Stars rally behind Tom Cruise after COVID rant
Members of the entertainment industry supported Tom Cruise after his COVID-19 rules rant on the set of "Mission: Impossible 7." Credit: Samantha Zucchi / Insidefoto via ZUMA Press / TNS
Industry reactions appeared to be largely favorable to Tom Cruise's recorded diatribe on the set of the seventh "Mission: Impossible" movie, where the film star and producer had found two crew members violating COVID-19 health and safety protocols.
"He didn't overreact because it is a problem," fellow Hollywood heavyweight George Clooney said on Howard Stern's SiriusXM radio show Wednesday, according to an E! News transcript of that subscription service's interview.
Clooney conceded that he, himself, "wouldn't have done it that big. I wouldn't have, you know, pulled people out," but noted, "You're in a position of power and it's tricky, right? You do have a responsibility for everybody else and he's absolutely right about that. And, you know, if the production goes down, a lot of people lose their jobs. People have to understand that and have to be responsible. It's just not my style to, you know, to take everybody to task that way."
Whoopi Goldberg said on "The View," "Some people don't understand why he would get so angry. I get it. That's his movie. And if he goes down with COVID, the movie's done. … You can get a new camera operator — no disrespect to camera operators. You can get a new sound man. But you can't get another Tom Cruise. It's him, and if he's looking over and he can see you not doing what you're supposed to be doing, it's kind of like a little bit of a middle finger, in my opinion."
"Frozen" star Josh Gad tweeted, "Tom Cruise is correct here FYI. Sorry/Not sorry," and actress Hilarie Burton of "One Tree Hill" wrote of Cruise, "I've never liked him more!" and asked jocularly of the recorded audio, "Can I just blast this at the supermarket?"
Among commentary on late-night talk shows Wednesday, Trevor Noah on "The Daily Show" riffed, "Now, some people are saying that this is a bad look for Tom Cruise, but I disagree. Because, yeah, he's mad, but it's for a good cause. It's like getting recorded screaming, 'You guys are in big trouble if we don't get these toys to the Children's Hospital! I want to see happy kids or you'll never work in this town again!' You're angry, but for the right reason."
"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" did a cold open of "Tom Cruise in 'Kringle Impossible' " — inserting excerpts from Cruise's rant onto portions of the classic 1964 stop-motion animated special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," with a masked Santa berating Rudolph, the elves and the Bumble over breaching protocol.
Later in the show, Colbert again joked about Cruise, riffing on the impossibility of the set crew knowing the coronavirus-imposed rules since they were on a "Ghost Protocol" — a reference to the star's 2011 movie, the fourth in the "Mission: Impossible" film franchise.
