Name: Tom Cruise On Brad Pitt, Paul Newman and "Mission Impossible" | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2025-05-15T15:00:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tom Cruise On Brad Pitt, Paul Newman and "Mission Impossible" | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-15. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Tom Cruise On Brad Pitt, Paul Newman and "Mission Impossible" | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-05-15. Transcript available.

yeah buddy welcome back thank you it's good to be back let me ask you a
question you're
a a big time movie star you've been around a long time made a lot of films how
many films you made
i don't know actually to a 25 30 maybe 50. probably close to that right uh and
and uh
the only time i see you is when you come to promote a film like like now
mission impossible
goes protocol yeah yeah why don't you come more often what would it kill you
just to drop in and
say oh you know i'm in new york dave's down the street let me go say hello to dave
it wouldn't
kill me it'd be great yeah well now would it be great yeah it actually would
because because if i
heard hey i'm in muncie indiana it's like hey would you like me to do that then
i would come by what
do you think i wouldn't like you to do that tom cruise is like you know what i
don't think we have
time for tom cruise you know like if i'm in muncie indiana and i hear you're
making a movie in muncie
i'd drop by the set would you really yes have you ever been in a place where i've
been making a movie
no no never no where where would that be i don't know well like this one for
example this one you
filmed a a ball along part of it and is it dubai dubai you've ever been there
never been to dubai
now what is is it a scary place to be no no it's actually really cool they've
got lets it's like an
action city you know they have skydiving and you can go out and uh camels and
camp out there and uh
you know i'm not interested in that not but you like cars i do like cars but is
that the place
that has the indoor ski hill yeah i did that now that's crazy yeah it was fun
we went out of the
how did you how did they i mean tell me about that well it's indoor
there's snow in there yeah outside it's like 140. outside and inside it's
refreshing yeah you go down
the snowboard and outside it's hot so they have that we went from when we first
got there we went to
the water park i took the whole crew to the water park and then we we all went
snowboarding did you have
your family there with you they came yeah how old is surrey she's five five
years old is she skiing
stuff now you know she hasn't skied yet she just started uh skating right now
she's very interested
in skating is harder i think than skiing so good for her yeah she's kind of
goes for it yeah she was
determined yeah so uh so you you're over there how long were you actually in
dubai i think about
a month five weeks now the the building that we're all that is one of the stars
of the film
uh how tall is it how many stories i don't know it's high is is it the tallest
structure in the
world i think it is the tallest structure in the world i mean i don't think i
know it's you know
that's for a fact yeah perfect and and is it a hotel is it a business building
what do they do
they have hotels attached to it and i think there's business it was under
construction when we were
when we we got it right at the right time because they were just in the middle
of of completing the
interior and uh the the economy in dubai because of is it is it got to be an
oil country or is it not an
an oil country you know i didn't i was there making the movie i'm kind of i don't
know i see
why i think a lot of those uh emirates uh are rich in oil i think yeah so uh
you you tell them you
contact them and you and you tell them what we want to use your building
because you know here you can't
get anybody you can't barely cross the street without a permit from the mayor
so what do you tell
them when you call up and say we want to use the building um well i was
watching the city being built
for years and always with mission impossible we're looking for international
landscapes and kind of to
celebrate the locations and this building uh is very beautiful and uh yeah we
just had uh one of our
producers line producer call and said we want to shoot in there and they they'd
been uh asking me to go
and and shoot there and there they want people to come and make movies so they
were very uh encouraging
for you to be very encouraging now uh uh did you tell them that you were going
to be uh on top of
the building and on the side of the building and and and swinging in and out of
a busted window
no we don't open with that don't know if that's not the opening it's like hey
we'd like to come
visit come visit movie there take a look might take a look and it might work
out maybe and then we go in
the building and they say look we'd like to shoot this building and then they
say well okay and then
we say you know can you take these two windows out and and what would that do
to the structure and we
talked to the engineers and then of course when the movie comes we're like they
say well we can only
take these two windows out and then after a few days they realized we need
these two windows and these
two windows and these two windows and this floor and maybe a little higher and
i'd like to go out of
the building they should never have put the windows in at all you know now is
