tom cruise vanilla sky interview

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The character you play, David Aames, is a high-flying New Yorker, leading a privileged but somewhat self-centred life...

When you look at the character in the beginning you see someone who has everything and yet he's running through Times Square, alone, looking for answers. There are notice boards and signs calling out to him, giving him solutions on life and loneliness. There's this trend towards pop culture which is so prominent in today's times. The film really explores how people are affected by modern society, the choices they make, and the consequences.

The film is very unusual. Was it difficult to get the Hollywood studios to agree to make a film like this?

No, not really. Fortunately that's one of the freedoms that I have. They didn't put any demands on the movie and stayed away from us while we were making it. It was such a luxury. Everyone came on board without even reading the script because they trusted Cameron [Crowe] . The cast really respect him and so do the studios so they gave us the money and let us get on with it.

You exec-produced " The Others " and co-produced " Vanilla Sky " as well as starring in it. That's very hands on...

I started to produce pictures because I've been in so many and I just love making movies. I like to be fully involved in each movie I do whether I'm starring in it or producing it. I look at the rushes every day and discuss the film with the director, throwing in advice if needed. I recognise the importance of every stage of film making and so many things can go wrong. I try to create an environment where the least mistakes can happen. I see them coming up because I've been there, so now it's easier to find solutions and rectify problems.

With the Oscars not too far away, when are we going to see you up there making your acceptance speech?

I've always felt what I do is extraordinary - being able to make these pictures and doing something you love. So, I'll just keep doing it. I love it, I don't do it for the awards.

Steven Spielberg plays a cameo role in "Vanilla Sky" and you've just finished one of his films, "Minority Report". What can you tell us about that?

I can't discuss much of the story at the moment because Steven doesn't want us to, but it's a mystery, action adventure. I've never worked with Steven before so I was very excited about it and jumped at the chance.

Cast & crew
User reviews

Vanilla Sky

A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover. A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover. A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover.

Cameron Crowe
Alejandro Amenábar
Penélope Cruz
Cameron Diaz
1.3K User reviews
158 Critic reviews
45 Metascore
5 wins & 34 nominations total

David Aames

Sofia Serrano

Julie Gianni

Brian Shelby

Edmund Ventura

Thomas Tipp

Rebecca Dearborn

David's Assistant
(as Delaina Mitchell)

Peter Brown
Jamie Berliner

Dr. Pomeranz

Other Doctor

Third Doctor
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia The scene with Tom Cruise alone in Times Square is not computer enhanced. The production was given unprecedented permission to shut down Times Square for one Sunday. At the time, the news ticker was providing updates on the George W. Bush - Al Gore election. To avoid dating the film, Crowe got permission to change the NASDAQ sign in post-production.
Goofs When David and Brian are in the car in the beginning you can clearly see that they are about one or two feet higher compared to the other cars, even though they are in the relatively low Mustang, revealing that the car is probably on a trailer rather than on the road.

Sofía : Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.

Crazy credits There are no opening credits for the film.
Alternate versions The 2015 Blu-Ray release includes an alternate ending version with a vastly expanded ending. While the events lead to the same conclusion, there are alternate takes and additional scenes (including the scene of David shooting the police officer).
Connections Edited into Scrubs: My Friend the Doctor (2003)
Soundtracks Everything In Its Right Place Written by Thom Yorke (as Thomas Yorke), Ed O'Brien (as Edward O'Brien), Colin Greenwood , Jonny Greenwood (as Jonathan Greenwood) and Phil Selway (as Philip Selway) Performed by Radiohead Courtesy of Capitol Records under license from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets

User reviews 1.3K

Dec 21, 2003
How long is Vanilla Sky? Powered by Alexa
December 14, 2001 (United States)
United States
Khung Trời Ảo Mộng
Bar Building - 44th Street between 5th & 6th Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
Paramount Pictures
Cruise/Wagner Productions
Vinyl Films
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$68,000,000 (estimated)
$100,618,344
$25,015,518
Dec 16, 2001
$203,388,341

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 16 minutes
Dolby Digital

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Vanilla Sky (2001) | The Definitive Explanation

Welcome to our Colossus Movie Guide for Vanilla Sky . This guide contains everything you need to understand the film. Dive into our detailed library of content, covering key aspects of the movie. We encourage your comments to help us create the best possible guide. Thank you!

Last updated: July 2023

What is Vanilla Sky about?

For those who want a quick answer— Vanilla Sky is pretty straightforward. Everything that Tech Support says in the final scene is true. Tom Cruise is having a lucid dream. He did die (sort of) and was saved by Life Extension. He didn’t kill Sofia. He does have a choice of waking up or continuing the dream. And David chooses to wake up about 150 years in the future.

What’s less straightforward is this: how much of what we saw was from real life and how much was the lucid dream? Of course, even if the ending is straightforward, that doesn’t mean Vanilla Sky is without depth, themes, or deeper meanings. Through visuals like the empty streets of Times Square and the vivid glow of the heavens that frame David, the film has a lot to say about self-esteem, perception, therapy, and the relationship between mind and body. As well as technology and mortality.

Movie Guide table of contents

Why is the movie called Vanilla Sky?

The themes and meaning of Vanilla Sky

The ending of vanilla sky explained, important motifs in vanilla sky.

Questions and answers about Vanilla Sky
David Aames – Tom Cruise
Julie Gianni – Cameron Diaz
Brian Shelby – Jason Lee
Sofía Serrano – Penélope Cruz
Thomas Tipp – Timothy Spall
Dr. Curtis McCabe – Kurt Russell
Edmund Ventura (Tech Support) – Noah Taylor
Rebecca Dearborn – Tilda Swinton
Aaron (the guard) – Michael Shannon
Steven Spielberg – himself
Based on – Abre Los Ojos ( Open Your Eyes )
Written by – Cameron Crowe
Directed by – Cameron Crow

Why is the movie called Vanilla Sky ?

Vanilla Sky is a remake of the 1997 Spanish film Abre los ojos , or Open Your Eyes , made by Alejandro Amenábar, also starring Penelope Cruz as Sofia. The plot is almost verbatim. Handsome guy. Crazy ex. Sofia. Car crash. Disfigurement. Prosthetic mask. In jail and talking to a psychiatrist. Mystery. Thrills. Murder. Life Extension revelation. Jumps to wake up. It’s all there.

David Aames looks back at the camera, a glowing sky in the background

So why change the title from Open Your Eyes to Vanilla Sky ?

The original title is a generic term for waking up or coming to your senses or facing reality. If a friend was being catfished, you might say to them, “Open your eyes. That person isn’t real!” Or, “I thought I could become a famous juggler. But I’ve opened my eyes to the fact that I don’t actually like juggling.”

It’s a fitting title, because in both movies, the hero, David/César, chooses to close his eyes to the real world in order to escape the negative emotions that plague him after the car accident. Only to reach a point where he’d rather open his eyes than continue to live in the lovely state of denial that L.E created for him.

Vanilla Sky accomplishes a similar goal in a less direct, more poetic way. At his birthday party, David shows Sofia the painting The Seine at Argenteuil , by Claude Monet. “That is the real thing. His paintbrush painted the vanilla sky.” At the very end of the movie, when David is at the version of Life Extension in his mind, Rebecca Dearborn shows him the presentation about what Life Extension offers. Pay attention to the words that have to do with painting.

