tom cruise oprah full interview

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• The Couch Jump That Rocked Hollywood

Tom Cruise’s 2005 appearance on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ was an iconic episode of television—and a turning point for how we discuss and understand celebrities

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In the spring of 2005, an unknown 20-something in California uploaded a 19-second video of himself to the internet. “Me at the zoo,” the first YouTube video, featured cofounder Jawed Karim rambling about animals. “The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks,” a man said, gesturing toward an elephant enclosure. It was boring, but it was the beginning of something.

That same spring, Karim’s YouTube quickly found one of its first hits. Its origins were far less obscure than a tech guy on a field trip. At the time, Tom Cruise had a more-than-reasonable claim to the title of biggest celebrity in America. He was the movie star, a leading man with mom-approved handsomeness, a nimble physicality, and a gung-ho intensity that played on the big screen as magnetic instead of disturbed. He counted Top Gun , Jerry Maguire , and two Mission: Impossible movies among the idol-making roles under his small belt. Meanwhile, Oprah Winfrey had already established herself as not only the biggest celebrity on daytime television, but the biggest celebrity in media. She’d made the careers of Drs. Phil and Oz. She’d debuted O, the Oprah Magazine . She’d hollered “You get a car!” to a euphoric crowd. Cruise’s May 2005 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show seemed destined to be yet another fluffy meeting of monstrously famous minds. Instead, traditional media’s powerhouse duo was about to provide the new video-uploading service with a clip that would demonstrate the format’s growth potential far better than a rinky-dink recording of a random dude musing about zoos.

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Before Cruise came out on stage that day, the crowd at Chicago’s Harpo Studios had already hyped itself into an ecstatic frenzy, whooping and clapping and jumping in overwhelmed pleasure at being in the presence of Winfrey, in her space, living their best lives. By 2005, Oprah had transformed her daytime talk show from a variation on Phil Donahue’s talk theme into something new, something that took the voyeuristic thrills of seeing televised confessions and elevated them with the language of self-help seminars and the polish of Hollywood. “Oprah is sitting in the throne of American pop culture,” said WBEZ anchor Jenn White on the podcast Making Oprah , describing Oprah’s cultural cachet in the early aughts. “She commands a regular worldwide audience of tens of millions. She can turn a book into a bestseller, a product into a trend, and people into stars.” At that point, Christianity Today had identified Oprah as “one of the most influential spiritual leaders in America.” Her audiences resembled gaga congregants.

Cruise was in Chicago to talk about his upcoming movie, Steven Spielberg’s remake of War of the Worlds . Instead of sticking to the promotional script, though, the compact action star gushed about his new girlfriend, actress Katie Holmes. “You’re gone,” Oprah said, searching for words to describe Cruise’s over-the-top infatuation. Within 15 minutes, Cruise had leapt onto Oprah’s couch in a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm for his personal life. Cruise’s offbeat showboating was memorable in part because of its unusual setting; The Oprah Winfrey Show was where celebrities traipsed to shine up their reputations and get a warm embrace from a sympathetic fellow star. Oprah would polish, not grill. But Oprah, usually so masterful at empathizing with her guests, appeared to be at a loss. “You’re gone,” she repeated. The charismatic preacher had been sidelined by an even more earnest proselytizer.

People hated it. More importantly, they loved to hate it. Most importantly, they loved to talk about hating it. Divorced from its context and remixed into YouTube clips and GIFs, Cruise’s couch outburst looked far more bizarre than it had during the episode, when at least the studio audience had been equally hyped up and Oprah had encouraged him to talk about his personal life. Within the context of the episode, Cruise’s behavior was strange but not outrageous. On the internet, isolated and amplified into a single furniture-leaping moment, it looked like an A-list meltdown . The most popular spoof was called “Tom Cruise Kills Oprah,” where Cruise appeared to kill Oprah with lightning. Family Guy parodied it. Even Sesame Street eventually parodied it. But the couch clip went beyond launching parodies and viral videos. The response to the Cruise episode signaled a changing of the guard in Hollywood media, from a pecking order where publicists and studios could strike deals with access-hungry press toward a more democratic and chaotic media landscape. Even though Cruise had been in a terrific mood during his Oprah appearance, it was appropriate that his tomfoolery was reframed to look far more aggressive than it was. The internet and the media were about to get much sharper.

“Tom’s couch-jumping coincided with the rise of gossip blogs,” Matt James, who runs the celebrity gossip site Pop Culture Died in 2009, told The Ringer . “The entire incident became a testament to the way public opinion could form online in the pre-Twitter era, and how damaging it could be in the long run.”

Longtime Hollywood gossip blog Lainey Gossip also credited Cruise’s leap onto Oprah’s couch with galvanizing the media landscape. “This rise of the gossip blog quickly accelerated,” site creator Elaine Lui wrote in 2015. “Celebrities were not being contained the way they used to be. And the PEOPLE and Entertainment Tonight coverage just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Not when these illusions were so quickly being destroyed. This incident became one of the most critical chapters in the Origin Story of Internet Gossip.” The intense online response to Cruise’s convention-breaking presaged a shift in how celebrity freakouts were covered, as it was one of the first major entertainment-world meltdowns to saturate the blogging world. “There was something so personal, so oversharey, so necessarily engaged with the audience in Cruise’s couch-jumping that it set the tone for the kind of one-person media circus we’d expect and enjoy in the years to come, to varying degrees of sadness (Britney Spears), amazement (Charlie Sheen) and despicableness (Chris Brown),” Gawker ’s Rich Juzwiak wrote in 2012. While the word “meme” hadn’t yet entered the mainstream lexicon, Cruise’s furniture leap went viral. “Culturally, it was, in my mind, one of the first celebrity memes,” Brandon Ogborn, the writer behind The TomKat Project , an excellent play examining Tom Cruise’s reputation, told The Ringer . “That clip was reenacted so many times. It was kind of a watershed moment for internet culture.”

Along with memes came a cascade of internet commentary on Cruise’s behavior, most of it overwhelmingly negative. While Oprah’s studio audience had been pleased with his effusiveness, the story line soured in the digital world. “Now, whenever something happens in the news, we can go online and quickly find the tide in which public opinion is turning. In the early days of the internet, it wasn’t that distinct,” James said. “That changed with Tom. The people who watched Tom’s appearance and felt it was maybe even the slightest bit heartwarming went online to find that the majority opinion was Tom had lost his mind.”

