response to this Tom Cruise tape is falling into one of two camps. There are a lot of people championing Cruise. They feel that too many people are not taking the global pandemic seriously, and hearing the actor speak passionately about the need to follow the rules, that people's jobs and potentially the industry, are dependent on that is a breath of fresh air for them.
At the same time, there are those who, while they might still support the message, take issue with the messenger, or at the very least the method of delivery. To them, the screaming and swearing are unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. There are also many who are critical of Cruise personally, and thus have a problem with all of this. Or as one person put it...
The audio certainly seems genuine, perhaps because this isn't the first time that a celebrity has been caught on tape going off on the crew for something. However, most people are giving Cruise more of a pass on this one than they did Christian Bale, if only because of the importance of the subject matter. And while it is important, some people are still having fun with the whole thing.
The recording was apparently made while Mission: Impossible 7 has been filming at the Warner Bros. studio in Leavesden in the U.K. According to the initial report, quite a few people witnessed the outburst, though one assumes that many of them were just trying to get their job done, and perhaps either didn't notice, or were pretending not to notice, what was going on around them.
The one person who has yet to respond publicly is Tom Cruise himself.
