Tom Cruise, publicly maligned for
over-the-top behavior in two TV interviews, has admitted to People
magazine he could have "handled things better" and even joked about his
couch-jumping antics on Oprah Winfrey's talk show.
Cruise's admission comes three years after he leapt onto a couch on
Winfrey's daytime chat show in front of millions of viewers and
proclaimed his love for then-girlfriend Katie Holmes. In a separate
incident, Cruise got into a testy exchange over psychiatry with Matt
Lauer on "The Today Show."
"I think I could have handled things better," Cruise told the magazine in an interview for its December 22 issue.
Cruise called the incident on Winfrey's show, "My year of jumping
dangerously," in a comedic reference to "The Year of Living
Dangerously," a novel turned into a 1982 movie.
The 46 year old stars in the upcoming film "Valkyrie," which opens
on December 25 and chronicles a failed German assassination attempt of
Germany's Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
In recent years, the actor's public image has taken hits from
detractors over his vocal support for the Church of Scientology, whose
adherents oppose psychiatry.
He called psychiatry "pseudo science" in his 2005 interview with
Lauer, when the actor was asked about his public criticism of actress
Brooke Shields over her use of medication to treat postpartum
depression and reacted by calling Lauer "glib."
On the Lauer interview, Cruise told People, "All I want is to help
people. I could have communicated it in a way that was better, no
question."
People, with Cruise on the cover, features the actor in photos
spanning his entire 25 years as a movie star, going back to the 1983
film "Risky Business."
The photos show Cruise with his wife, Katie Holmes, their daughter, Suri, and his adopted children, Bella and Connor.
They also show images of actors with whom Cruise has co-starred,
including Brad Pitt and the late Paul Newman, who died in September at
age 83 after a battle with cancer.
source : http://www.reuters.com/
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