It was an exciting time for bloggers, and terrible timing for Cruise. He had fired his longtime publicist, Pat Kingsley, in March 2004. Kingsley was a powerhouse with a viselike grip on the dicks of traditional outlets. “She was adamant about keeping Cruise out of the tabloids. At press junkets, she demanded that journalists sign contracts swearing not to sell their quotes to the supermarket rags,” film critic Amy Nicholson wrote for LA Weekly in 2014, arguing that internet culture was to blame for Cruise’s fall from grace. “Then Kingsley expanded her reach and insisted that all TV interviewers destroy their tapes after his segment had aired.” Without Kingsley, Cruise didn’t have his usual PR fixer at hand to tell him what not to do, to tell him how to course-correct once the backlash began, or to tell the press to lay off. Instead, Cruise had replaced the flinty Kingsley with his sister, Lee Anne DeVette, a fellow Scientologist. The public reaction to his romance with Holmes was no good even before The Incident. According to a People poll, the majority of respondents saw the relationship as a publicity stunt . “We can’t get enough of the TomKat show because eventually the paint will start to chip and we will hopefully see all the ugliness as openly as we’ve been shoved the lovey-dovey bullshit,” Perez Hilton wrote. Cruise’s past habit of keeping his private life to himself and manicuring his public image had given him an idyllic but distinctly artificial sheen, one that may have counterintuitively exacerbated the response when he finally stepped out of line. “He had never done anything publicly wrong before,” Nicholson told The Ringer . “He’d always been so perfect.” Cruise’s over-the-top display of hyper-public affection, possibly made more intense by his desire to prove that his love was real, backfired. Instead of making people think he was a romantic, Cruise just made people think he was weird.

He quickly got weirder, and darker. Shortly after his couch leap, Cruise started a feud with Brooke Shields by dismissing her experience with postpartum depression. He went on Today to go even further, insisting that psychiatry and psychiatric medicine were dangerous. While Cruise was a longtime Scientologist, he had never openly advocated for the abusive group’s more controversial beliefs so publicly before. “It was a time when he really just let himself go, and let his freak flag fly. And it was also a time when he was really proselytizing for Scientology. I think it was a huge explosion of press that was bad press, because the Tom Cruise machine just stopped,” Ogborn said. “He said, This is who I am, I’m going to jump on that couch, I’m going to tell Matt Lauer he’s glib. ”

In less than a year, Cruise contorted his reputation from a hard-working, eccentric leading man into Hollywood’s premiere guileless kook. “Cruise: I will eat the placenta,” a 2006 Daily Mail headline , is a good example of the sort of news he generated. When California banned the sale of ultrasounds for personal use that year, it was known as the “Tom Cruise law” because Cruise had publicly purchased an ultrasound machine to view his daughter in the womb. South Park went for the jugular, as expected, but ridicule came from all over. Noah Baumbach wrote a New Yorker piece where the joke was that his dog was stupid and enthusiastic … just like Tom Cruise. Even Lauren Bacall dissed him to reporters. People still showed up for Cruise movies. War of the Worlds had a huge opening , but studios feared that Cruise’s bankability was tainted after Mission: Impossible III made nearly $150 million less worldwide than its predecessor. Cruise’s reputation was undeniably threatened. His Q rating, used to measure celebrity appeal, dropped 40 percent. “From that point on, we all accepted Tom Cruise was crazy,” James said. “It was a done deal.”

Cruise’s uninhibited media blunder bender cost him a lucrative, long-term production deal with Paramount. His behavior was blamed for the deal’s destruction. “His recent conduct has not been acceptable to Paramount,” Viacom chairman Sumner M. Redstone told The Wall Street Journal . The Oprah Winfrey Show , meanwhile, continued on as an unstoppable cultural force. From all accounts, as much as the couch-jumping episode yoked Oprah and Cruise together for eternity as a punch line, it also ruffled feathers at Harpo. “She was not invited to his wedding, and he was not invited for a very long time to come interview with her,” Ogborn pointed out, noting that Harpo employees would frequently come talk to him after the Chicago run of The TomKat Project to discuss that period of time. “They said she was fucking pissed when it happened.”

Regardless of Oprah’s personal opinion of Cruise’s behavior, the interview didn’t hurt her professionally. A mock set from the show is now on display in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture as part of an exhibit on Winfrey. There was no lasting damage to her legacy. (Curators declined to comment on the role of the interview in her cultural history.) If anything, the couch-jumping episode only provided a bolstering example of Oprah presiding over must-watch TV. The show’s guiding ethos focused on going big and doing the best, resulting in ever-more-elaborate gift giveaways and surprises for the audience. While Cruise’s antics might have thrown off the dynamic between guest and host that Oprah preferred, his interview ultimately fit the bill for the gripping, unexpected, and wholly memorable. “Tom’s televised freakout was just another notch in her belt,” James said. Talk-show hosts now manufacture segments specifically to do well on YouTube and other online platforms, but it was Oprah who generated the first viral talk-show clip.

The incident certainly did not kill Cruise’s career, either. In 2008, his comic turn in Tropic Thunder helped undercut his reputation for unrelenting self-seriousness. (The same year, Cruise reunited with Oprah for a much calmer interview.) Cruise maintained his career throughout his reputational turmoil by sticking with Mission: Impossible and thematically similar films. “He’s always done such great work with this franchise, but he’s almost clinging to it nervously, like he’s afraid to let go and take a real risk,” Nicholson said. “He’ll take risks inside the film with stunts, but he’s not taking risks inside his own career, like doing the dramatic work that marked a lot of what he did in the ’80s, or by chasing an Oscar, which is something he gave up on.” Although he never quite regained his status as a Hollywood golden boy, he has mellowed into an aging statesman of action flicks—and anyway, his divorce from Katie Holmes and continued association with Scientology have left a longer-lasting stink on his name than his exuberant talk-show appearance. In 2015, GQ heralded “Cool Tom Cruise.” This summer, he is starring in the sixth Mission: Impossible movie. The critical response to both the film and Cruise’s performance has been overwhelmingly positive. “What’s always been so ironic to me about the Tom Cruise quote-unquote backlash is that it seemed to me that audiences still really loved him, even if newspapers were telling them that they didn’t,” Nicholson said. “I feel like he’s proving something that never needed to be proven.”

The real legacy of the couch-jumping incident has almost nothing to do with Cruise or Oprah specifically and everything to do with how people reacted online to the moment. Tom and Oprah’s strange conversation, and the reaction it provoked, is now preserved as thousands of digital artifacts, emblematic of how information traveled in the early aughts. Rewatching the episode and the viral videos it spawned feels quaint now. The bloggy media cycle that produced Cruise memes has been replaced by a cesspool of broken newsfeeds smushing conspiracy theories and branded content against real news and irrational presidential tweets with such velocity that it seems deeply unlikely that Cruise’s hop onto a loveseat would provoke much at all in 2018. However, it’s even less likely that Cruise would’ve been able to make it so far into his career without finding his kooky personality exposed as he did in 2005.

Up-and-comers have learned to respond to a different and less controllable form of media attention. There is a whole brand of celebrity in which the famous are expected to engage with fans on social media. Celebrity PR disasters don’t often happen in such glossy settings anymore; instead, they are frequently facilitated by social media and accelerated by fans and detractors who dig up old tweets . The last time a daytime talk-show guest created a media supernova after their appearance, it was Danielle Bregoli, a.k.a. Bhad Bhabie, a.k.a. “Cash Me Ousside” Girl, who parlayed a viral moment shit-talking on Dr. Phil into a viable rap career . I doubt Bregoli knows about Tom Cruise’s Oprah appearance, but her own twist on the daytime meme underscores how much has changed since Cruise took his happy hop. Performative, contrived freakiness in front of a live studio audience can be an asset now. The big leap is figuring out how to navigate internet criticism without spinning out—a frequently impossible mission.

