Someone Else Clearly Speaks For Tom Cruise These Days

Because the dude is actually sounding somewhat coherent, reserved and approachable in his recent interview with Esquire magazine. For real. The article is titled, “The Making (and Remaking) of Tom Cruise,” and I, personally, think it has a lot to do with, uh, “remaking” his medication regimen, because the boy hasn’t sounded this clear and concise since his Top Gun days, and even those were somewhat, well … leading days.

On the dad that he kind of hated:

“I remember looking at my dad and wanting to understand him. I didn’t want to just write the guy off. He was lost. I can’t speak specifically in terms of why and how he got to where he was — that was his journey. All I can tell you is, he was overwhelmed by life… My mother basically did all the work, and then they got separated and I didn’t see him for a long time. He didn’t try to help the family financially or spiritually, and I lived with the effects of the chaos … I found out he was dying, and I went to see him in the hospital. He knew that he’d blown it. There was deep regret. I think he was torturing himself. We tend to do that. All I could do was tell him, ‘Look, it’s okay.’ I wasn’t going to live in blame and regret. I wanted to understand what happened. I wanted to understand, so I could answer the question, What can I do to make things better? … “

On what family means to him:

“You hear about people who have lifelong friends. I never was in a place long enough to have them. So that role was filled by my family … If anyone was teasing my sisters, I really felt it… I’d create different characters and ad-lib sketches to make my sisters and my mother feel better. I’d try to make them laugh. I’d do Donald Duck as John Wayne. I’d watch Soul Train and imitate the dancers. I guess you can say that’s where it started … “

On his big break into stardom:

“The audition [for Taps] was in New York. I said one line. That was it. I had long hair at the time, so they said, ‘Hold up your hair.’ Then ‘Thank you.’ I don’t know why, but… I thought I’d get it. It wasn’t arrogance. I had a quarter in my pocket — and that was it. I’m telling you: I didn’t have bus fare to get back to where my mom was living in Jersey. I remember… standing outside the Holland Tunnel, and hitchhiking. I walked up the driveway and saw my mother. It was a distance, but I remember her face. She looked at me and I looked at her, and I thought, I got it.”

On the Infamous Oprah Interview:

“What happened, happened… I wanted the audience to be happy just like I wanted to make my sisters and my mother happy when I did those skits as a kid. But I’ll take responsibility for my actions… Afterward, wild things were being said about me, and once they’re in the ether, there’s nothing you can do about it. It felt like being the new kid in the schoolyard again and the other kids are whispering and whispering about you and suddenly you hear what they’re saying, and you think, What? That didn’t happen. Look at the reality of the situation.”

So, that leads me to believe one thing: that Tom Cruise definitely has other people ghost-give his interviews. There’s no other explanation for his recent lucidity. Aside from Thorazine, that is.