this uh the building we're
talking about yeah that's the top this year world it is tom it's the world's
tallest building in dubai
united arab emirates and is honest to god is how did you get up there service
elevator yeah
that that one was after we finished shooting all the exterior the shots that we
shot in imax on the
building and and then i went with the guys our stunt coordinator greg smurs who's
fantastic he and i
you know we climbed up from the inside from the inside of what what appears to
be this vertical
tunnel yeah there's a small ladder and it took took a couple of hours to get up
there we started i
think about four in the morning and we got there by sun up and and and when
when you're in in in the
movie when we see you uh you're here's here's the building and here you are
running along like that
mm-hmm so it's like it's fly like yeah how high off the ground are you when you're
doing that high
very high like like i don't know 50 floors 100 no about i think at that time
somewhere like 140
floors something like that so it's about i don't know it's high i had an idea i
had an idea for a
script very similar to that i was you know yeah yeah my idea but it was all in
the lobby
but and then and then we see you just
now is is uh do you have a net do you have a harness do you have a parachute
when you're doing that
no i didn't have a net i i was wearing a harness and i had a single pick uh
harness
what a single pick is a single pick you know you've got about a little wire
that's about this
you know a piano wire as thin as a piano wire and it's a single pick that i'm
hanging that
it's clipped into my harness and and we trained for many months on how to do it
the only thing
that i where do you train you can't train on the building do you no no no where
where do you train
how we built uh what kind of looked like the building just some metal and glass
and i built
in a soundstage and i threw big arc lights on it and then uh the only thing i
couldn't practice was
flying off the building and i had to do that the night before we were trying to
figure out how to
do it and uh i got to wear a helmet and pads for that the thing that looked uh
safety the the thing
that uh gener what you're trying to do is uh induce vertigo you're trying to
make people like that you
know that funny feeling you get in your knees when you're whoa that's what you're
trying to do in the
movie make people do that right and when i got it was when you're slapping up
you got the climbing
gloves and i thought uh yeah climbing gloves my ass and then and then but what
were they working
were you actually climbing of those no it was climbing gloves my ass
i had one more question about this who took this picture some guy was up there
there's a guy up there
it was actually david james a very famous stills photographer works on the
movies in another building
or is he in a helicopter he's on in a helicopter hanging out taking this photo
well that's not a
good idea either for god's sake i know so so in in terms of this scene where uh
you guys are all over
the building uh how long did it take to shoot that and did you have to keep
doing it again and again or
did you have one shot at it no no you have to keep doing it again and again and
again and again for
many days and and and were there times when you felt oh oh i've miscalculated
my life is in peril
you know it was you know sometimes when i was coming off it was because i i can't
see where i am
so i mean i trained and we knew what we were doing so i was when we did
everything to make it as safe as
possible and nobody was injured no one was injured no one was injured but could
have been you could
have been injured couldn't you there's always that yes what was your concern
what was the number one
possibility for an injury falling
you want to run down some of these do you mind whatever you want days of
thunder speaking of
stuff that must have been fun oh by the way we got another picture here oh my
golly look at there
as you're driving the red bull formula one car that was uh yes that was really
fun
how did you get to do that i don't know i don't know how they they called me up
and asked invited
me to come drive it and and flying their helicopter i've always wanted to fly
in the helicopter it was
amazing i had david colthard trained me uh he's amazing driver and uh formula
formula one driver from
scotland yeah scotland awesome and uh they just let me do some laps in that and
took me through some
training and it was it was amazing most amazing piece of machinery i've ever i've
ever driven you
get more interesting calls than i get yeah when you have a team i was always
wondering why don't they
let you drive the car that i get that kind of calls hey when are you going to
return the lawnmower
anyway days of thunder um that was about nascar racing that must have been fun
that was amazing i mean
i remember there's a shot when you just show up in the movie on your motorcycle
riding through the pits and
i thought right there that would be fun right there that was cool tell me and i
think you've talked
about this before but your relationship with paul newman he kind of helped you
into competitive car
driving yes i raced for his team and uh he was amazing i always wanted to beat
him on the racetrack
and beat him in pool he was yeah was he a better driver or a better pool player
you know he was a
hustler newman he always played everything down everything was like oh i want