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Relive the Moment When Tom Cruise Jumped On Oprah's Couch

On May 23, 2005, Tom Cruise showed his incredible cat-like agility by jumping on Oprah Winfrey's couch. Ten years later, we celebrate this moment that went down in pop culture history.

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How Tom Cruise Jumping on Oprah's Couch Changed Everything

Ten years ago, a media event took place that changed the public's perception of one of its most beloved stars. And while he has continued to see success, his image has never recovered — and it's possible it never will. I'm referring of course to the jump heard 'round the world: Tom Cruise 's interview with Oprah Winfrey .

Freshly in love with Katie Holmes , a relationship long speculated to be the result of a "wife search" sanctioned and lead by the Church of Scientology, Cruise visited his friend Oprah — and a very on-board audience who loved every moment of the interview — and discussed his newfound happiness. And he did so by grabbing Oprah's hands, standing on the couch, and retrieving Holmes from backstage to show off his prize.

Some things go viral and when we look back years later, we see they weren't such a big deal. This is not one of those things. This is just as awkward as it was in 2005.

People responded. And the response was an embarrassment. While the studio audience was incredibly stoked, the viewers at home — and online — were weirded out. This display of emotion was so intense, so striking, that it rang false. Or, if not false, definitely kind of creepy. It was too much. So, the memes began.

Cruise would continue to have box office success thanks to the Mission Impossible franchise — though for a few years his star dimmed a bit. (Anyone remember Lions for Lambs or Knight and Day ?) But the public's image of him has never been the same. Never again would he be dreamboat Tom Cruise, universally beloved celebrity. He has been since and will remain the overly intense guy who either must be hiding something or has lost the ability to act like a regular person.

Critics have blamed bloggers and internet culture for their abuse of the clips, like the above, ultimately leading to the backlash that still exists against Cruise, but it was more than just a couch jump. This was also a time when the internet was giving the public more information than ever before, meaning most of us were learning about Scientology for the first time. We saw this video on YTMND , we could read about Operation Snow White and other scary stuff, and we would soon all be able to read this still terrifying Katie Holmes W magazine interview . If you missed that interview back in 2005, it's still a great, creepy read. Holmes answers every question with a robot-like focus on how perfect Cruise is (whether that was the question or not) and is often answered for by a Scientology handler. Cruise's Oprah exuberance was clearly contagious — here's one example:

...A security guard lumbers into the dressing room and presents Holmes with a giant silver box tied in a thick purple ribbon. A small crowd gathers to watch her gleefully tear open the package and pluck out a Chanel diamond necklace—a gift, naturally, from Cruise. “He’s my man! He’s my man!” she screams, then jumps up on her chair to do an impression of her fiancé’s now-famous sofa shtick from Oprah.

People begin to cheer. “This is your moment!” cries the manicurist.

“I can do splits too,” Holmes says, jumping down and splaying herself across the floor. On that note, I suggest, we should probably get the photo shoot started.

“On that note,” she replies, “I love him.”

And when the two split years later, no one was surprised by tales of Holmes's harrowing escape — and no one saw that as mere media hyperbole. Our eyes had been opened to the fact that movie star Tom Cruise was also perhaps weird public figure Tom Cruise. And he likely always will be.

What came first: the couch or our discomfort? Oprah may have been the impetus, but Cruise was hardly a victim of mean memes and viral videos. He was a victim of a public that had become too difficult to fake it in front of.

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Let's revisit the Tom Cruise/Oprah's couch incident

It was one of the most-watched moments in the Internet’s relatively brief history. When Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch and declared his love for Katie Holmes, it was the daytime TV moment for a DVR, GIF-ready age.

But, as Amy Nicholson reports for L.A. Weekly , the moment we all thought we saw never happened. He never jumped up and down on the couch; he simply stood. The nitty-gritty of the infamous May 2005 Oprah appearance is but one revelation in her fascinating piece, How YouTube and Internet Journalism Destroyed Tom Cruise, Our Last Real Movie Star .

In the article, Nicholson explores how Tom Cruise went from the biggest movie star in the world to an Internet joke (who still manages to open films), with fascinating insight that attempts to explain the context behind the Oprah appearance (for example, that Cruise was playing to an audience that was quite different than bloggers), as well as larger points about that time period — it’s hard to believe all that media craziness was nine years ago.

As Nicholson points out, the Oprah Couch Incident happened at a time with a lot of rapid changes in entertainment culture — the launch of PerezHilton.com, the growth of TMZ, the inundation of camera phones making everyone paparazzi, etc. The piece is interesting from a How We Got Here angle, as well as its ability to shed some light on what publicity meant in the ’90s versus now — Nicholson also gets great scoop about how that infamous Matt Lauer/Tom Cruise interview came to be (never underestimate a good publicist).

For old times’ sake, watch the Cruise clip below, and then go read Nicholson’s full article :

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I Rewatched Oprah's 2005 Tom Cruise Interview

On oprah and fandom.

No one listens like Oprah. I have always found her incredibly fascinating, but none more so than when she sits opposite a celebrity for an interview. This isn’t to say that she’s not a great interviewer of ordinary everyday humans, but there’s something about how she manages to disarms celebrities who burn just as brightly as she does. How they feel comfortable opening up to her. It’s been a minute since she’s dropped some fresh interview game on us, which is why Sunday’s interview with Harry and Meghan felt so monumentous.

I’ve written recently about my fascination with Tom Cruise and hosted a discussion thread for subscribers , so when Oprah’s latest interview dominated the media landscape in the days after (and continues to do so) my mind wandered to Oprah’s interview with Cruise on June 23, 2005. I rewatched the interview to revisit my thoughts on Cruise and whether this viral moment (the first viral video on YouTube) was truly that shocking sixteen years later and whether I could glean any new insights into Oprah as an interviewer.

I stand by my analysis that Cruise is “a soulless cipher incredibly skilled at mimicking human emotion.” But as it turns out, that kind of behavior wasn’t just for public consumption. Part of me wants to think Cruise merely had a manic breakdown on national television, but it appears to be the person he actually is. He became a mega celebrity in his late 20s and then was seduced into Scientology where he was surely lauded even more than his fans possibly could. He was not just important in the scope of Hollywood, but he was important to an entire religious cult. Is it any wonder that this man is giddy at the thought of any type of human interaction? That he’s utterly bewildered by how humans interact with one another? What we witnessed in 2005 wasn’t Tom having a breakdown, but it was an alien attempting to forge a connection with the human beings he’d just discovered.

