Sometimes Tom Cruise takes a bad rap from movie fans. That was especially true during Covid and the production of 2023’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, when he was caught on tape in an angry moment lecturing the crew of the movie. His co-stars, on the other hand, usually have nothing but praise. In fact, one co-star in the M:I franchise, Melissa George, recently posted a video of herself and Cruise behind the scenes and captioned it with a lengthy comment about working with him. It’s all good things.
George, who starred in The Mosquito Coast, which you can watch with an Apple TV subscription, was cast in the franchise, and obviously she filmed some stuff, but in the end, her role was left on the cutting room floor when the final trilogy was rewritten. In the video, the Australian actress speaks with a French accent, but having no context for why, I’ll just assume it was for the role. She is speaking into the camera with Cruise behind her, filming a video saying hello to her kids. In the caption, George wrote on Instagram:
I was honored to have a role in the Mission series, but when they rewrote the trilogy, the part was no longer needed. Still, I got to work on set alongside Tom and witness the magic of this man.
She then tells an anecdote about Cruise picking her up in a helicopter to take her to the set, saving her a couple of hours of commuting time from London, so that’s pretty awesome! That’s not all George wrote, though, as she also called him “kind, giving, and generous,” before she told another story about Cruise's generosity when her son was injured at home:
We heard my son had fallen at school and hurt his lip. Tom did everything in his power to get me released from filming so I could get to him. He even offered to fly me to France so I could be there sooner.
She wasn’t able to take him up on the offer due to poor weather, but you can tell in her writing just how grateful she was for the offer, and called Cruise a “gorgeous human being.”
While Cruise may get a little emotional on set, his co-collaborators usually say that it’s his passion that gets the best of him. He, according to many of them, is very dedicated to his craft and the success of whatever movie he's making. That may turn some people off, which is understandable, but when those around him are so generous with their praise, it’s probably best to listen.
Cruise’s latest movie, Digger, hit the 2026 movie schedule last weekend and has struggled, to say the least, at the box office, but it's a safe bet that his next big movies, Top Gun 3 and a sequel to Days of Thunder, will put him back on top.