to let's play some pool you
know i haven't played in a while my elbow's hurting you know you get the beers
out and the stories start
going and the next thing you know i'm getting cream yeah it was the same on a
racetrack i thought i
remember i was out we are on a track racing together i thought i finally i
passed him on the inside and
went down and i thought this is it he's gonna have to concede finally and he
just ripped past me on the
runway and gave me the finger as he crossed the finish line that's newman uh
interview with the vampire
brad you were in with that with brad pitt how'd that go yeah well are you
buddies with brad pitt
yeah he's he's a talented terrific guy don't you think he must be miserable at
home
now i have to say he was always incredible with my kids and he couldn't wait to
be a father uh and so
i think he's he's really happy with all those kids what now when you promote
your movies are you now
taking your family with you everywhere you go yeah this last trip it was it's a
lot you know because we
did i'm in the middle of shooting a film so we had to condense the schedule so
you're doing a film as
you're going around the world promoting the movie now what film are you working
on now i'm doing a
picture called one shot and where is that being filmed pittsburgh see now when
i'm in pittsburgh
yeah pittsburgh if you if somebody's knocking on your trailer hey tom it's dave
yeah can i come
in absolutely you could come in you sure yeah i'm positive yeah anytime you're
around the neighborhood
we'll be back tom cruise everybody thank you yeah it's the tallest building in
the world tom it's 160
stories uh 2716 and a half feet so there you go if you want to know something
my friend okay thank you
uh so anyway uh the the deal the thing you're shooting in pittsburgh is what
one shot one shot
what's that about it's about uh jack reacher it's based on uh character that
lee childs created a
best-selling series of books great books and uh it's just he's an ex-military
police officer and it's
you know thriller and action and cool character you'll be uh oh you're uh what
is the date what is
it today you know oh i'm looking at your schedule believe me i don't know what
today is i thought these
were upcoming uh premieres we've already had these premieres listen to this you
were in tokyo then you
were in south korea would you hear about kim jong-un yeah yeah mumbai uh dubai
uh moscow munich london
rio and here you are in new york city wow that's that's a lot of traveling my
friend and you had
your family with you an amazing time and suri must love does she love traveling
suri yeah she loves
traveling she's a great traveler yeah i think that's a good thing that's the
best investment you can make
in yourself and your family i think is to show them as much of the world as
possible yeah and
and then what do you do you have no off time you're shooting a movie and what
do you have no why don't
you take some time off well we have weekends and and i'm taking christmas off
what are you doing on
the weekends what what is that like we hang out we we watch a lot of movies and
you know just so you
hang out you and your daughter and and and katie say it's it's a saturday let's
go to the well you
don't go to the mall probably well sometimes you go to the mall to the mall
what do you do there
you know usually siri wants ice cream ice cream sure so it's the ice cream yeah
and uh maybe go to a
toy store yeah you know and a lot of times we'll go hang out and run around and
you know what you
have to go climbing yeah go climbing go go to the mall with your climbing
gloves yeah and go up the side of
the food court pop it they love that they love it when i'm showing up
now tom oh tom please don't uh oh you know this this imax thing this stuff is
unbelievable and when
i remember imax they said they could only shoot like is it 40 minutes at a time
or 40 seconds at a
time it's limited it's limited so then they have to reload yeah we have to
reload a lot yeah we have to
reload it's very expensive yeah i mean we are able to put it in you know we
didn't change our budget
we are and we're able to put it in but brad bird who designed these sequences
amazing filmmaker and is
this the the way of all movies you think imax or 3d or a combination of you
know i i like seeing movies
on big screens and it's something that i've been pushing the 65 mil i tried you
know years ago to push
that format so i'm happy that this format is back and that we're doing it you
know so we can
you know i think it's a beautiful uh for particular films certain films it's a
beautiful way for an
audience to see a movie does it increase the uh the expression or the telling
of the story or limit
the no i think it increases i mean it depends on who's directing it and and the
shots and uh you
know and bird design these sequences for imax and they're you know uh and then
uh soon it goes nationwide
in uh uh traditional theaters wednesday wednesday wednesday all right let's see
a thing here what is
the clip tom um i think i'm in a building i'm about to get out about to walk
out the building all right
there's trouble in the building trouble in the building and tom has decided
outside go outside
and get a cab let's see what that looks like blue is blue simon pegg is ready
red is dead
mission impossible wednesday it's in imax theaters now and already a giant hit
tom good
to see you again merry christmas thank you very much my best circadian
everybody
.

