Tom Cruise talks about cinematography

I gotta tell you before we start, when I was a kid, I set a goal for myself that one day I would sit and talk about making movies with Tom Cruise. Wow. Look at this. Come on, man. That's cool, right? Come on, man. Yeah, yeah. Manifestation, I guess, right? It is. No, not I guess. No, it is. It is. Yeah, yeah. That's exactly it. You work with some of the best cinematographers in the world. Yes. Janusz Kaminski, Robert Elswit, Leon Beebe, Claudio Miranda. Yeah. Insane, right? First time working with Chivo, though, right? Tell me about your relationship with the cinematographer, and even on this movie, your relationship with Chivo. Because I think what makes you such a great actor is your understanding of cinematography and cameras and stuff. But what was it like to work with Chivo on this? It was both of them. It was Alejandro and Chivo. You know, they grew up together, they made commercials together, and they developed a language together. And you just look at Chivo. What you have to understand, I say to people, it's not like, oh, we know what it's going to be, or Chivo knows. It's like we're exploring, and you see the taste of Alejandro's eye, of Chivo's eye, of the design throughout. And discovering the visual tone. I'm always studying that, I'm part of that, so that I understand what's happening. And I'm exploring the tone. And I'll sit down. I remember even in Top Gun, I sat down with all the actors. I said, look, you have to understand these lenses. And I took them through. I was like, you've got to, editorially, what was needed in the tone of the film. It's very important that everyone's on board with what we're trying to accomplish and go in that direction. So it was a real pleasure. I actually got to hold one of the Voigtlanders that Dan Migg used for Top Gun Maverick. Because I did some stuff with him for F1 and whatnot. What I want to talk about, too, because the advancement of tech is so important. The Rialto system wouldn't work for Maverick, right? Digital had to move forward. We're kind of going a little backwards with this division. But moving forward, I think, too. So I'm curious what your experience, does it change you as a performer when you're working with this division? No, not for me, it doesn't. I mean, when we're looking at, look, I was there at the pinnacle, literally, of the development of film when we were there. And then with Michael Mann, when he went in, we did collateral. It's the advent, really, of digital. It was right there. We're right there at the pinnacle of film and then digital. And being able to see how one medium is left behind a little bit and one is developed. And seeing how I came back, I did Edge of Tomorrow on film. We actually had to open film labs to do that and developing film. And just kind of the lenses that we needed and how we can jerry-rig. Now we're looking at old glass and how to make it that we want character. It doesn't change performance at all. Digital can be very helpful, like with Mission or Top Gun or collateral, where it not only long takes, but the depth within the frame at night. There's certain things that I miss. I miss the arc lights that we had on film back in the 80s. And I miss that kind of light that we could get. I remember when we were doing Interview of the Vampires, the first kind of glow lights that we were using at night for night shooting that gave it that soft look. So it doesn't change, but it's just helpful because performance is not just about me. It's about the environment, it's setting, it's tone. All of that is important. So I'm always encouraging others to understand the tools of film. Every aspect of it. You said something there about the image not being too clean. And I heard you even kind of talking about that when we were chatting out in front. Can you unpack that a little bit for me? I think audiences are kind of craving this authenticity of an image that doesn't feel so... It's movies. And it's something where we're looking at digital and digital with the glasses too clean. And it depends on what look you want. But everyone's going, well, let's just shoot this and then we'll create the grain afterwards. There's much more to that. When we were dealing with collateral and all the studios were like, this is going to save money. I was like, guys, this is not going to save money. Let me make this clear to everybody as we move forward. It's not going to save money. This is very complex and you really have to know what you're doing. And you've got to know what look you're going for. There's so many things that you can do with it and in skilled hands. But you could take film and it depends on what you want it to look like. And each film has a different kind of look. But it's cinema. You look at why VistaVision, the size of the frame, the choice of VistaVision over 65. And what that looked like is we tested 65 and we tested VistaVision. And then they developed the lenses for the film to go along, to couple with the VistaVision. So you've never seen VistaVision look like this. And so those things where we're looking at glass and sometimes the glass is too clean. It depends on what you want. You want to prepare, prepare, prepare. And we're deliberate but you want surprises. I like the surprises when you're going and you're like, oh, wow. Like all of us when we were shooting on film, it's always like we would go to rushes and we'd all sit together. All the heads of department, everyone, we'd shoot all day and we'd sit there in rushes. And we all had an idea of what it was going to be. But there was always those surprises. And it has an organic feel to it. Those are the things that I'm, you know, I enjoy films like that. I like the way that looks. I always say I just want movies to look like movies. Yes, that's exactly it. And sometimes you can't really define that. And you know what? That's exactly it. And you have to work harder to get it to look like a movie than you used to. Movies just look like movies before. Now you have to have skilled and real ability to be able to make it look that way too. How to use lights and what these, you know, even I remember with hair and makeup and how people had to change. You know, less light. So there's benefits, but you just really have to understand the tools you're working with. So I guess on that note, how do we kind of get the next generation thinking that way too? So we don't make lazy decisions and kind of just shoot things that we see. We're taking that craft seriously. Yeah, you've got to look. When I started out in the 80s, steady cam was a pretty new thing. You know, Hal Ashby just years before had used it. Garrett Brown was there on set. I was talking about that earlier. And we're looking at film and you look at how the ASA and the grains and all that kind of different periods of film development. In the same way that we have to understand our tools. And when we went into timing, it was like, oh, is it too green, too blue? You know, it was like these just primaries that we were playing with. This, you can change everything. And the challenge is that you can change it so much that you lose perspective. You're there and you're going, there's just too much to do. And you're on a movie set and they're going, we'll fix it in post. I was like, we're not going to fix it in post. We're going to fix it right now, you know, and understand our tools in post and how to utilize it correctly. So it really is studying your tools and understanding it and testing. The amount of testing that I do for every film, you know, we're testing the lenses, we're testing the film. As we're developing it, you know, you can't write tone on paper in the script. You have to discover it for every single movie. So the kind of testing and understanding, you know, the kind of things that I would go to the houses and say, look, we need, I want the old glass, I want handmade, let's cut it. There's something when it's made in that manner that has, it has character. You can feel the person that made it in there almost. And so if you look at a lot of my films, I'm shooting with the old C-series from the 70s, you know. And now we're creating our own lenses. We're getting all kinds of old glass over these years. We've been doing it and doing it, you know, and then adjusting it to different cameras. It's understanding these tools and it takes a bit of time to go, I want this look. That's why I'll look at films and I'm looking at like, if I want this look, what do I need to do to get this look? Now you also in movies, you know, you also have to go when you're looking at sets. How do I keep that tone throughout? Because you've got to look at the set you're doing and the lighting so that there's, you know, we have to understand production design. Look, the thing is movies, the production designer was actually the production designer. He designed the entire production and oversaw the colors of wardrobe, the colors and design of the set. You know, the cinematography, the lens, the lenses, the director would direct it. And sometimes he didn't edit. Most of the times for years he didn't edit his movies. The editors edit movies. So, but that had its benefits. And that's why I'm just saying, look, everyone should really study these tools and know what's out there. And understand, I want this look. How do I get this look? And you have to test to understand how to do that. I love that. I tell people there's only one person on the planet that loves movies more than me. It's Tom Cruise. If you're ever in Toronto, let's go see a movie. That would be fun. That would be fun, right? That would be really fun. Thank you so much. Man, have a great summer. I really appreciate it. No, you too. Fun movies coming up. It's a year of movies of the year. I know, man.