Before Cruise sets foot on Oprah’s stage, she is commanding an audience of screaming, gasping women in near ecstasy. If you weren’t a regular Oprah watcher in its heyday and you’re only seeing it through the eyes of this clip, then you would be forgiven for mistaking the energy in the room as Cruise fandom. No, it’s Oprah fandom. And since she’s left the talk show behind and begun the “respectable elder” portion of her career, what’s gone is the literal insanity that used to surround open. It was parodied constantly before Cruise’s interview. Here was a black woman born into poverty in rural Mississippi who had become the most famous woman in media, perhaps one of the biggest celebrities in the world, and every day you could tune in to see white women screaming in adulation at her presence. If it were the holiday season and she was handing out cars? You might think you were watching a human sacrifice in Midsommar .

The energy is palpable watching a poor quality video in 2021, so imagine the energy Cruise felt backstage watching an audience enraptured by a goddess and waiting for his arrival. He lapped it up. The audience shrieked every time he smiled, every time he mentioned Katie Holmes’ name, every time he went into his pre-rehearsed spiel. One of the oddest moments to me is when he describes how he met Holmes. I know that dating for celebrities is weird, but the idea that he was a celebrity who people often came to for career advice and help (I’d like to know who any of those people are and how helpful he was, I’m assuming Will Smith was one of them) so he decided to use that position to beckon Holmes. Only he wasn’t offering her advice, he was professing his love for her. The description of ordering a celebrity wife feels like something out of 90 Day Fiancé or an ad for Grindr.

What’s also interesting is that he can barely explain why he’s interested in Holmes. He says he’d seen her work before and she was so incredibly talented that he had to meet her. Listen, I love Katie as much as the next person but I doubt this man watching Dawson’s Creek. I suppose Pieces of April and The Gift have their fans and whoever knows what extraordinary acting even means to Cruise: Lauren Bacall once said , “the word 'great' stands for something. When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise.” I disagree, but then again, he’s certainly no Humphrey Bogart, so I’ll give her that.

At one point, a man in the audience asks Cruise a question and he’s stunned that there’s a man in the audience. The idea that a man would show up at Oprah’s show to see him talking about War of the Worlds is bewildering to him, which is odd because that’s the primary audience for his films. But because he’s there to primarily talk about his relationship with Holmes, he seems to have forgotten all about the movie he’s there to promote. He can’t even pretend to care about the other Tom Cruise who shows up — a man who shares the same name as him. It’s the kind of silly thing you’d see on TV all the time back then, but Cruise is more interested in running backstage and grabbing Holmes and forcing her to face the audience.

It wasn’t until after the interview that Cruise realized he’d made a misstep, but Oprah noticed it early on. When he first leaps on the couch she asks if he’s been sleeping. It’s an innocuous question, there are a variety of answers. But it’s telling that he doesn’t blame the film shoot or anything else that could add to his strenuous schedule, he discusses being up all night eating Garrett’s popcorn and Giordano’s pizza with Holmes. All excellent choices, btw, because as I’ve said before the best pizza is from Chicago. Not a joke, just a fact.

Returning to the point I made about Tom’s erratic behavior not just being a symptom of this audience… Oprah brings up how energetic he was the previous evening at her Legends Ball. In a light way, it’s like she’s telling him, “your crazy white ass embarrassed me in front of all these black folks.” But Tina Turner beckoned him to her table, so all was forgiven. She also mentions how he’s utterly puzzled by the idea of other humans. Like when they’re at dinner, he’ll be inquiring if the man pouring the water likes his job and how his day is going. “I love people, not not that much,” Oprah says.

If anything, the interview is much more revealing about who Oprah is now in this moment. Cruise became a punchline for a moment, but it didn’t affect his career in the long run. If anything, it made him retreat into comfortable action movies and stop trying to win Oscars. That’s where those Bacall comments must have stung, by the way. Cruise did at one point consider himself an ACTOR. After this, he was resigned to becoming a movie star. 

Oprah on the other hand has retreated from the circus she used to ringlead. We associate Oprah now with presidential endorsements, soft sweaters, and residing on pergolas . Like the one lent to her by a Montecito neighbor (allegedly Rob Lowe’s home, according to Deux Moi). She has recognized that her interview skills are much stronger without a breathless studio audience. She has always commanded star power in her interviews, but as the idea of mega stars fades from the public consciousness, who is left for Oprah to even have sit downs with besides royalty? After all, isn’t she royalty herself? And would she subject royalty to her adoring fans? She herself is barely even associated with the crazed white women who used to lust for vehicles from her. 

The most interesting thing about this interview to me is that I cannot imagine Oprah conducting anything like it ever again. She don’t love these hoes like that. I don’t think she ever did.

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11 Years Ago Today, Tom Cruise Had His Way With Oprah Winfrey's Couch

It's a monumental day, indeed..

...And we never looked at a couch the same way again.

We can all picture this moment like it was yesterday. The beige carpeted set. Oprah Winfrey 's pink knit separates. That oddly flower-like couch. And of course,  Tom Cruise , dressed all in black as though he were a ninja sent on assignment straight from the Church of Scientology, losing his freaking mind.

It all happened exactly 11 years ago today.

The actor was making an appearance on  Oprah to promote a project that nobody will remember as its cultural impact will never measure up to that of the actual interview (for the record it was  War of the Worlds ), when he decided to go completely off-script—to his publicist's utter horror, we imagine.

But as we always say, a publicist's worst nightmare is the Internet's fever dream, and now we are left with one of the most simultaneously horrifying and fabulous clips of all time. It all started the second Cruise walked out onto Winfrey's stage. Perhaps he was spurred on by the panicked shrieks of the audience members who could not believe their luck to be laying eyes on  the Tom Cruise, or perhaps he had started his day off with five to seven shots of espresso. Either way, Tom Cruise was on one. 

He raised his arms in jubilation. He got down on one knee to praise the Gods of Xenu for his fortune. He was moved speechless by his joy! Then, to the delight of mankind everywhere, he jumped up on Oprah's couch in a display of crazy that no one could have predicted. And all the while Oprah provided a soundtrack of enthusiastic  whoooooos! , knowing that with each passing arm pump and leg kick her royalty earnings were multiplying. 

She also managed to squeeze in the observation that something had happened to him (how savvy of you, O!), to which he so simply replied, "I'm in love."

Our collective consciousness may have forgotten this moment with the passage of time, what with new celebrity couplings and pregnancies and breakups cropping up each day. But we're here to remind the world that we must never lose the feelings we felt when we first bore witness to the Incident. We must hold this simultaneous joy and horror in our hearts forever, because it is with us that this tale will live on. 

Of course, on this the 11th anniversary of the Couch Jump, we  do look back on the whole thing with a bit more knowledge than we had in 2005—in particular the knowledge that Tom and Katie's courtship may have been a smidge less than naturally-occurring. But we shalt not dwell on this fact, for it makes the clip way less hilarious and way more depressing. 

Instead, we shall simply appreciate the moment for what it was: Freaking hilarious. And we will honor it in the only way we know how: With GIFs. 

