Tom Cruise Got Jaw-Dropping Praise From Clint Eastwood and Cameron Crowe

Tom Cruise getting a standing ovation from Clint Eastwood and Cameron Crowe? That tracks. And yes, there is a great dinner-party story in here.

So what did they say?

In a new New York Times profile, Cameron Crowe was asked if Cruise has drifted too far into sheer spectacle and away from the character-first stuff they made together on 'Jerry Maguire' and 'Vanilla Sky.' Crowe does not buy that. In fact, he thinks Cruise is gearing up for a pivot right back into character territory.

'I see that there is a time coming, and it might have already started, where he is going to segue into character roles as strongly as he segued into doing action movies of the highest quality. That Paul Newman character phase is just around the corner and will fry people’s minds.'

The Clint Eastwood dinner story

Here is the inside-baseball part: Crowe says he and Clint Eastwood share the same lawyer, who invited him to a dinner and sat him next to Eastwood. Crowe was understandably sweating the small talk. Eastwood solved that by leaning over and launching the conversation with two words: 'Tom Cruise.'

Crowe told him how much he loves working with Cruise, and Eastwood dropped the kind of line that sounds like it should be etched into the Paramount lot.

'In a hundred years, they are gonna look back — that is the career, Tom Cruise’s career.'

Hard to argue with that. Whether you are there for the stunts or the smirk, the guy has racked up a ridiculous run.

What is next for Cruise

• A long-rumored horror movie with Doug Liman and Christopher McQuarrie, both frequent Cruise collaborators.
• A starring role in the next film from 'The Revenant' director Alejandro G. Iñárritu.