Narrator: Portrait of a modern human life. American. Male. Birth and death. Imagine that you are suffering from a terminal illness. You’d like to be cryonized but you’d rather be resurrected to continue your own life as you know it now. L.E. offers you the answer. Upon resurrection, you will continue in an ageless state, preserved but living in th represent with a future of your choosing. Your death will be wiped from your memory. Your life will continue as a realistic work of art, painted by you , minute to minute, and you’ll live it with the romantic abandon of a summer day, with the feeling of a great movie, or a pop song you always loved, with no memory of how it all occurred, save for the knowledge that everything simply improved. And in any instance of discontent, you’ll be visited by technical support. It’s all just around the corner. The day after tomorrow. Another chapter begins seamlessly. A living dream. Life Extension’s promise to you. Life, part two.

This is why Cameron Crowe went with the title Vanilla Sky . Because it captures the larger idea of the cinematic denial that David has escaped into. It represents the idealization. That summer day. That great movie. That pop song that we wish our lives could be. Monet’s painting is at once beautiful and artificial. It’s the same for dreams. These amazing things can happen but they still aren’t real, no matter how much they might seem like it.

The new title extends beyond David, to the viewer, as the movie takes on philosophical questions about the way in which we use media and entertainment as a means of escapism.

Paul McCartney’s song

Paul wrote the song “Vanilla Sky” specifically for the film. Cameron Crowe approached McCartney, showed him about half an hour of the film, then Paul went to work. So even though they share a title, the song probably doesn’t provide a window into the title or movie in the way one may think, hope, or expect. You can watch the interview Paul did with ET in 2002 .

Reality vs dream

Vanilla Sky opens with a bit of a joke. David drives around New York City, right into the heart of Times Square, with zero traffic. He’s alone in one of the most popular, populated places in the entire world. Being able to easily get around NYC is a dream come true. Except David isn’t thrilled. He’s terrified. What happened to the people? They should be there. Even if that means traffic and annoyances. It’s what should be.

That gets at the central tension between dreams and real life. As amazing as a dream can be, it always has that degree of artificiality to it. You can’t shake the fake. Nor can you escape your subconscious and the things that plague you. Which is why a dream can easily glitch into a nightmare. That’s how Sofia becomes Julianna. David’s subconscious, even after 150 years, hasn’t fully processed what happened with Julie and how it impacted any chance he had with Sofia. He carries this guilt, shame, and blame that causes his lucid dream to literally put him in prison. Peace is only found “out there”, in the world, through hard work. That’s how you repair yourself.

Entertainment and escapism

Art is a subtle throughline throughout Vanilla Sky . Diegetically, it’s there in the references to famous works, like The Seine at Argenteuil , or Joni Mitchell, or the Jules and Jim poster on David’s bedroom wall, the quick look at Sabrina on the TV in the opening scene, the talk show interview about Benny the Dog, the Bob Dylan album cover. Non-diegetically, we have the barrage of pop music that Crowe fills the score with. From “Everything In Its Right Place” by Radiohead to “Last Goodbye” by Jeff Buckley to Paul McCartney’s “Vanilla Sky”.

It isn’t until the end that we get more about the relevance and importance of this theme. Specifically, the way in which Life Extension sells people on the opportunity to make their life into entertainment. McCabe makes the joke about it being cryo-tainment.

All of this adds up to a commentary on the increasing use of technology and entertainment as means of escapism. In some ways, Vanilla Sky is the same movie as The Matrix , as both explore the allure of escape into technology and artificiality in order to avoid the ugly aspects of life. In The Matrix , that’s the post-war world in which intelligent machines bested humanity, with the remnants of humanity living in a very bleak, underground city. In different ways, both films ask questions about the pros and cons of each world. It comes back to the texture of the dream state versus that of real life. It never quite feels right. Even when it’s seemingly perfect, like David’s life could have been.

This was already a topic in the late 90s and early 00s. Now, in the 2020s, with the rise of social media and the interconnectivity the Internet offers, those films seem prescient. Not only can you use movies and music to escape, you can supplement it with online tribes that will gladly engage on the topic 24 hours a day. In 2022, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health published a paper called “ Escapism and Excessive Online Behaviors: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study in Finland during the COVID-19 Pandemic ” that looked into a link between “excessive online behaviors” and if escapism links to other excessive behaviors and how this highlights “ a need to focus prevention efforts on healthy coping methods”

In an interview with Vulture that came out in 2020, during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Crowe said: “It feels like we’re right on the cusp of being able to do some of that stuff now, for better or worse. Everybody living in their own virtual reality — in some ways, it’s just a half-step away from what’s in the movie. It’s odd. The ripple effect of that movie is really interesting.”

We like to think that a life like a movie or a song would be better than what we deal with. But what if the movie is Schindler’s List ? What if the song is Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails? From that same Vulture interview, Crowe: … the idea that pop culture can be so ingrained in what your vision of the perfect relationship, or the perfect life, or the perfect Bob Dylan song playing at the perfect time can change your life choices, change who you are.

Obviously, entertainment isn’t inherently a bad thing. People have wonderful, healthy, empowering relationships with movies, novels, poetry, art, TV, music, etc. It’s just that, as with most things, there’s a line between healthy and unhealthy. A line that can completely vanish in the wake of trauma.

Trauma, self-esteem, and perception

There’s that famous saying that the eyes are the window to the soul. Typically, we think of that as looking into the eyes of someone else and perceiving their emotions and thoughts. Whether there’s worry, joy, boredom, anticipation, passion, fear, etc. But there’s something about applying that phrase to our own eyes. You know, the things through which we perceive the world around us.

If our soul is in a good place, how does that affect how we perceive the world around us? Likewise, if our soul is in a bad place, doesn’t that change everything? Two different people, looking at the same object, can see very different things, all because of what’s going on inside of them. What we’ve experienced, what we’re feeling, all of its shapes our perception.

David before the accident is confident, care-free, charming, and quick to laugh. He has money. He has power. He has an easy, breezy, happy life. Sure, there’s pressure from the board about his father’s company. But the Seven Dwarfs, as he calls them, are minor inconveniences. He doesn’t seem to have many close friends, aside from best friend Brian. But that’s okay. Because everyone treats him well. So his self-esteem is through the roof.

Then the accident happens. The car crash. Once Julie drives off that bridge, nothing is ever the same. David found validation and pride in his looks. Now those are gone. One of his eyes is messed up. Partially closed. Because his soul’s in anguish, he now sees the world differently, and behaves differently. It’s no longer the wonderful place it was before. David isolates himself, disconnects from people. When he does interact, he’s rude, bitter, and awkward.

This establishes a paradox between the inner and outer worlds, akin to the age-old question of what came first, the chicken or the egg. If his outer appearance were perfect again, would he be happy again? Or is his outer world a mess because he’s been unable to process his trauma?

It ends up being a bit of both. The damage to his appearance causes a doom spiral that ultimately leads him to Life Extension. But even in the lucid dream, after the splice, when he has all of his looks back, when the outer world has seemingly returned to the great place it once was—he can’t find happiness. What Julie did to him continues to manifest. Which leads to his inability to accept dream Sofia and the murder that puts him in dream jail, talking to a dream psychologist. It’s all a manifestation of his continued inner turmoil.