It’s Been 10 Years Since Tom Cruise Made Oprah’s Couch Famous

Tom Cruise’s infamous Oprah interview turns 10 on May 23. And while the episode of the show has been exaggerated in the popular consciousness (Cruise never really jumped up and down on the couch, merely stood on it briefly and then did a lot of kneeling), the Internet never forgets.

That’s thanks largely to videos like “Tom Cruise Kills Oprah” and an endless succession of GIFs and memes that cemented Cruise’s appearance on the show in the zeitgeist.

“Certainly, I did not think it would turn into the brouhaha that it did,” Oprah told TV Guide later . She has since refused to re-air the footage, calling the wave of viral clips that have sprung up around it “unfair.”

But it continues to live on, particularly in situations like the one above, in which Wayfair PR placed a couch in Boston’s Copley Square and asked people what would make them happy enough to jump up on it, à la Cruise, complete with Oprah and Cruise masks.

This article originally appeared on People.com .

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Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah's couch 16 years ago and it hasn't aged well

In May 2005, Tom Cruise momentarily lost the run of himself and trampled all over Oprah's couch as he proclaimed his love for Katie Holmes during an interview.

After months of speculation that the pair were together, Tom finally spoke of their relationship on Oprah's chat show and sent the host and viewers in the studio into the frenzy with his antics.

A month before this, Tom and Katie -- known as TomKat for a period -- made their first public appearance together in Rome, making them the most talked-about Hollywood couple of the time.

So, you can only imagine the mileage fans, haters, and the media all got out that *that* Oprah interview.

The actor , then 42, wasn't appearing on the show to lep about, and shout his love for the Dawson's Creek star , then 26, but instead to talk about his upcoming movie War of the Worlds also starring 11-year-old Dakota Fanning.

The interview was happening as Oprah's talk show was at the height of its popularity and audience members were regularly leaving with cars and a feeling of having been in the presence of royalty.

With the excitement in the studio already high, Oprah introduced Tom to the crowd, and, well, it all went downhill from there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQgXEkL3NV4

At the time, some called it sweet watching Tom talk about his new romance, however, I never felt it right to categorise it as 'sweet' but rather cringe-inducing.

'You're gone,' Oprah said of Tom's first pumping and victory laps of the studio -- a fairly appropriate and presumingly unintentionally Irish way of describing the moment.

As the frenzy in the studio began to die down with Tom's ongoing victory lap, Oprah took the reigns and prompted Tom to create another headline moment.

'Get Katie out here,' the host told Tom as the actor headed for backstage to push -- literally -- his new girlfriend out in front of the cameras and the hysterical viewers.

A reluctant Katie joined Tom and embraced Oprah as audience members continued to exert themselves at the sight of the pair together.

The moment was all over celebrity blogs and made his relationship with Katie the only celebrity love story worth talking about for the foreseeable.

Within months, Katie and Tom announced they were expecting their first child and a year later, the couple was married in a Scientologist ceremony in front of many A-lister pals.

Some 16 years later, with Katie and Tom long divorced and their daughter Suri now celebrating her 15th birthday, looking back at this iconic TV moment feels totally removed from where we are now.

The moment continues to be a pop culture reference for many who will think of Tom when gushing about a new love or testing out a new sofa.

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Tom Cruise Talks Couch-Jumping and Family Life

He opens up to Oprah about his kids, Katie Holmes, and whether he's misunderstood

Video courtesy The Oprah Winfrey Show

Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey are sitting down to talk – but this time it’s on his couch.

In the first part of a two-part interview, Winfrey visits Cruise in his Telluride, Colo. home – and talk inevitably turns to the actor’s now-infamous couch jumping incident from 2005.

“[It] was a moment, and it was real,” Cruise says about his animated profession of love for Katie Holmes , in the interview to air on Friday. “I just felt that way, and I feel that way about her,” he continues. “I can’t even articulate it, to be honest. That feeling, that connection. Just who she is and what she means to me.”

Cruise also opens up about Holmes and private moments with his family. Here are some of the highlights from the first part of his interview. (The second part – filmed in Winfrey’s Chicago studio – is scheduled to air on Monday, May 5.)

• On Connor and Bella’s impressions of Holmes: “Kate shows up with cupcakes. The cupcakes are there, and they all looked at me like, ‘This is cool. Can we eat these cupcakes? This lady’s cool.'”

• On rumors about his relationship with Holmes: “That’s laughable to me. You just know that [tabloids are] trying to sell it and spin it.”

• On Connor and Bella reading tabloid reports about Cruise: “They love me, so they know. They’ve grown up with that, and I’m sure there are things that they don’t like, and you go, ‘Okay, that happened, things go wrong, but don’t live in it. Don’t live in that because today is a new day and there’s plenty of tomorrows. They’re good people, my children. I’m proud of them.I don’t want them to worry. They know I’m there. No matter what, I’m always there.”

• On dressing like Santa to surprise Suri: “I open the door, and I’m giving my best, ‘Oh, merry Christmas! Oh, look at this little girl,’ and Suri looks at me, and she says, ‘No – Dada!’ So that night, we were putting Suri down. Kate says, ‘How was it? Did you like it? What did you think of Santa?’ And Suri was really sweet, she looks up, and she goes, ‘Dada Santa.'”

• On whether Cruise has been misunderstood: “Listen I, I feel like definitely things have been misunderstood, and there are things I could have done better. But then there’s also that world where you go, ‘Oh, it’s been spun to such an extent.’ ”

Related Articles

Tom Cruise went viral for jumping on Oprah's couch, but what happened in the next minute was so much worse.

It was the couch that broke the internet before the internet even really knew what the word 'viral' meant. 

Tom Cruise jumping on a couch while being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in 2005.

The imagery is iconic at this point. An overzealous and jubilant Cruise spends the entirety of his sit-down interview with the talk show host not really sitting down at all. Instead, he leaps up on the couch, hams it up with fist-pumping and excitedly shakes his host by the arms all while professing his deep love for his new girlfriend, Katie Holmes.

This interview has been studied and picked apart for years. You don't have to search far online to watch old clips, delve into opinion pieces or trace moments from the couch interview through to the end of #TomKat's relationship.

The full video of the infamous interview, however, is often never shown in its entirety. 

If you watch the full video, you'll see that Winfrey welcomed Cruise out on to the stage and it was clear that her ever-enthused audience would be willing participants in a Cruise-fest. This was pretty par for the course at a Winfrey taping but this particular day seemed to buzz a whole lot louder than usual.

"He's in the building!" Winfrey prepped her audience, almost encouraging the fanatics.

The stage was set and Cruise was no doubt taking on this energy while waiting for his cue to walk out.

He was adored and he knew it.

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When welcomed on to the stage, it was clear that the promotion of his new film War of the Worlds was certainly not going to be the focal point of the interview. Publicists be damned,  Cruise was in love with his new girlfriend, Katie Holmes, and he needed everyone to know about it.