Tom Cruise On Brad Pitt, Paul Newman and "Mission Impossible" | David Letterman

yeah buddy welcome back thank you it's good to be back let me ask you a
question you're
a a big time movie star you've been around a long time made a lot of films how
many films you made
i don't know actually to a 25 30 maybe 50. probably close to that right uh and
and uh
the only time i see you is when you come to promote a film like like now
mission impossible
goes protocol yeah yeah why don't you come more often what would it kill you
just to drop in and
say oh you know i'm in new york dave's down the street let me go say hello to dave
it wouldn't
kill me it'd be great yeah well now would it be great yeah it actually would
because because if i
heard hey i'm in muncie indiana it's like hey would you like me to do that then
i would come by what
do you think i wouldn't like you to do that tom cruise is like you know what i
don't think we have
time for tom cruise you know like if i'm in muncie indiana and i hear you're
making a movie in muncie
i'd drop by the set would you really yes have you ever been in a place where i've
been making a movie
no no never no where where would that be i don't know well like this one for
example this one you
filmed a a ball along part of it and is it dubai dubai you've ever been there
never been to dubai
now what is is it a scary place to be no no it's actually really cool they've
got lets it's like an
action city you know they have skydiving and you can go out and uh camels and
camp out there and uh
you know i'm not interested in that not but you like cars i do like cars but is
that the place
that has the indoor ski hill yeah i did that now that's crazy yeah it was fun
we went out of the
how did you how did they i mean tell me about that well it's indoor
there's snow in there yeah outside it's like 140. outside and inside it's
refreshing yeah you go down
the snowboard and outside it's hot so they have that we went from when we first
got there we went to
the water park i took the whole crew to the water park and then we we all went
snowboarding did you have
your family there with you they came yeah how old is surrey she's five five
years old is she skiing
stuff now you know she hasn't skied yet she just started uh skating right now
she's very interested
in skating is harder i think than skiing so good for her yeah she's kind of
goes for it yeah she was
determined yeah so uh so you you're over there how long were you actually in
dubai i think about
a month five weeks now the the building that we're all that is one of the stars
of the film
uh how tall is it how many stories i don't know it's high is is it the tallest
structure in the
world i think it is the tallest structure in the world i mean i don't think i
know it's you know
that's for a fact yeah perfect and and is it a hotel is it a business building
what do they do
they have hotels attached to it and i think there's business it was under
construction when we were
when we we got it right at the right time because they were just in the middle
of of completing the
interior and uh the the economy in dubai because of is it is it got to be an
oil country or is it not an
an oil country you know i didn't i was there making the movie i'm kind of i don't
know i see
why i think a lot of those uh emirates uh are rich in oil i think yeah so uh
you you tell them you
contact them and you and you tell them what we want to use your building
because you know here you can't
get anybody you can't barely cross the street without a permit from the mayor
so what do you tell
them when you call up and say we want to use the building um well i was
watching the city being built
for years and always with mission impossible we're looking for international
landscapes and kind of to
celebrate the locations and this building uh is very beautiful and uh yeah we
just had uh one of our
producers line producer call and said we want to shoot in there and they they'd
been uh asking me to go
and and shoot there and there they want people to come and make movies so they
were very uh encouraging
for you to be very encouraging now uh uh did you tell them that you were going
to be uh on top of
the building and on the side of the building and and and swinging in and out of
a busted window
no we don't open with that don't know if that's not the opening it's like hey
we'd like to come
visit come visit movie there take a look might take a look and it might work
out maybe and then we go in
the building and they say look we'd like to shoot this building and then they
say well okay and then
we say you know can you take these two windows out and and what would that do
to the structure and we
talked to the engineers and then of course when the movie comes we're like they
say well we can only
take these two windows out and then after a few days they realized we need
these two windows and these
two windows and these two windows and this floor and maybe a little higher and
i'd like to go out of
the building they should never have put the windows in at all you know now is
this uh the building we're
talking about yeah that's the top this year world it is tom it's the world's
tallest building in dubai
united arab emirates and is honest to god is how did you get up there service
elevator yeah
that that one was after we finished shooting all the exterior the shots that we
shot in imax on the
building and and then i went with the guys our stunt coordinator greg smurs who's
fantastic he and i
you know we climbed up from the inside from the inside of what what appears to
be this vertical
tunnel yeah there's a small ladder and it took took a couple of hours to get up
there we started i
think about four in the morning and we got there by sun up and and and when
when you're in in in the
movie when we see you uh you're here's here's the building and here you are
running along like that
mm-hmm so it's like it's fly like yeah how high off the ground are you when you're
doing that high
very high like like i don't know 50 floors 100 no about i think at that time