In short, we could all probably use a little bit of therapy in our lives.

David and McCabe go to the headquarters of Life Extension, escorted by a police officer. There, they encounter Rebecca Dearborn. She reminds David that he is a client of Life Extension and chose the Lucid Dream package. Overwhelmed by this revelation, David escapes from the office and cries out for tech support. Edmund Ventura, aka Tech Support, appears, introducing himself as someone from “Oasis Project, formerly Life Extension—L.E.”.

On a journey to the skyscraper’s roof, Tech Support explains that he and David first met 150 years ago. Then refreshes David’s memory on what happened.

Tech Support: That night, after Sofia left you and you fell asleep on the pavement, that was the moment you chose for the splice… The end of your real life and the beginning of L.E.’s Lucid Dream. A splice of many, many years, which passed while you were frozen and dreaming. From the moment you woke up on that street, nothing was real in a traditional sense. Your Lucid Dream is monitored by Life Extension and a panel of experts who are following your every thought, even at this moment. …

We erased what really happened from your memory. Replaced by a better life. Under these beautiful, Monet-like skies. A better life, because you had Sofia. You sculpted your Lucid Dream out of the iconography of your youth. An album cover that once moved you. A movie you saw once late at night that showed you what a father could be like. Or what love could be like. This was a kind woman. An individual. More than your equal. You barely knew her in your real life, but in your Lucid Dream, she was your savior.

David then asks what happened in his real life. What did Life Extension erase?

Tech Support: The Morning after the Nightclub, you woke up on that street, hungover and alone. You got up, and you walked away. You never saw Sofia again. You battled your board, the Seven Dwarfs, for control of the company. In the end, it was Thomas Tipp, your father’s friend, the man whose job you saved, who wrenched the company back into your control. You longed for Sofia. You shut yourself away from months. You were alone. You couldn’t stand the pain anymore, the headaches. You could barely function.

At this point, we see a quick montage of David as he discovers Life Extensions, signs a contract, then takes enough pills to end his life.

Tech Support: And on a day in late December, you gave yourself to us. You’re now in a suspended state. Your friend Brian Shelby threw a three-day memorial in your old home. He was a true friend. You were missed, David. [We see Sofia show up to the funeral, look overwhelmed, then leave] . It was Sofia who never fully recovered. It was she who somehow knew you best. And like you, she never forgot that one night where true love seemed possible. Consequences, David. It’s the little things.

To which David responds: The little things. There’s nothing bigger, is there?

This leads to David having a choice. Because of his unsettled subconscious, the lucid dream became a nightmare. But Tech Support states the glitch has been fixed. He can return to the dream world. Return to Sofia. To a fixed face. Everything. Or. He can wake up. 150 years in the future. With dwindling finances. But the technology to fix his face and bring him back to full health, just like Benny the Dog.

Ultimately, David decides to wake up, jumping off the building, despite his fear of heights, as a demonstration of his conviction to return. His childhood flashes in his mind. Then, a woman’s voice says, “Relax, David, open your eyes.” And we see his eye open.

The end.

Explanation

In the 2020 interview with Vulture , Cameron Crowe confirmed that not everything Tech Support said is true.

Crowe: The clues are all there, and some of the stuff that’s “explained” toward the end is not fully — Noah Tayor is not fully a responsible “host” at that point. Not everything he says can be trusted. It’s a fun game to play with the movie and I’m glad that people have come back to it.

The Wikipedia page for Vanilla Sky has an Interpretations section that mentions five different possible endings. The source it has for these is the Vulture interview that only links to the Wikipedia page. Maybe something was there previously?

The 5 interpretations are:

“Tech Support” is telling the truth
The entire film is a dream
The events after the crash are a dream Aames has while comatose
The entire film is the plot of the book that Brian is writing
The entire film after the crash is a hallucination caused by drugs administered during Aames’s reconstructive surgery

Points 3 and 5 feel very similar and very silly and anti-climactic.

Crowe himself said that he really likes the idea that everything is from Brian’s book. Quote: “ I’m probably saying too much, but sometimes I watch it and I think, This is all his novel.” That definitely adds an entirely different layer to Vanilla Sky . But it does beg the question if the movie does enough to earn such a reading? Or at least validate it as a possibility aside from Brian saying he’s working on a novel. It would be like if Matthew Reeves came out and said The Batman was actually a metaphor for World War II. That’s a nice idea. But does anything in The Batman justify reading it that way aside from Reeves saying it?

That’s something that writers often encounter early on. They’ll write something, have a loved one read it, then say something like, “Did you pick up that the red sweater represented her childhood trauma because her grandma always had tomato juice in the refrigerator?” The answer is always: no. Why? Because how could anyone connect those two things?

That’s why Crowe seems to be saying it’s more of a personal reading of Vanilla Sky rather than him saying it was what he intended. There’s a big difference there.

That leaves, then, interpretations 1 and 2. Tech Support could be telling the truth. But it all feels a bit too neat. Especially with David defeating the board and Sofia continuing to long for him. Even without Crowe’s hints, Tech Support’s story has the same faux-quality of the Lucid Dream’s sky. It’s too perfect. Given that the entire movie has leaned into the idea that we should question the nature of David’s reality, it makes sense that we shouldn’t take everything Tech Support says as truth. He could just be giving David a happier version of events as part of the Lucid Dream package. Or he’s been slightly “corrupted” by being part of David’s subconscious for so long and thus prone to tell David some things that David wants to hear.

So that leaves interpretation 2. That it’s all a dream.

It was all a dream

“But couldn’t it also not be a dream?” No. That was semi-plausible up until the point McCabe can’t remember the name of his daughters. He’s clearly a mental construct of David’s Lucid Dream. If the whole thing was an elaborate ruse by the Seven Dwarfs to take control of the company, then, narratively speaking, they would be the main villains and incredibly underdeveloped. Normally, a story wouldn’t completely disregard the primary antagonists like that. But you don’t develop them if all they ever were was a red herring. Also, all the other characters just appear on the rooftop, out of nowhere. Either that’s because David has totally lost his mind or…Lucid Dream. That, and David waking up as the final shot.

If it was theory two, that David has just been in a coma, then 150 years wouldn’t have passed. Which means Sofia’s still alive and he would still have a chance with her. He’d only have dreamed of the failed date at the club and the fallout. If that was the case, then you would expect to see that as the ultimate twist. He would wake up, look around, and expect it to be 150 years in the future, just like Tech Support said, only for it to have been a month, or a year. You either end there with all that that implies or continue on for another 20 or 30 minutes and see how David behaves now that he’s home. Imagine if Wizard of Oz just ended with Dorothy clicking her heels but we never saw her back in Kansas or got the line, “There’s no place like home.” You could forgo it, but it’s weird. And lacking.

That leaves the dream. Crowe had mentioned there being clues. One that stands out would be the registration sticker on David’s Mustang. Not in the first dream where Times Square is empty. In the “real world” when he’s “awake”. The registration date reads 02/30/01. February 30th doesn’t exist. February has 28 days unless it’s Leap Year, then it’s 29. So the only way he could have a registration sticker with the date of 02/30 is if it’s a joke, which would be a stupid thing to have on such a nice car, or it’s not “real”. It’s one of those things a storyteller adds specifically as a hint to the viewer. And we have Crowe confirming he did just that.