What proceeded over the course of their chat was an intense and erratic display from Cruise. He could hardly answer questions without jolting into some sort of physical action — with the couch leaping of course being the most iconic of them all.

Winfrey — a seasoned journalist who could steer even the most steely of interviewees — had lost control of her guest. 

"He's gone!" she shouted almost in defeat as the A-list star gushed about his life away on her hit talk show.

"What has happened to you?" she said while fighting back bewildered giggles.

"I'm in love!" he shouted back. 

"I'm in love and it's one of these things where you want to be cool, like, 'Yeah I like her' ...that's not how I feel."

So who was this woman who had beguiled him to the point where he couldn't sit through an interview without proclaiming his utter adoration?

It all began back in October, 2004 when a 26-year-old Katie Holmes said in an interview that as a young girl she believed she would always marry Tom Cruise. It was a seemingly innocent admission if not a little on the nose given she was engaged to actor Chris Klein at the time. 

It's hard to say if her words put something into action but just six months later Holmes and Klein announced their breakup. Shortly after she was spotted on holidays with Cruise in April, 2005.

News of their relationship travelled far and wide, sweeping the tabloid world like wildfire. Everyone was lapping up this new pairing and magazine editors had found a dazzling A-list couple to plaster across their front pages.

There was no denying it: Cruise and Holmes were the new IT couple.

Just one month later in May, 2005 Cruise appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the interview that sparked so much conversation. The relationship appeared to be moving at the speed of lightning and the public began questioning the legitimacy of this pairing.

Was it all for show? Surely a sane person who wasn't intent on pushing some agenda wouldn't behave so erratically. The comments came in from around the world and the jury had decided that Cruise's declaration of love for Holmes felt incredibly heavy-handed.

The couch jumping was one thing, but it was what happened towards the end of the taping which garnered a little less ridicule but is perhaps a lot more telling about what was really going on behind closed doors.

With a little bit of encouragement from Winfrey (who no doubt wanted to switch up the one-on-one energy with Cruise) she rallied the audience to start chanting "Katie" to encourage her to come out.

Cruise looks around and makes commentary about his girlfriend Katie most likely wanting to run for the hills. After the chanting doesn't have the desired effect an energetic Cruise bounds into the guts of the backstage area on the hunt for Holmes. Producers frantically scurry about not prepared for this off-script moment.

Then he finds her.

Crusie then appears to grab her and holds her arms behind her as he leads her through the corridors, pushing his clearly shy and embarrassed girlfriend into the frenzy of the live audience and cameras. The bright studio lights hit her face and she embraces Winfrey.

Cruise then lifts her up, her body becoming a trophy of sorts.

They kiss. The audience cheers. It's the off-the-cuff Hollywood moment producers dream off. Zing, in the bag, lights out, everyone go home.

More than a decade on, everyone remembers Cruise's couch jumping, but few people would remember the moment where Katie Holmes was pulled from backstage to be held up for the audience in order to achieve another round of applause. It's also a moment she has never been able to speak publicly about. 

In the wake of the interview it was clear this was the beginning of the downfall of Cruise's public identity for a moment in time. Up until that point he was still somewhat a bonafide Hollywood star albeit with some raised eyebrows from the public thanks to his connections to the Church of Scientology.

Years later it appears that Cruise has placed the blame for the interview on Winfrey and show producers. 

In Seth Rogen's 2021 book of essays,  Yearbook  Rogen opened up about an alleged encounter he had with Cruise. Apparently in 2006 the comedian visited Cruise's home to discuss a potential work collaboration.

During the meeting Rogen alleges that Cruise spoke about the Winfrey interview and implied that producers had edited the interaction to make him look bad.

"Well, yeah, they're making it seem like I'm losing my mind," Cruise allegedly told Rogen. "There's a coordinated effort to make it appear that way.

They're scrambling and they're doing everything they can to discredit me so I won't hurt sales anymore."

Despite this anecdotal information Cruise has never really publically opened up about the backlash he received after the Winfrey interview. But perhaps, the proof was in the pudding as his personal life began to come somewhat unstuck in the following years.

After a brief courtship Cruise proposed to Holmes in 2005 then in early 2006 they welcomed their only child together, a girl named Suri. By late 2006 they were married in a lavish Italian ceremony and sold their exclusive picture rights to tabloid magazines.

Then in 2012, in what many labelled an escape, Holmes pulled off a shock split from her husband which was by all accounts a very stealth and secret operation. After a lightning-speed divorce proceeding the pair reached a custody agreement after just 11 days which granted Holmes sole custody of their young daughter, Suri.

The allegation has always been that after being indoctrinated into the Scientology religion Holmes became unsettled by their practices and wanted to protect her daughter from what was going on within the church.

In a separate court proceeding years later, Cruise was pressed by lawyers who asked if his ex-wife had filed for divorce in order to protect Suri from Scientology.

"There is no need to protect my daughter from my religion," Cruise responded at the time.

However, years later it's hard to say whether those sentiments hold up. Cruise and his daughter Suri haven't been seen together in public since 2012 and it largely appears as if Holmes has raised their child without any involvement from her ex-husband.

Just weeks ago Suri celebrated her high school graduation marking a major milestone without Cruise by her side. It's widely reported she has even dropped his last name and now goes by 'Suri Noelle' a nod to her mother's middle name.

As far as timelines go, the breakdown of Cruise and Holmes' relationship has always been steeped in speculation with details that may forever be bound by watertight legal documents.

The couch jumping incident will forever be tied up in the story of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' romance, but very few people will remember the moment he pulled her from backstage in a frenzy, her arms seemingly pinned behind her back.

Yet in hindsight it is a moment that paints their very public relationship in a new light. 

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Best moments from the infamous 2005 Oprah Interview with Tom Cruise leaping on Oprah's couch. He was believed to be having a meltdown during this period in his life while simultaneously fawning over his love...

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Tom Cruise Revealed He Was Intentionally Setup During His Wild Oprah Winfrey Interview

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Now if only every Oprah Winfrey interview can be like her time alongside Tom Cruise , or the rollercoaster with Lindsay Lohan . In truth, Oprah has had some dud interviews and the host even revealed that she has a code word when things aren't as interesting... RELATED - Tom Cruise Called Paramount Pictures Himself After A 30-Minute Meeting Telling The Studio 'We’re Making Another Top Gun' In the following, we'll review the controversial Tom Cruise interview from 2005. We'll examine what Cruise really thought about the interview and what he told Seth Rogen about it behind closed doors.

Tom Cruise's Couch-Jump On Oprah Went Completely Viral

The moment went absolutely viral and The Ringer described it best, within a couple of minutes, everything went completely south between Oprah and Tom Cruise.

"Within 15 minutes, Cruise had leapt onto Oprah’s couch in a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm for his personal life. Cruise’s offbeat showboating was memorable in part because of its unusual setting."

It is said that the 2005 moment launched internet blogs and in addition, it showed the dangers of public opinion online, and how it can shape a person in the long run.

