The only actor Tom Cruise exiled from his annual cake list: “I want to get back on”
If there’s one honour in Hollywood that trumps winning an Academy Award, it’s being part of the very exclusive club who receive a coconut cake from Tom Cruise every year. Unfortunately, one actor found themselves stricken from the list, and you could hazard a decent guess as to why.
The Mission: Impossible daredevil got the idea from the late, great Diane Keaton, who presented him with a sugary slice so delicious that he co-opted it as a core tenet of his personality, and has since spent untold amounts of money buying them and shipping them out to those he deems worthy.
You don’t just get one if you work with Cruise on a movie; you have to make an impression. In fact, you don’t even have to work with him at all, since Mindy Kaling, Tom Hanks, and Rosie O’Donnell are all recipients. You don’t have to be an actor, either, with Graham Norton also part of the roster.
If he likes you, you get a cake. If he really likes you, you’ll apparently get a cake for life. Kirsten Dunst shared the screen with Cruise in 1994’s Interview with the Vampire, and she remains on the list. It’s even a two-for-one special at home, because Jesse Plemons, who co-starred in American Made, gets one, too.
According to those in the know, it’s the greatest cake on the planet. You wouldn’t necessarily take Glen Powell’s word for it, since he operates under the assumption that the sun shines out of his mentor’s arse, but he did call it “the most delicious cake you’ve ever had,” and he’s far from alone in feeling that way.
Other notable members of the Tom Cruise cake list include his Mission: Impossible colleagues Angela Bassett, Henry Cavill, Cary Elwes, Katy O’Brian, and Hayley Atwell. Simon Pegg is surely on it, and Top Gun: Maverick alumni Miles Teller, Danny Ramirez, Jon Hamm, and Jay Ellis all eagerly await their yearly treat.
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back‘s Cobie Smulders, Jerry Maguire‘s Renee Zellweger, Jimmy Fallon, James Corden, Barbara Walters, and Alex Zane make the cut, but Brooke Shields does not. Not anymore, after she revealed that she’d been culled from the cake-devouring herd after years of dutiful service.
“I was on the list for a while,” she regrettably told People. “I had a good 10-year run, and I got the coconut cake every year, which I was very happy about. I want to get back on the cake list. It’s the best cake. Tom, I need to be back on the cake list.” Based on their very high-profile falling out, it’s not unreasonable to assume that’s why her name was scribbled out when cake time arrives.
Although they did make up behind closed doors, Cruise’s unprompted takedown of Shields and the entire profession of psychiatry was one of the stranger moments of a period where he seemed determined to hit the self-destruct button on his reputation. It might not be a coincidence that her decade of coconut-covered deliciousness ended around the same time, and her pleas to be placed back into circulation have so far fallen on deaf ears.