Other clues? It’s Sofia who first says “Open your eyes” at the very beginning. Why would we hear her voice that early if David hadn’t met her yet? Also, preceding that, we have aerial shots of the camera drifting over New York City, almost as if flying. Adding to the sense of flying, we hear the wind, as if it’s rushing past us. What’s commonly associated with lucid dreaming? Flying. It would be one thing to just have the camera giving us establishing shots of New York City. That’s a very common film practice. But to have the sound of the wind? That’s not common. It implies we’re in the perspective of someone who is flying.

Also, if everything prior to the splice point had been real, it wouldn’t make sense for us to see David talking to McCabe before that. We know that in real life David never murdered Sofia. Which means that in real life, David would have never been talking with McCabe. All of those early, pre-splice scenes are in the context of David’s conversation with McCabe. Which means, naturally, that they’re the memories he has while in Life Extension’s Lucid Dream. That makes them unreliable.

Remember, Life Extension said that customers will have “no memory of how it all occurred, save for the knowledge that everything simply…improved.”

What we see of David’s life in the “real” portion of the film is ridiculously perfect. The banter. How much everyone loves him. His success. It’s to the point where everyone seems kind of crazy. To the point where it’s out of a Hallmark movie. Could those scenes, those memories, have been “slightly improved”? Were David and Brian friends? Sure. Did he and Sofia hit it off? Yes. But was the dialogue verbatim what happened in real life? We’re seeing David’s memory processed through the Lucid Dream’s romanticizing, so that everything had the feeling of a “great movie” or a “pop song”. Even the car crash could be ripped from the movie Jules and Jim rather than something that actually happened.

Based on all of this, you have to wonder if we ever actually met the real David or the real Sofia or the real Brian, Julie, etc. Everyone could be a heightened version of themselves, either made perfect by the Lucid Dream or made into a monster by the glitch.

So what was the point?

Ultimately, Vanilla Sky is a coming of age story. Despite being 33 years old, David still acts like an adolescent. He is pretty naive about the world. Takes without thought. Mistreats Brian, Julie, and even Sofia. He’s irresponsible at work. He is not a very serious person. The car crash is the consequence of his actions. If he had been a better friend to Brian, does Brian tell Julie what David said? If he had been more upfront with Julie, does she go crazy or move on? If he had turned down getting in the car that morning because he knew he was starting something with Sofia, would he have been okay? Probably.

His time with the mask and the nightmare is essentially his Christmas Carol period of seeing the ghosts of his past, present, and future. By experiencing everything he experiences, he reaches a new level of self-knowledge and acceptance. The immature thing to do would be to stay in the dream. That would be the act of someone still in denial and acting out of fear. But because David’s matured, he understands that the ups and downs of reality are better than a hollow dream, no matter how good the dream is.

This extends to the earlier point about the relationships people form with entertainment and other forms of media. As fun as it is to achieve something in a video game, that can’t replace real life. As satisfying as it is to build an audience on TikTok or Instagram, that can’t replace real loved ones. As great as a great movie can be, is it better than the happiest moments of your life? As long as we maintain a healthy relationship with the things that make us happy, that’s awesome. But the moment we start escaping into them because we’re scared—that’s a glitch. And it can send us spiraling.

When David wakes up, it’s to a whole new world, with limited resources. That’s terrifying. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be bad. The same applies to real life. That’s why David, in his final conversation with dream Sofia, says, “Do you remember what you told me once? That every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.”

With that in mind, it doesn’t necessarily matter what was real in David’s past. All that’s important is to know he went on a journey from being scared and running from reality to confident, appreciative, and ready to do the hard work. It’s the story of someone confronting their heartache, working through it, and arriving at some sort of catharsis. When David finally understands, he asks Tech Support, “And I chose this scenario, didn’t I?” Tech Support responds with, “Yes, to face your last remaining fear of heights.”

Vanilla Sky supports the concept that to heal and move forward we need time, introspection, and self-confrontation. It’s not always pretty. It’s not always fun. But it’s the way through the sh*ttiness. If you avoid these things, then you waste time. Everything can’t always be sweet. You need the sour, too. It’s the only way we learn and grow. Vanilla Sky reminds us to do our best to be honest with ourselves.

The Vanilla Sky

It’s been mentioned throughout the article, but the Vanilla Sky of the Lucid Dream is a callback to the sky in Monet’s painting The Seine at Argenteuil . The Lucid Dream embodies the way in which art becomes a means of escape and the tension of art being beautiful but also a representation of life rather than life itself. You can admire the sky in The Seine at Argenteuil but it can’t replace the real sky. Just like Dream Sofia,while wonderful, can’t replace having a relationship with an actual person. Art can’t be life. It can add to someone’s life. But it can’t replace the real things.

The Jules and Jim poster

Jules and Jim is a classic film major movie. Part of the French New Wave revolution of the 50s and 60s, it’s this dreamy story of two friends, Jules and Jim, and the woman, Catherine, that they’re both in love with. She marries Jules and time passes. Jim visits and begins a romance with Catherine, one that Jules agrees to because it turns out Catherine kind of hates him and Jules believes this is the only way he can keep her in his life. Eventually, Jim leaves, goes back to his old girlfriend, and prepares to marry her. Catherine wants Jim, he wants nothing to do with her, she threatens him with a gun, he escapes. Later, all three hang out. Everything seems fine. Until Catherine asks Jim to get into her car. She then drives them off—this may sound familiar—a bridge. Neither survives and it’s up to Brian—er, Jules—to scatter their ashes.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the foundation of the first portion of Vanilla Sky . The same way Cameron Crowe incorporated the Bob Dylan cover and the Monet sky, he has the plot of Vanilla Sky literally recreate Jules and Jim . The poster in David’s bedroom is a very important clue that eventually gains context when we learn about Life Extension and what goes into creating the Lucid Dream.

Empty Times Square

On the one hand, the scene in an empty Times Square doesn’t need to mean anything more than just being a great visual. On the other hand, it does serve as a nice contrast to the very end of the film.

Compare the Times Square scene to the final conversation on the rooftop of Life Extension headquarters. In the former, Cruise is on the ground, completely alone. Even though his life seems perfect, it’s empty. By the end, he’s high up on a roof and has with him some very important people—Sofia, Brian, McCabe, and Tech Support. Those are to him what the Tin Man, Scarecrow, Lion, and Glinda were to Dorothy in Wizard of Oz . These manifestations of heart, intelligence, courage, and guidance.

You can argue that the roof is symbolic of the perspective David has gained over the course of the film, a visual contrast to the confusion and loneliness he felt at the beginning.

Questions & answers about Vanilla Sky

Was it sofia or julie that david smothered.

Even though he thinks it was Julie, David sees the mole that he knew Sofia had. Which is why he thinks he killed Sofia. There’s a scene earlier in the movie where he makes a big deal about that mole. That’s there specifically to set up the later “reveal”.

Was Julie actually Sofia? Did Sofia ever exist?

There’s a whole argument to be made that no one in the dream ever existed in David’s life and his real life was completely different from whatever we see in the dream. But if we accept some of the facts that the movie gave us in the first 30 minutes, then Julie and Sofia really were separate people.

