For the past 30 years, Tom Cruise has been a major player in the Hollywood framework, especially through his action franchises like Mission: Impossible. Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is set to return to the big screen following a prolonged shoot during the COVID-19 pandemic and a recent theatrical delay, which now places the film in late 2022. Over the years, he’s worked with a lot of talented actors and filmmakers on Mission: Impossible, including Maggie Q, who recently gushed about Cruise.
Maggie Q was memorably in 2006’s Mission: Impossible 3 as Zhen Lei, a member of Ethan Hunt’s field team. Now it’s been a number of years since The Protege actress worked alongside Tom Cruise, but she recalled the strong impression he set for the cast and crew on the action film. In her words:
Tom’s a leader. And again, when you work with people at his level, there is a reason they are where they are, period. There’s no question. He’s not my best friend so I’m not talking about him personally, but I am talking about him as a professional. On set his enthusiasm never waivers. I’ve never seen it waiver. I’ve never seen somebody who loved what they did more and I’ve also never seen somebody who was so encouraging of those around him in the thing that he loves.
Are we surprised? We’re talking about Tom Cruise here. As Maggie Q shared, from a purely professional perspective, she calls him a “leader” who has a major enthusiasm for his work. Sure, from the outside in, you’d imagine all actors might be constantly excited about the movies they make 24/7, but it is a job. Even so, from Maggie Q’s experience, Tom Cruise is a class act. She continued to Collider:
It’s not something that you actually see every day. Maybe for people they’ll hear that and go, ‘Well, yeah, he’s one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Of course he loves it!’ It’s like, that is not true [laughs], because there are big movie stars who don’t love what they do or don’t show that they love what they do and aren’t as encouraging or great leaders the way he is.
Maggie Q would know too. She has been part of franchises like Die Hard and Divergent, along with her TV show Nikita. The actress most recently starred in The Protege with Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson. The movie had Maggie Q doing some likely Tom Cruise-approved stunt work, recently telling CinemaBlend that it was a rare stunt that really scared her.
Recently, there’s been some awkward press out there for Tom Cruise after a recording of him yelling at some crew members leaked in late 2020. The rant had to do with some members of the crew not adhering to safety protocols on set, which he has since stood by, sharing that he is worried for the state of the film industry in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. His next two films will debut in theaters next year, with Top Gun: Maverick coming May 27, 2022 and Mission: Impossible 7 finally coming (hopefully) on September 30, 2022.
