Cruise muscled way to 'Samurai' role

Chicago Sun-Times/December 12, 2003
By Angela Dawson

Hollywood -- Entering a hotel ballroom packed with journalists from all over the world, Tom Cruise is here to promote his new movie ''The Last Samurai.''

While Cruise discusses his starring role in the film -- he plays a jaded Civil War veteran who gains enlightenment by traveling to Japan during the last days of the samurai -- it is clear that he has something else on his mind: Scientology.

Asked about his character's, and his own, search for inner peace, Cruise explains that Scientology has helped him find solace in his life. Cruise, 41, has long been a member of the controversial religion founded by the late science-fiction author and educator L. Ron Hubbard. The actor discovered Hubbard's teachings in the mid-1980s. Cruise claims they helped him overcome a lifelong reading disability among other things.

At ''The Last Samurai'' press conference, it's unclear whether Cruise was asked to promote Scientology or whether he simply feels compelled to spread the word. The A-list actor, who once attended a Franciscan seminary, is a founding board member of the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project, a nonprofit group that uses Hubbard's teaching techniques in a secular setting.

''It's something that has given me great stability and tools that I use, and it's something that's enabled me to help others in a way that I've always wanted to,'' he says.

Cruise is savvy enough to know he also has another job to do here: promote the movie. The previous night, the indefatigable actor was working on a thriller tentatively titled ''Collateral'' in which he plays a hit man. His hair is short and spiky, in contrast to the flowing brown mane he has in ''The Last Samurai.'' He's thinner, and a three-day growth of stubble has replaced the ''Samurai'' beard.

A producer as well as star of the historic epic, he enthusiastically explains how he prepared for his ''Samurai'' role, working out and gaining 25 pounds of muscle to play Nathan Algren, a boozing ex-soldier who has lost his purpose in life. Recruited in 1876 to train Japanese soldiers in modern warfare tactics, Algren soon finds himself captured on the battlefield by the samurai, an ancient race of warriors who live by a code of strength, compassion, loyalty and sacrifice. He is taken to their remote mountain enclave as a prisoner but eventually becomes a student of their way of life.

Cruise, who prefers to do his own stunts, spent a year preparing for the role, studying Japanese swordsmanship and martial arts as well as the Japanese language.

''I love what I do. I take great pride in what I do and I can't do something halfway, three-quarters or nine-tenths,'' Cruise says. ''If I'm going to do something, I go all the way.''

Cruise trained for a full year before production began in Japan and New Zealand. Not only did he have to learn how to fight samurai-style on horseback, he also had to do it wearing armor.

Stunt coordinator Nick Powell whipped Cruise into shape by building up his arms and shoulders. Much of his training mirrored his character's training with the samurai warriors in the film.

Cruise also boned up on his Japanese and American history. He collected information about the period known as the Meiji Restoration, which marked the end of an era for the samurai. They had served the country's emperor for hundreds of years before they were phased out as Western weaponry and warfare methods permeated Japan at the dawn of the 20th century.

Cruise also gained an understanding of his character by reading journals and diaries of soldiers from the Civil War and the American-Indian campaigns.

''The Last Samurai'' presented Cruise with an interesting challenge. He'd never appeared in a period epic, though he admired the genre as a youngster. ''I remember vividly being at a drive-in -- I guess I was about 6 or 7 years old -- sitting on the roof of my family station wagon, and the action on the screen was the Sahara Desert,'' he recalls of watching ''Lawrence of Arabia.'' ''I always wanted to see other places and learn about how other people lived.''

For Cruise, the appeal of ''The Last Samurai'' was making an action-adventure imbued with a heartwarming story about redemption.

''I don't make a film unless I feel that I can take the time to prepare. Even with 'Jerry Maguire,' I did a lot of preparation,'' he says. ''But I don't take a lot of time deciding if I'm going to do something. I know pretty quickly and I make very quick decisions when I read something. The studio allows me the freedoms that I have because they know I take full responsibility for what I do. I feel a responsibility to get the studios their money back. But even more than that, I want people to see the movies.''