Why did David think Julie was Sofia or that Sofia was Julie?

The simple answer is it was just the glitch causing the dream to become a nightmare. That’s it.

The deeper, thematic answer is that it’s a byproduct of David’s subconscious and relates to a guilt he feels about what happened with Sofia and Julie. If he hadn’t gotten into the car with the one, then he could have had a life with the other. He “chose” Julie. So her becoming Sofia in the dream is just a hyperbolic embodiment of David’s guilt and remorse. That momentary choice had a profound ripple effect on his life and ultimately led to the “death” of him and Sofia.

Is Vanilla Sky like Inception ?

Somewhat! Cobb and David go on similar journeys of working through their baggage in dream worlds. Both have glitches. David’s is a best more conceptual but takes the form of Julie becoming Sofia. While in Inception , Cobb’s guilt over his wife’s death manifests as his wife invading the various dreams Cobb’s in and sabotaging whatever mission he’s on. Both movies end with escaping the dream and returning to real life, having found a sense of closure.

Is it Sophia or Sofia?

Sofia.

Now it’s your turn

Have more unanswered questions about Vanilla Sky ? Are there themes or motifs we missed? Is there more to explain about the ending? Please post your questions and thoughts in the comments section! We’ll do our best to address every one of them. If we like what you have to say, you could become part of our movie guide!

Chris Lambert is co-founder of Colossus. He writes about complex movie endings, narrative construction, and how movies connect to the psychology of our day to day lives.

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Grin and bear it

I n Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, Tom Cruise keeps going to bed with the sparrow-like Penelope Cruz and waking up with the foxy Cameron Diaz, or going to bed with the foxy Cameron Diaz and waking up with the sparrow-like Penelope Cruz. This eventually drives him around the bend, to the point that he is willing to contemplate murder, suicide or both. Since going to bed with Penelope Cruz and waking up with Cameron Diaz - or vice versa - is a problem most men could handle with no problem at all, it is fair to say that Crowe has not built enormous sympathy for his protagonist.

Vanilla Sky is a pretentious, interminable remake of Alejandro Amenabar's pretentious, interminable 1997 film Open Your Eyes, which also starred the sparrow-like but then unknown Cruz. Why Crowe agreed to pilot this handpicked Cruise project is a mystery; apparently he really wanted to work with the star. A talented, respected screenwriter and a competent director best known for the charming, if schmaltzy Jerry Maguire, and the charming, if schmaltzy Almost Famous, Crowe does not seem like the sort of person who would deliberately become ensnared in a non-commercial, self-consciously arty mess like Vanilla Sky. This is clearly a desperate attempt to be taken more seriously, for the film is nothing if not an earnest attempt to deal with the big questions. It is nothing if not a big bomb.

Vanilla Sky concerns a man who has trouble sleeping, and even when he is not sleeping he cannot be sure he is awake. But whether sleeping or not, he certainly has amazing teeth. Whether flashing his headlight smile at Cruz, Diaz or both of them simultaneously, Cruise spends so much time smiling in the early part of the film that you can't wait for something really bad to happen to him so that he'll just shut his damned mouth. It's as if he were engaged in an all-out war with Julia Roberts to see who lands that coveted job as official spokesperson for the American Dental Association.

As the film begins, Cruise has inherited a huge publishing empire from his father, a ruthless billionaire who died when Tom was quite young. Scorned as a shallow playboy by his board of directors, Cruise is convinced that these "Seven Dwarves" are plotting a coup. This does not prevent him from bedding Diaz every chance he gets, or from filching the sparrow-like Cruz from his best friend, a fledgling novelist played by Jason Lee. Crowe would have us believe that Cruz is the only genuine person Cruise has ever met, the only one that is not after his money, and, apparently, the only woman he has never slept with. But remember: this could all be a dream.

Diaz, who seems to be some sort of artiste or model, does not take kindly to Cruise's dalliance with the sparrow-like Cruz. She entices him into her car, then takes him on a wild ride, seeking to read him the riot act. But disaster ensues. Now she is probably dead. And Cruise's face is horribly disfigured. And the sparrow-like Cruz no longer wants to date him.

But remember: this could all be a dream.

The movie does not become any more lucid as it trudges towards its enigmatic conclusion. Cruise is accused of murdering either Diaz or Cruz, but we do not know which, because the police refuse to divulge whether the victim was sparrow-like. A compassionate psychiatrist played by Kurt Russell tries to unlock the secret to Cruise's delusions, but he is of little help because he himself may be an illusion. The car crash and subsequent murder may stem from the machinations of the Seven Dwarves but then again it may all be a dream. For all I know, this review of Vanilla Sky may all be a dream. If it is, I sure hope it's a dream where I get paid 70,000 quid for writing it.

The film is not without its merits, most notably Crowe's clever dialogue. When Cruise first dons a "facial prosthetic" - also known as an "aesthetic regenerative shield" - to conceal his disgured face, he hollers out, "That's great. This completely takes care of Halloween." Later someone says: "You do not invite happiness in without a full body search." I am not sure what this means, but it sounds like good advice, especially if you live in Greenwich Village. Equally entertaining is the scene where Diaz snaps, "When you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise, even if you don't." I, for one, hope that this does not apply to blow jobs. Diaz addresses this very issue when she adds, "I swallowed your cum. That means something." Actually, it doesn't. Ask Bill Clinton.

People who don't care for Tom Cruise claim that he never takes risks, that he always plays the same part. This is not true. From Born On The Fourth Of July to Interview With The Vampire to Eyes Wide Shut to Magnolia, Cruise has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to roll the dice and "stretch". Here, as in Far And Away and Cocktail, he comes up short. But the fault lies less in his acting - it is a bit over-the-top in places as Cruise mounts his Oscar campaign - than in the film's very conception. At no point does Crowe explain to us why we should care about this self-involved plutocrat or his hideous entourage. The only people in the film who are vaguely likable are the stolid Kurt Rusell and the sparrow-like Penelope Cruz. Uh-oh.

With Vanilla Sky, Cruz adds to her impressive list of duds. Adorable in Woman On Top, Cruz has continued to be adorable, but has gone down with the ship in such high-profile disasters as All The Pretty Horses and Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Despite Hollywood's best efforts to turn the sultry gamine into the next Jennifer Lopez, she is starting to look more like the next Salma Hayek, the next Maria Conchita Alonzo or the next-to-last Antonio Banderas. Proving that one sparrow does not make a spring.

· Vanilla Sky is out on Friday

Cameron Diaz
Penélope Cruz
Cameron Crowe

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, vanilla sky.

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Think it all the way through, and Cameron Crowe 's "Vanilla Sky" is a scrupulously moral picture. It tells the story of a man who has just about everything, thinks he can have it all, is given a means to have whatever he wants, and loses it because--well, maybe because he has a conscience. Or maybe not. Maybe just because life sucks. Or maybe he only thinks it does. This is the kind of movie you don't want to analyze until you've seen it two times.

I've seen it two times. I went to a second screening because after the first screening I thought I knew what had happened, but was nagged by the idea that certain things might not have happened the way I thought they had. Now that I've seen it twice, I think I understand it, or maybe not. Certainly it's entertaining as it rolls along, and there is wonderful chemistry of two quite different kinds between Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz on the one hand, and Cruise and Penelope Cruz on the other.

