‘Even as a Hollywood A-lister, Tom Cruise gives me the creeps’

Jane Moir, a writer for the Daily Mail took to her keyboard and wrote an expressive article about her feelings about Tom Cruise and how older actresses in Hollywood are undergoing age discrimination when it comes to playing the part of certain roles. Younger women are more likely to get the roles, yet Tom Cruise is still able to play his role in the sequel to “Top Gun.” 

Tom Cruise to Play Lead in “Top Gun” Sequel

So it would appear that writer Jan Moir is quite clear about her dislike of Tom Cruise. “He is courageous, ageless, and fearless but Tom Cruise slightly gives me the creeps,” says Moir. 

The fact that Tom Cruise executes his stunts is one of the reasons that Jan Moir gives for finding the actor a little “creepy.” She compares him to other actors who play similar roles and choose to let the stunt man take over, but when it comes to Tom Cruise, he prefers to do it all. 

Someone once asked Tom why he prefers to do his stunts: “No one asks Gene Kelly ‘why do you dance, why do you do your dancing?” Which Jan Moir thinks is a particularly “modest” answer. What seems to irk Jan even more, is the amount of stunting that Tom Cruise has done, including jumping from cliffs and hanging from airplanes. 

The only thing, according to Moir, that Tom Cruise is scared of is older women. “But there is one thing this Hollywood hero is scared of — old ladies!” says Moir. “That’s where he draws the line — at the genuine and the realistic. And that is his biggest crime of all in my book. Also, according to an insider who is close with Tom Cruise said that Tom Cruise is involved with the casting selection, and he has a clause in his contracts that says he must approve the co-star. 

What Jan finds confusing is how Tom is playing the lead role in the sequel, but his co-star from the first movie won’t. So now, the leading female lead is now being played by Monica Barbaro, who is 31 years old. Of course, the characters of the women from the first “Top Gun” are nowhere to be seen.

Hollywood is Age Discriminative, According to Research

At the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, a study was done on how Hollywood (and apparently, Tom Cruise) discriminates against actresses over the age of 40 years old, choosing rather to give the roles to younger women. Also, it would appear that everyone included in the research are women over 40 and 45 years old, the disabled, and racial minorities. Subsequently, the study was done by examining about 1100 films that were popular between the years 2007 and 2017. Then, in all the films they studied, there were 48,757 characters featured. So, in this study, they found that only 31.8% of the speaking roles went to women. Finally, the co-author of the study is Katherine Pieper, and she spoke about the age discrimination found in their research. 

“Hollywood’s image of women does not center on women across the lifespan,” said Pieper. “Women aged 40 and older — and women aged 60 and older — have compelling stories to tell, and audiences are not allowed to see and hear from these women in some of our most popular stories.” 

Actresses Speak Up about Age Discrimination

Of course, many actresses have now been coming forward with their experiences of being discriminated against for their age. Just as our writer above has about To Cruise. Maggie Gyllenhaal was once told she was too old to play the role of a woman whom a 55-year-old actor was interested in. So, she was only 37, making her 18 years the actor’s junior. Maggie told The Wrap Story: “It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh.”

Heidi Klum once said on the Ellen Degeneres Show: “Sometimes people say, ‘You’re 44, you’re turning 45. Why are you not giving the baton to someone else? But I always think there are a lot of women my age, fifties, sixties, seventies, what? Do we have an expiration date? Can we not also still feel sexy?”

Tom Cruises’ ex-wife agrees

Nicole Kidman expressed her hope for the change in Hollywood. She mentioned how this hope relies on the writers and the directors of the movies to create parts for the older women. Nicole said: “I just beg that the industry stays behind us because our stories are finally being told. It’s only the beginning, and I’m so proud to be a part of a community that is instigating this change. But I implore the writers, directors, studios, and financiers to put passion and money behind our stories. We have proven that we can do this; we can continue to do this, but only with the support of this industry and that money and passion.”

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