RELATED - This Actor Said He Doesn't Respect Tom Cruise On Live TV, Here's Why

Of course, the moment was all about Tom Cruise discussing his love for Katie Holmes, doing so in a very energetic way to say the least. "I just felt that way, and I feel that way about her. I can't even articulate it, to be honest. That feeling, that connection. Just who she is and what she means to me," Cruise stated.

We all know by now, the relationship did not last and the two went their own ways despite the "connection." Both sides kept very quiet about the interview during the years that followed.

However, Seth Rogen revealed that Cruise did in fact have an opinion about what had transpired.

Seth Rogen Revealed That Tom Cruise Stated The Interview Was Purposely Edited

We'll never really know the validity of this, but Rogen would reveal the details in his memoir book Yearbook . The moment in question took place during a five-hour Knocked Up meeting, which included Tom Cruise himself.

Over those couple of hours, Cruise had a lot to say, including the discussion of what went on during that interview. According to Tom, the interview wasn't as bad as it seemed and a lot of it was completely setup that way due to the editing.

“Well, yeah, they're making it seem like I'm losing my mind, there’s a coordinated effort to make it appear that way” Cruise allegedly told Rogen.

"They edited it to make it look so much worse than it was. They do that all the time.”

RELATED - A Rumoured Theory On Why Tom Cruise And Leonardo DiCaprio Never Worked Together

Tom had the same to say following his interview with Matt Lauer, claiming pharmaceutical companies were out to get him, “because my exposure of their fraud has cost them SO much money that they're desperate. They're scrambling and they're doing everything they can to discredit me so I won't hurt sales anymore.”

In terms of his public comments about the Oprah interview, there really hasn't been many...

Tom Cruise Had Said Very Little About The Interview Publicly

In terms of actual words from Tom himself that we know of, there hasn't been many relating to the interview. He did make a joke about it , claiming he was in his "year of jumping dangerously," referencing the film, The Year of Living Dangerously.

Tom did touch base on his reputation back in 2008 alongside Pop Sugar . Similar to what he discussed alongside Seth Rogen, Cruise stated that he doesn't stress about it, given that the media spins it however they choose to.

"Listen I, I feel like definitely things have been misunderstood, and there are things I could have done better. But then there's also that world where you go, 'Oh, it's been spun to such an extent that. That's a truth also.' Knowing when and where to communicate, I think that's important. A lot of times I was nervous giving interviews. Or I wasn't sometimes as comfortable about things. And I realized that it's okay. There's stuff you have to just let go. I just have to do the best I can."

Clearly, all of that is in the past nowadays, as Cruise continues to enjoy serious success, especially from a career standpoint.

NEXT - Tom Cruise Couldn't Stop Laughing At The Gruesome Footage Of His Ankle Breaking During A Stunt In Mission Impossible

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11 Over-The-Top Interview Moments Where Celebrities Embarrassed Themselves On TV

When Courtney Love interrupted her post-VMAs interview, Madonna said, "Courtney Love is in dire need of attention right now. She's throwing her compact at me."

BuzzFeed Staff

In celebrity interviews, cringey or embarrassing moments happen all the time. Sometimes, however, the interviewees take things a little too far with an over-commitment to the bit — or they're under the influence.

Here are 11 times celebs ruined interviewers by doing the most:, 1. in his infamous 1987 appearance on the late show with david letterman , crispin glover put on an unusual act. after reading reviews of his movies aloud from newspapers he brought with him, he tried to show the host how "strong" he was. he nearly kicked letterman in the face, which prompted him to walk off set..

Crispin has maintained that he "can neither confirm nor deny" that he was on  Letterman , but it's widely speculated that, in 1987, he was in character as Rubin Farr, his character from Rubin & Ed , which didn't come out until 1991.

Here's the full clip:

View this video on YouTube

2. similarly, in 2009, joaquin phoenix didn't appear to be acting like himself on the late show with david letterman . taking on a strange persona, he claimed he was retiring from acting to pursue a new music career ..

A year later, I'm Still Here director Casey Affleck — who'd been  following  Joaquin and filming him —  admitted  that it was all for their mockumentary.

The director told the  New York Times , "The reviews were so angry...I never intended to trick anybody. The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind."

Watch the full clip below:

3. In 2005, Tom Cruise jumped on the couch on The Oprah Winfrey Show to enthusiastically to demonstrate his love for Katie Holmes.

In his 2023 book  Yearbook , Seth Rogen claimed that, in 2006, during a five-hour meeting with Judd Apatow, Tom Cruise, who wanted to get into comedy, discussed the Oprah interview. 

He allegedly told them, "Well, yeah, they're making it seem like I'm losing my mind. There's a coordinated effort to make it appear that way. [Seth asked, 'Who would do that?'] The pharmaceutical industry. Because my exposure of their fraud has cost them SO much money that they're desperate. They're scrambling, and they're doing everything they can to discredit me so I won't hurt sales anymore. ... They edited it to make it look so much worse than it was."

4. In 1991, Sean Young campaigned for the role of Catwoman in Batman Returns by dressing as the character on The Joan Rivers Show .

In 2021, Sean told Yahoo Entertainment , "I knew Joan — she was a lot of fun. I thought we would have fun at it."

Here's the full clip, with this part starting at the 4:10 mark:

5. After the 1995 VMAs, Madonna was in the middle of an interview with MTV VJ Kurt Loder when Courtney Love threw things at the pop singer then hijacked the interview.

Here's the full clip, with this part starting at the 2:38 mark:

6. Appearing on Today in 2011, Robert Pattinson made up a dark, bizarre story in response to a question about wanting to "run away and join the circus" as a kid.

However, a week later, he reportedly told a German outlet, "I said those things. But I actually made the whole thing up. It’s coming back to haunt me. I said it on some show. It was really early in the morning the day after the New York premiere. Someone asked me what my experience with the circus was and I was like, I have nothing interesting to say. I don’t know why I said that!”

7. During a 2013 episode of The Graham Norton Show alongside Sarah Silverman, Mark Wahlberg appeared to act intoxicated. He interrupted Sarah, pulled her into his arms, and climbed into the host's lap.

Later that year, Graham Norton told  Digital Spy , "I think the three of us had met a lot of drunk people over the years. Mark Wahlberg's been on the show before, and he's a really lovely guy. We've all done that thing where you suddenly realize, 'I'm by far the drunkest person at this dinner party,' and you don't know how that happened. It was a bit like that, so I don't judge him harshly at all. It was just a thing."

A few months later, Mark told Digital Spy , "I tried to do a bit, and some people took it a little too seriously."

8. In an early '90s episode of The James Whale Radio Show , the Red Hot Chili Peppers appeared in the early '90s, the band got into actor Cleo Rocos's personal space, making her visibly uncomfortable. Various members pushed her over furniture, rubbed her head, went under her dress, and kissed her arms and chest. While wrapping up the show, the host pushed the band members away and even slapped them with his hat to try to get them to leave Cleo alone.