"Vanilla Sky," like the 2001 pictures " Memento " and " Mulholland Drive " before it, requires the audience to do some heavy lifting. It has one of those plots that doubles back on itself like an Escher staircase. You get along splendidly one step at a time, but when you get to the top floor you find yourself on the bottom landing. If it's any consolation, its hero is as baffled as we are; it's not that he has memory loss, like the hero of "Memento," but that in a certain sense he may have no real memory at all.

Cruise stars as David Aames, a 33-year-old tycoon who inherited a publishing empire when his parents were killed in a car crash. His condo is like the Sharper Image catalog died and went to heaven. He has a sex buddy named Julie (Cameron Diaz) and thinks they can sleep together and remain just friends, but as she eventually has to explain, "When you sleep with someone, your body makes a promise whether you do or not." At a party, he locks eyes with Sofia Serrano (Penelope Cruz), who arrives as the date of his friend Brian ( Jason Lee ) but ends up spending the night with him. Even though they don't have sex, it looks to me like their bodies are making promises to each other.

At this point the movie starts unveiling surprises which I should not reveal. A lot of surprises. Surprises on top of surprises. The movie is about these surprises, however, and so I must either end this review right now, or reveal some of them.

OK, for those of us still in the room, and without revealing too much: Julie drives up just as David is leaving after his night with Sofia, offers him a lift, drives off a bridge in Central Park, kills herself, and lands him in front of "the best plastic surgeon in New York" with a horribly scarred face. This time thread is intercut with another one in which a psychiatrist ( Kurt Russell ) is interrogating him about a murder. He insists there was no murder. Maybe there was and maybe there wasn't, and maybe the victim was who we think it is, and maybe not.

"Vanilla Sky" has started as if it is about David's life and loves. It reveals an entirely different orientation (which I will not reveal even here in the room), and, to be fair, there is a full explanation. The only problem with the explanation is that it explains the mechanism of our confusion, rather than telling us for sure what actually happened.

That's why I went to see it a second time. In general, my second viewing was greatly helped by my first, and I was able to understand events more clearly. But there was one puzzling detail. At the second viewing, I noticed that the first words in the movie ("open your eyes") are unmistakably said in the voice of Sofia, the Penelope Cruz character. If the movie's explanation of this voice is correct, at that point in the movie David has not met Sofia, or heard her voice.

How can we account for her voice appearing before she does? There is a character in the movie who refers to a "splice." We are told where the splice takes place. But consider the source of this information--not the person supplying it, but the underlying source. Is the information reliable? Or does the splice take place, so to speak, before the movie begins? And in that case ... but see the movie and ask the question for yourself.

Note: Early in the film, there's an astonishing shot of Tom Cruise absolutely alone in Times Square. You might assume, as I did, that computers were involved. Cameron Crowe told me the scene is not faked; the film got city permission to block off Times Square for three hours early on a Sunday morning. Just outside of camera range there are cops and barricades to hold back the traffic.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Vanilla Sky (2001)

Rated R for sexuality and strong language

135 minutes

Noah Taylor as Edmund Ventura

Penelope Cruz as Sofia Serrano

Cameron Diaz as Julie Gianni

Tom Cruise as David Aames

Kurt Russell as McCabe

Jason Lee as Brian Shelby

Directed by

Cameron Crowe

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Vanilla Sky

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Watch Vanilla Sky with a subscription on Paramount+, rent on Fandango at Home, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Apple TV.

What to Know

An ambitious mix of genres, Vanilla Sky collapses into an incoherent jumble. Cruise's performance lacks depth, and it's hard to feel sympathy for his narcissistic character.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Cameron Crowe

David Aames

Penélope Cruz

Sofia Serrano

Cameron Diaz

Julie Gianni

Kurt Russell

Brian Shelby

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Being Tom Cruise

By Evgenia Peretz

At 10 A.M. on a Monday in October, the office of Vinyl Films, Cameron Crowe’s Santa Monica production company, looks just like what you’d expect from the creators of Almost Famous. Classic movie posters line the walls— Sabrina, Jules and Jim, Carnal Knowledge. There are Razor scooters in the corner, bagels stocked in the kitchen, intelligent conversations going on about pop culture, and no shortage of beards, baseball caps, and way-too-long shorts. Until 10:15.

It’s not just that Tom Cruise, the world’s biggest movie star, is entering the room. It’s that he’s entering it like Tom Cruise. Wearing a snug brown sweater, tapered black pants, and a precise two-day stubble, he takes off his sunglasses, cranks up his smile, and with a simple “Cameron around?” appears to make Gloria, the receptionist, feel like the most important woman working in film today. In fact, over the course of the next few hours, he will make everyone feel a little more important, a little funnier, a little sexier, a little more like they should be in pictures. He will affectionately roughhouse members of the Vinyl Films team; he’ll give out mini-massages just because; he’ll tease people about what they’re eating; he’ll find it hysterical when a baby squirrel that’s been rescued by a staffer leaps onto his sweater and clings for dear life. Never one to disappoint or give any less than 110 percent, he’ll even answer his interviewer’s questions (well, most of them at least) as clearly, and as cheerfully, as possible.

What does your face look like in Vanilla Sky?

He begins to respond, then jumps up and excuses himself, mysteriously. He re-appears a few minutes later and beckons, smiling knowingly, from the doorway. “C’mon.”

He has just persuaded Cameron Crowe, the director, to show a few scenes of the movie.

So what, you ask? Since the project began, those surrounding Vanilla Sky (which Cruise is also co-producing, with Paula Wagner) have been in Delta Force stealth mode. Partway through the movie, there’s some major facial disfigurement of its hero, and during filming, Cruise kept his appearance secret by using a cordoned-off path between his trailer and the set. Even Pat Kingsley, his trusted publicist, who usually knows what happens to Tom before Tom does, hasn’t seen the footage we’re about to screen, Cruise reports.

At the top, Vanilla Sky looks deceptively familiar. As in Cocktail, Top Gun, The Color of Money, All the Right Moves, Days of Thunder, and Jerry Maguire, Cruise’s character, we learn immediately, is the Best in the Business (in this case, the business is publishing), skateboarding through life on his easy talent, charming patter, and fantastic teeth. Needless to say, the ladies love him, and his ego is radioactive. He needs to be taken down a notch, but it will require only the right lady—the unimpressed one, naturally—to do it. (In this case, that woman is played by his real-life girlfriend, Penélope Cruz.)

Wait a few minutes and you’ll find yourself in uncharted Tom Cruise waters. The film was inspired by Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes), a trippy Spanish melodrama which Cruise bought the rights to before producing Amenábar’s The Others (the stylish horror movie starring Nicole Kidman), and it is certainly the darkest project Cameron Crowe has taken on. (Friends of Crowe, a Billy Wilder nut, have joked that it is his Double Indemnity , Wilder’s classic film noir. ) It’s also one of the most psychologically twisted for Cruise. After a near-fatal car crash, Cruise finds himself embarking on some major soul-searching and self-loathing, which leads him to a kind of madness. Known for doing concrete research for his roles—whether using a wheelchair or flipping martini shakers—Cruise went into hours of character analysis with Crowe for Vanilla Sky. Even today, he is still probing, prodding, putting questions out there about the inner life of his character, David Aames, who treats women like “fuck buddies” and lives out the consequences.