somewhere like 140
floors something like that so it's about i don't know it's high i had an idea i
had an idea for a
script very similar to that i was you know yeah yeah my idea but it was all in
the lobby
but and then and then we see you just
now is is uh do you have a net do you have a harness do you have a parachute
when you're doing that
no i didn't have a net i i was wearing a harness and i had a single pick uh
harness
what a single pick is a single pick you know you've got about a little wire
that's about this
you know a piano wire as thin as a piano wire and it's a single pick that i'm
hanging that
it's clipped into my harness and and we trained for many months on how to do it
the only thing
that i where do you train you can't train on the building do you no no no where
where do you train
how we built uh what kind of looked like the building just some metal and glass
and i built
in a soundstage and i threw big arc lights on it and then uh the only thing i
couldn't practice was
flying off the building and i had to do that the night before we were trying to
figure out how to
do it and uh i got to wear a helmet and pads for that the thing that looked uh
safety the the thing
that uh gener what you're trying to do is uh induce vertigo you're trying to
make people like that you
know that funny feeling you get in your knees when you're whoa that's what you're
trying to do in the
movie make people do that right and when i got it was when you're slapping up
you got the climbing
gloves and i thought uh yeah climbing gloves my ass and then and then but what
were they working
were you actually climbing of those no it was climbing gloves my ass
i had one more question about this who took this picture some guy was up there
there's a guy up there
it was actually david james a very famous stills photographer works on the
movies in another building
or is he in a helicopter he's on in a helicopter hanging out taking this photo
well that's not a
good idea either for god's sake i know so so in in terms of this scene where uh
you guys are all over
the building uh how long did it take to shoot that and did you have to keep
doing it again and again or
did you have one shot at it no no you have to keep doing it again and again and
again and again for
many days and and and were there times when you felt oh oh i've miscalculated
my life is in peril
you know it was you know sometimes when i was coming off it was because i i can't
see where i am
so i mean i trained and we knew what we were doing so i was when we did
everything to make it as safe as
possible and nobody was injured no one was injured no one was injured but could
have been you could
have been injured couldn't you there's always that yes what was your concern
what was the number one
possibility for an injury falling
you want to run down some of these do you mind whatever you want days of
thunder speaking of
stuff that must have been fun oh by the way we got another picture here oh my
golly look at there
as you're driving the red bull formula one car that was uh yes that was really
fun
how did you get to do that i don't know i don't know how they they called me up
and asked invited
me to come drive it and and flying their helicopter i've always wanted to fly
in the helicopter it was
amazing i had david colthard trained me uh he's amazing driver and uh formula
formula one driver from
scotland yeah scotland awesome and uh they just let me do some laps in that and
took me through some
training and it was it was amazing most amazing piece of machinery i've ever i've
ever driven you
get more interesting calls than i get yeah when you have a team i was always
wondering why don't they
let you drive the car that i get that kind of calls hey when are you going to
return the lawnmower
anyway days of thunder um that was about nascar racing that must have been fun
that was amazing i mean
i remember there's a shot when you just show up in the movie on your motorcycle
riding through the pits and
i thought right there that would be fun right there that was cool tell me and i
think you've talked
about this before but your relationship with paul newman he kind of helped you
into competitive car
driving yes i raced for his team and uh he was amazing i always wanted to beat
him on the racetrack
and beat him in pool he was yeah was he a better driver or a better pool player
you know he was a
hustler newman he always played everything down everything was like oh i want
to let's play some pool you
know i haven't played in a while my elbow's hurting you know you get the beers
out and the stories start
going and the next thing you know i'm getting cream yeah it was the same on a
racetrack i thought i
remember i was out we are on a track racing together i thought i finally i
passed him on the inside and
went down and i thought this is it he's gonna have to concede finally and he
just ripped past me on the
runway and gave me the finger as he crossed the finish line that's newman uh
interview with the vampire
brad you were in with that with brad pitt how'd that go yeah well are you
buddies with brad pitt
yeah he's he's a talented terrific guy don't you think he must be miserable at
home
now i have to say he was always incredible with my kids and he couldn't wait to
be a father uh and so
i think he's he's really happy with all those kids what now when you promote
your movies are you now
taking your family with you everywhere you go yeah this last trip it was it's a
lot you know because we
did i'm in the middle of shooting a film so we had to condense the schedule so
you're doing a film as
you're going around the world promoting the movie now what film are you working
on now i'm doing a
picture called one shot and where is that being filmed pittsburgh see now when
i'm in pittsburgh
yeah pittsburgh if you if somebody's knocking on your trailer hey tom it's dave
yeah can i come
in absolutely you could come in you sure yeah i'm positive yeah anytime you're
around the neighborhood
we'll 