Bill Hader’s bizarre 2007 meeting with Tom Cruise: “He started clapping and going crazy”
The more money somebody has, the more eccentric they’re likely to be. As one of the wealthiest people in Hollywood, it’s only natural that Tom Cruise would be a little weird.
It’s a very distinct kind of weird, though. He’s not one of those super-rich people who get branded as oddballs, but the short-statured action hero does carry himself with a highly peculiar energy, something Christian Bale aptly described as “intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes.”
You could probably count the number of people who know the real Tom Cruise on one hand, and you might not even need every digit. Christopher McQuarrie is presumably one of them, Simon Pegg might be another, with Will Smith and David Beckham other members of his eclectic inner circle.
Obviously, Bill Hader knew who Tom Cruise was when they first crossed paths in 2007, but based on his recollection, it sounded more like a reconnaissance mission on the latter’s part than a ‘get to know you’. If anything, it sounds like the Mission: Impossible frontman was being more than a touch Oprah-esque.
“Tom Cruise didn’t know who I was, and was trying to figure it out,” the Saturday Night Live veteran shared. “I said, ‘Seth Rogen’s a friend of mine, and he said he went to your house’. I did a Seth Rogen impersonation for two seconds, like, ‘Tom Cruise is amazing! We rode motorcycles in his backyard!'”
That would be the hours-long meeting between Rogen and Judd Apatow at Cruise’s palatial estate in Los Angeles, with the Canadian funnyman admitting years later that what was supposed to be a general conversation about the business and potential projects turned into the A-lister making a play to introduce them to Scientology.
Hader didn’t see that side of Cruise, or at least he didn’t share it publicly, but his brief Rogen impression nonetheless made a mark. “It was like I did a magic trick,” the actor and comic recalled. “He started clapping and going crazy, and he went, ‘You do impressions, and you’re on Saturday Night Live.'”
He was right on both counts, since at the time, Hader did indeed do impressions, and he was, in fact, an SNL cast member. However, it was less a case of pointing out the obvious and more a case of Cruise having ticked a name off what sounds like some sort of weird dossier he’d been handed before running the rule over his impending Tropic Thunder co-stars.
“Meaning,” Hader acknowledged. “‘I was briefed, and I now know who you are.'” Cruise knew he’d be meeting the impressions guy from SNL at some point, but clearly, he didn’t have a fucking clue who they were until they came face-to-face, and it was his take on Rogen that sealed the deal.