“What is the price we’re paying for having sex? Is there a promise that you make with sex? What is the responsibility of sex? Some people don’t feel it in their life. How does that accumulate in people’s lives? Do they do themselves in?” Cruise says, his voice nearing a whisper, his eyes boiling with late-night rapsession intensity. “You look at the World Trade Center. I think the World Trade Center has kind of ripped the social veneer off this country. I’m not comparing this character to the World Trade Center. I’m not saying it’s that extreme. But I think that you look at anyone in life, they have problems , they have things that are going on and things that don’t appear the way they seem.”

Those very words might be spoken about Cruise himself. As the world has recently learned, even Tom Cruise has problems. Not just movie-star problems, such as disappointing reviews or annoying tabloid reports, but normal-person problems. To wit, it’s been 10 months since Cruise filed for divorce from his wife of 10 years, Nicole Kidman, and four months since the divorce was finalized. The news stunned everybody, even those who never really cared about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in the first place. After all, this was Tom and Nicole , who were never apart for more than two weeks at a time; Tom and Nicole, who groped each other like a couple of kids, at least when there were cameras around; Tom and Nicole, who starred together in Stanley Kubrick’s difficult movie about sexual jealousy, Eyes Wide Shut, and came out, they said, only more bonded to each other. Tom and Nicole, the one Hollywood supercouple, with two kids, who knew how to make it work.

As if the divorce weren’t tough enough, there’s collateral damage as well. A bitter legal battle has just been waged over the couple’s estimated $325 million fortune (which includes four homes, a Gulfstream, and two smaller airplanes) and the custody of their children, Isabella, eight, and Connor, six. (The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.) Cruise is now moving into life as a single father. For the first time ever, he appears to be getting some negative publicity: Kidman, said by friends to have been completely blindsided by the turn of events and eager to go into marriage counseling, has scored higher in the bid for public sympathy. Three weeks after September 11, there’s another nagging issue: being Tom Cruise in a world where, for now at least, Tom Cruise movies don’t seem as important as they once did.

After two decades’ worth of profiles on the man, only a fool could hope for Tom Cruise to start baring his wounds in public. Tom Cruise does not bare wounds. Nor does he sweat it, regret, kick himself, or kick others. It’s hard to imagine Cruise losing his grip, even having a fitful night of sleep. After all, you don’t get to be among the world’s highest-paid actors ($25 million per picture) and work with names such as Coppola, Pollack, Newman, Hoffman, Scorsese, Stone, Kubrick, Crowe, and now, with Minority Report , Steven Spielberg by behaving like a basket case. Famously controlled, the Platonic ideal of the “consummate professional,” as they say in the business, Cruise treats emotional challenges in the same way he does his latest character: he defines them, he does what he needs to do to master them, and he moves on. And so, when asked about his divorce, Cruise, while wanting to be the dutiful interview subject, also doesn’t want to dwell.

By Brooke Baldwin

In Shōgun, Cosmo Jarvis Took the Adventure of a Lifetime&-But Didn’t Know How to Say Goodbye

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By Bess Levin

Why did you and Nicole decide to end it?

“She knows why, and I know why. She’s the mother of my children, and I wish her well,” he says curtly. “And I think that you just move on. And I don’t say that lightly. I don’t say that with anything. Things happen in life, and you do everything you can, and in every possible way, and there’s a point at which you just sometimes have to face the brutal reality.”

You make it sound as if there were some event, which I think only piques people’s curiosity. Or perhaps you’re just telling me to mind my own business?

“No. I mean, she knows why , and she is the mother of my children, and I wish her well,” he repeats. “I don’t care if it piques people’s interest. Honestly, people should mind their own damn business. And get a life of their own . . . . My personal life isn’t here to sell newspapers.”

Has your thinking changed about Eyes Wide Shut?

“The experience was the experience. I don’t feel that way. I don’t feel that way. I don’t. I’ve gone through everything. It was what it was.”

It’s not that Tom Cruise doesn’t have feelings. It’s that wallowing in them, he believes, doesn’t actually help —and help is the key word in the Tom Cruise lexicon. Not help as in charity or performing good works necessarily, although that’s part of it, but help as in contributing to the achievement of a given goal. When talking about virtually any topic that interests him—his movies, his family, his religion—he’ll eventually drop the word “help.” From his personal goals (“I’ve always just wanted to help people”) to the purpose of the entire human race (“I think people are as valuable as their ability to help”). In fact, as Cameron Crowe recalls, the now famous “Help me help you” scene in Jerry Maguire came about during rehearsal one day when Cuba Gooding Jr., “fucking with Tom,” decided to give him nothing. “Tom just got so frustrated,” says Crowe, “he started going, ‘ Help me help you, help me help you. ’”

There is, admittedly, something vaguely preachy about the word “help” upon its eighth or ninth mention. But ask anyone who knows Cruise and you soon learn that it’s more than lip service. Cruise is helpful, and everything else that implies—patient, generous, and nice to everyone around him. “He’s always had a sense of ‘What is this movie?’” says producing partner and former agent Paula Wagner, whose speech is as carefully measured as her designer pantsuit. “‘How can I best serve this movie? How can I help this movie? The director and the actors and I are in it together, and, you know, how can we make the best movie possible?’”

For Crowe, Cruise’s helpfulness while making Jerry Maguire simply set the gold standard for behavior on movie sets and has now spoiled Crowe for good. “It was really shocking to me after people said, ‘Oh, you’ve never worked with a really big staaar ,’” recalls Crowe, going into a sing-songy “warning” voice. “‘You know what that’s liiike. They write books about this.’ And then I met this guy who said, ‘Every day I want to make your dreams come true.’ He always stood shoulder to shoulder with me and everybody else. . . . Then I go to make Almost Famous. I’m like, ‘O.K., I love this directing thing. Wait a minute! What happened to that guy?!’”

Among his fellow actors, Crowe adds, Cruise is “an ambassador of goodwill,” making everybody forget they’re in a Tom Cruise picture, and routinely letting others steal the scenes. “He made me feel like he was there to serve me,” says Cameron Diaz, whose performance as Cruise’s scorned, unhinged girlfriend in Vanilla Sky is a tour de force in fatal attraction. The film’s dramatic car scene (in which Diaz is driving) took two days to shoot, entailed ramming into branches and careening around pedestrians, and eventually made Diaz a little crazy for real. But, she says, “Tom guided me through my own hysteria. . . . Just by being so present, so dedicated, he was incredibly, I guess you could say, helpful. ”

Cruise’s eagerness to help began when he was a kid, and the object, it seems, was himself. Growing up in a family of women (his parents divorced when he was 12), Cruise was dragged around to 15 different cities before the end of high school, making him, he has claimed, the permanent new geek, always wearing the wrong sneakers. His insecurity, he explains, was conquered by sheer feistiness. “I remember when I moved to Canada and I had figure skates and I wanted to play ice hockey,” Cruise recalls. “And my mother said, ‘Listen, you’re going to get your teeth knocked out,’ and just did not want me playing hockey. I ended up proving to her that I could. I would be out there at night, right after school, early in the morning, just teaching myself how to skate.”

