When Tom Cruise’s childhood dreams of killing Adolf Hitler came full circle
One of the best things about being an actor is getting to live out childhood fantasies in real life. Some lucky stars get to play characters that they grew up idolising, while others fulfil their dreams of being superheroes, cowboys, pirates, spies, or musicians. For one very famous actor, though, they had a very different ambition.
In 2008, Tom Cruise led the cast of Valkyrie, a Bryan Singer-directed movie about a Nazi plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Named after the emergency plan the conspirators were going to use to take control of Germany, the film features Cruise as Claus von Stauffenberg, the real-life army officer who led the so-called ’20 July Plot’. Stauffenberg delivered a briefcase full of explosives to the German leader, but tremendous luck meant that Hitler was only lightly wounded by the blast. Stauffenberg and his accomplices were executed for treason.
When speaking to Movies to promote the film, Cruise revealed that this was something of a dream role for him. “I just love those stories of little fish swimming upstream against insurmountable odds,” he said. “And for me also, I grew up wanting to kill Hitler”. Most kids grow up wanting to become superstar athletes or astronauts. Not Tom Cruise. He grew up wanting to kill a guy who had died 17 years before he was born.
The interviewer followed up on this bizarre line, which the Mission: Impossible star elaborated on. “As a little kid, when I was four years old, I remember I saw these war documentaries, like World At War,” he said. “I remember thinking about Hitler, why didn’t somebody just kill that guy.” In the end, somebody did kill Hitler. The only problem was that the person was Hitler. Cruise clarified that he had a hatred for “tyrants” and was drawn to Valkyrie because of his love of history and because it brought him some comfort that “it wasn’t everyone who was evil in Germany back then”.
When in character as the failed coup leader, Cruise had to wear an authentic Nazi uniform, something that affected him deeply. “It was freaky,” he said. “All [of] us, when we see that uniform, go nuts.”
This wasn’t the only element of Stauffenberg’s costume that Cruise struggled with. The German lost an eye in a skirmish in Tunisia, which meant that both he and the actor portraying him were forced to wear an eye patch. “For a few days, I was disoriented with that eye patch,” Cruise admitted, but he ultimately became comfortable with it in the name of making the movie feel more authentic.
Valkyrie, which was co-written by frequent Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, faced several barriers ahead of its German release. Along with the nation’s well-documented struggles to come to terms with its recent past, Stauffenberg’s family objected to Cruise portraying him. The Church of Scientology, of which Cruise is a member, is viewed as a dangerous cult in Germany, which resulted in significant backlash when this casting choice was announced. Eventually, Cruise’s role in the movie was downplayed in its German advertising, with focus being switched to Singer’s accomplishments as a director.
