After 1996’s Jerry Maguire, as Cruise and writer-director Crowe were searching for another film to make together, the actor invited Crowe to his home to watch the offbeat Spanish film Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). “The movie finished,” Crowe recalls, “and we said, ‘Whoa.’ I called him the next day and said, ‘I can’t get this movie out of my head.’ And he said, ‘I’ve acquired the rights to remake it.’ ” There’s little information about how closely the remake follows the original (in which an ill-advised car ride with an ex-lover leads to a crash that disfigures the hero), but Cruise plays, according to producer Paula Wagner (Mission: Impossible II), “a man who meets the love of his life [Cruz, reprising her Ojos role] and makes one mistake that turns his life around. He goes through hell to find his lost love.” That mistake comes in the person of an obsessive played by Diaz, a role Crowe describes as “Holly Golightly five minutes past her prime.” Eventually, the movie undergoes a Matrix-like twist, which subverts our sense of reality. After choosing a new title, one he had considered for Almost Famous, Crowe adapted the film to a contemporary Manhattan setting and laced it with pop-culture references (including allusions to the Beatles, whose songs might be heard in the movie). Crowe witnessed an even bigger change, however: what he calls Cruise’s “completely striking” maturation as an actor. “It’s like meeting somebody you’ve grown up with, and you’re just blown away by how they’ve grown.”
Want Sugar in That? Crowe says that Cruise, despite going through a divorce (“that only made his work deeper”), was a friend to all on the set. “People bring a lot of expectations or weird rumors that they’ve heard—you know, ‘Does he speak to us?’ And it’s like, ‘Fuck, yeah. He brings you your coffee.’ ”
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Vanilla Sky
Starring: Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Johnny Galecki, Jason Lee, Kurt Russell
Directed by: Cameron Crowe
(Paramount, December 14)
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Copyright © 2008 Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.