Here's the clip:

9. During a drunk appearance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1970, Husbands director John Cassavetes and actors Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara smoked, shouted, took off their socks and shoes, and piled themselves on the floor, amongst other antics. The host got so fed up with their behavior that he walked off.

In 2014, Dick told the  New Yorker , "It was out of the blue. It was astonishing. I could not believe it while it was happening. I think I watched it a year or so ago, and it seemed even worse than I remembered it. When the circus was going on, with shoes coming off and smelling each other's feet — which may be an image I have conjured, but something very close to it — and falling down, as if  that  were funny, just a bunch of louts out encouraging each other in their stupidity, it was… I had a mixed feeling as it was happening. I knew it would be entertaining in a certain way involving the word 'horror.'"

10. In 1993, Jay Leno hosted The Tonight Show live from the Cheers bar. The entire cast was tipsy, and — except for Rhea Perlman — they were criticized for acting like "jerks" and "idiots."

Jay told  Herald TV , "Those people were so drunk I don't know what else we could have done in a live situation. You don't tell these people how to behave. Nobody tells them what to do... Was it a great show? No. But I guess you have to expect people to show up totally drunk when you do a live show from a real bar. In a real bar, everybody drinks real drinks."

He also said that, the next day, Ted Danson sent him flowers as an apology, and George Wendt called him.

Here's the full video, with this part starting at the 20-minute mark:

11. And finally, on a 1994 episode of The Tonight Show starring Jay Leno , comedian Bobcat Goldthwait pulled a lighter out of his pocket and set his chair on fire.

The incident wasn't scripted or staged. Bobcat later  pleaded  no contest to recklessly setting the fire. He was then required to pay a $3,888 fine and to record a PSA for a local burn center. He also got three years of informal probation.

Here's the full clip, with this part starting at the 1:10 mark:

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How tom cruise’s olympics stunt was inspired by… conan o’brien.

Producer Ben Winston goes deep on that starry Closing Ceremony flag hand-off, reveals where he had to pivot and talks about how it was all slightly informed by a 15-year-old talk show bit.

By Mikey O'Connell

Mikey O'Connell

TV Features Editor

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Ben Winston might soon lose count of how many times he’s sent Tom Cruise up in the air.

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The original plan was for a balaclava-clad stunt person to do most of the heavy lifting, but Cruise would have none of it. “I don’t think there’s anybody like him in the world,” says Winston, who served as creative director and executive producer under the Fulwell 73 Productions banner. “There is no better collaborator.”

Speaking the afternoon after the live Paris jump and the starry beachside concert featuring The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, Winston revealed how he and Cruise kept most of their plan under wraps for as long as they did, what changed in the planning and the unlikely roots of the Olympic flag’s pre-taped journey from France to the U.S.

Are you just a glutton for logistics?

It feels a little bit like having a baby. You’re up all night, it’s all really stressful and you’re changing nappies, and they’re sick on you. Then, when they get to three years old, you’re like, “Oh, they’re so cute and lovely. I think I want another one.” You forget what a nightmare it was. I feel like live television might be that. You forget how much you go through.

Plenty has been revealed and speculated about in the wake of this stunt. How long have you actually been working on this? 

My first meeting was January 2022 when I sat down with Casey Wasserman at LA28. I haven’t been working on it since then, but I had the idea more like 20 months ago when they’d told me there’s this tradition of a 12-minute show that the next nation does in the closing ceremony. Within the first five minutes, I was like, “Well, it would be the coolest thing if we snatched the flag, and we could get Tom Cruise to do it.”

I’ve seen lots of handovers where the country that takes over does something in the stadium, and they’ve been great, but I wanted to do something different. I like to be able to control everything. So I was thinking if we did it in Los Angeles, I’d be able to control all the elements a little bit more. I liked the idea of doing the bulk of it in Los Angeles but with an amazing open in Paris. This is such a weird reference, but remember when Conan O’Brien started on The Tonight Show and moved from New York to Los Angeles? He did a really fun sketch going cross country. That has always stuck with me. So I was like, “How do Tom Cruise and all these incredible athletes take that flag from Paris to L.A.?” It’s a weird inspiration. 

No, I remember that. I can see the through-line.

Yeah. Then, I pitched it to Tom. He was the first pitch I had. If he hadn’t gone with it, I can’t really think who else would work. Who else is synonymous with action and an American hero? When we got Tom, I felt like the whole thing would work — so we went from there. But it’s been over a year and a half to achieve that. 

How’d you pitch it to Tom? This is the third time you’ve put him in a plane after the Late Late Show segments with Corden .

Some things leaked , but you filmed the skydive and the Hollywood sign back in March. How’d you keep it secret for as long as you did? 

When we were filming with Tom , he was never actually holding the Olympic flag. He always was holding a white flag. So, whenever we were photographed with him, the press always said we were filming Mission Impossible . Everyone wonders what was faked and what wasn’t. Interestingly, one of the only things that was faked was the flag. I was disappointed that little things leaked over the last couple of weeks. Suddenly, more and more people need to know what you’re doing when you’re rehearsing in the Stade de France and booking venues.

Such a big deal is made about Tom and the lengths he goes to execute a stunt on his own. I understand who insures him in a movie like Mission Impossible , but what about here, is that your purview? You are putting a very famous man in a risky situation. 

I’m not qualified to answer that. ( Laughs .) There will be a team of lawyers on my production team and his team that would know about that. But you’re right. It was definitely a consideration when we were doing the Top Gun stuff for The Late Late Show . It was like, “Well, who does the liability lie with — the show or Tom?” I still don’t know the answer on this one.

It’s funny because I’ve seen reports about what was live and what wasn’t live. Not everybody’s a 100 percent right on everything, and I don’t want to comment either way. It’s not fair on some artists to say some were live and some weren’t or whatever. But I think there was a lot more live-in there than people think. Will Rogers Beach was the plan a year ago — and, due to something out of my control, that had to change. With four weeks to go, we didn’t have a venue. That was a stressful moment. Ultimately we got there and I was so pleased with the concert element of it.

Did you ever attempt to actually redecorate the Hollywood sign? 

I did look at doing the Hollywood sign for real. We had engineers up there quite a long time, working out how we could do it. I decided against it because I wanted it to be a surprise. In the end, I think we could have done it, but then in March, the whole world would have seen pictures of the Hollywood sign covered in the Olympic rings. So we did it with CGI. The Tom bit is real. He was up there. He climbed up the sign.

You booked Snoop Dogg, a national treasure and someone so synonymous with Los Angeles, a long time ago — yet his stock has risen even more in the last two weeks. Were you psyched watching him become one of the stars of the Olympics? 

Well, I hope you get a bit of a break.

No. ( Laughs .) This week we’re filming Ellen DeGeneres’ stand-up show . Really excited about that. And then it’s on to the Paralympics closing. But I did have like 13 hours of sleep last night. I went to bed at 9 o’clock.

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