By age 17, Cruise’s early determination to play hockey was replaced by the will to be an actor. Bagging high-school graduation to move to New York, he landed his breakthrough role in the 1981 military-school drama Taps , and that singular Tom Cruise zeal (or what Crowe jokingly calls Cruise’s “death march”) started taking shape. “I remember during Taps , I couldn’t sleep at night sometimes. I thought, O.K., I want to be an actor,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I want to learn about what acting is. I had this feeling of ‘Here I am 18 years old and this stuff is going on.’ This is what I wanted to do with my life. ” Even with his next successes—such as Risky Business and Top Gun —Cruise never allowed one fiber of his being to sit back and enjoy the show. The only thing that got him jacked was the idea of bigger, harder, more difficult. “I thought, Do I have what it takes? . . . Am I up to this?” he recalls about making Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July back-to-back, in the late 80s. “I liked that, that test for myself. Can I do it?! ” All the while, Cruise was obsessively seeking information from those around him—Martin Scorsese, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, even Curtis Hanson, who directed him in the 1983 sex comedy Losin’ It —and taking notes. “I’d sit down with these directors, like Sydney Pollack [ The Firm ]. I’d say, ‘What does this mean? The master shot? The close-up? How do you use these images to tell a story?’”

Given the young age at which Cruise achieved major stardom, and given the pitfalls that have plagued many of his contemporaries, it’s worth noting that Cruise has always been Cub Scout—clean. To the public’s knowledge, he has never had a drug or drinking problem, and never been treated for “nervous exhaustion.” He’s never made any embarrassing videos; he’s never bitten anyone, never publicly feuded with a contemporary about who’s the sellout and who’s the real deal. In fact, he’s never found himself in any remotely slimy Hollywood situation. But the jackals (and he won’t name names) were busy at work around him. “There are people out there who are so good at sucking blood that you don’t even realize it, you know?” says Cruise. “You think they’re your friends, and really they’re hanging on to your coattails, taking a ride. They can seem like the nicest people, but are they contributing to you as an artist? Or are they sucking off of you? . . . It’s subtle sometimes, the invalidation you get. It’s all done in the I’m just trying to be your friend ,” says Cruise, going into his best Svengali. “ I’m just trying to help you. ”

How did you stay on the straight and narrow?

“Quite honestly,” he says after some time, “I have been a Scientologist for 15 years.”

Designed to make human beings more successful and spiritually evolved, Scientology has attracted a number of celebrities, including Cruise, his first wife, Mimi Rogers, John Travolta, Travolta’s wife, Kelly Preston, Giovanni Ribisi, Juliette Lewis, and Jenna Elfman. Reasonably or not, journalists are reluctant to go near the subject for fear of years of litigation and other uncomfortable consequences. Cruise brings it up himself, perhaps because he sees that any genuine discussion of himself must involve it. “I was 26 years old, 27 years old. I mean, I was right in the heat of everything,” says Cruise. “I started reading books on it, and I thought, God, this makes sense.” Breaking it down for the layman, Cruise explains, “Scientology means knowing how to know , and I think as an artist, as anyone who’s trying to survive in life, you want”—he pauses, looking for the right word—“ How about some tools to help me? ” As for those who say that his religion is, well, a little creepy, Cruise dismisses them categorically. “You hear things, and then you ask someone, ‘Well, have you read anything?’ ‘Well, no, I saw it on the news.’ Well, my God ,” he says, betraying a bit of disgust. “Or ‘ I read it in a newspaper .’”

For Cruise, Scientology has provided the means to fix virtually any difficulty he has ever had or might encounter in the future. Dyslexic, Cruise reports that Scientology “helped me with my rehabilitating my own education.” Estranged from his abusive father—an electrical engineer whom Cruise remotely describes as “a very different kind of guy”—until his death in 1984, Cruise seems to credit the religion with helping him handle adversity. “Life pounds you—you know what I mean?” Cruise says. “You come across losses. All of a sudden something happens and now you feel like you cannot go forward or it invalidates you. People die. Things happen in life that make it very difficult at times to be happy or to overcome certain problems. Scientology has helped me be able to figure out tools to understand exactly what a problem is, and how to overcome those problems.”

Scientology, he says, has also helped him become a better parent. Mention his kids and Cruise will invariably sigh, shake his head, and launch into a cute story about their latest obsession. (These days, it is the trampoline and the Top Gun soundtrack.) They have often accompanied him onto the set. When they are apart, they have even communicated via satellite television. His schedule is so hectic and touch-and-go, both he and his personal assistant explain, mainly because of his children.

“Children want to feel like they’re part of a family, and that they’re contributing,” says Cruise, who, in step with “Scientology technology,” has set up an elaborate chart system that involves the checking off of duties, weekly rewards, and daily dialogues about helping. “When you’re around the house, they want to help. . . . Yes, I paid for everything, but you can contribute to me. You know, you talk about it: ‘How can you help me? ’ And they say, ‘Well, I don’t know, I can’t do anything.’ I say, ‘Does cleaning your room help me?’ ‘Yeah, yeah, I guess cleaning my room is going to help you. I put my plate up after dinner—that kind of helps you, too.’” His methodical questioning of his kids extends into touchier issues, too, such as the gossip they might hear at school. (Rumors have swirled that Cruise is gay, that the Cruise-Kidman marriage was a sham, that a sex counselor was called in to help on their love scenes for Eyes Wide Shut .) “You have to say . . . ‘How do you feel about people who say stuff like that? How would you like it if someone says something that’s untrue about you? Now, what do you think about those people that do that? . . . You don’t have to sit there and listen to it. You can tell them you don’t want to hear it.’” (However, Cruise himself hasn’t been entirely able to drown out the noise; he recently sued an L.A.-based tabloid publisher and a gay-porn star for $ 100 million each for alleging that he was gay. “Paul Newman said [to me], ‘Do what you need to do,’” he explains. “Hence the legal action I’ve taken. You have to draw the line.”) For these reasons and others, Paula Wagner believes that Cruise “defines the rule book of what a good father is.” In fact, his children, Cruise claims, are the reason he’s acting in the first place. “I think, What am I doing this for?” he asks himself aloud. “For my kids.”

Scientology has also been a comfort to Cruise since the terrorist attacks of September 11. While admitting that “Hollywood has stopped and taken a breath,” he has turned the event into yet another opportunity to contribute. Impressed by the volunteer ministers from the Scientology church who showed up at Ground Zero (they were the ones wearing the SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEER MINISTER shirts), he’s helping in his own way, too, he says. First, there is his involvement with the World Literacy Crusade, a secular, nonprofit organization that uses some of the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. “People come in free off the street, and the miracles that happen there every day are astonishing,” says Cruise. “I mean, the stuff you see—where within 90 hours people jump three grade levels. ”

He’s also helping, he believes, just by being an actor. At the September 21 telethon for the victims of the attacks, in which Cruise answered phones alongside Penélope Cruz, he witnessed a few fellow actors having mini existential crises. “I went up to a guy,” Cruise recalls, “and said, ‘You know what? It is a relief to people in their lives to be able to see what you do.’ . . . Whether it’s just you have a cry, you have a laugh, you identify with something, or it’s just pure escapism, there is that release, or that hope, or that dream of having something in their lives, or an inspiration to be better, to do better. Because it’s never static,” he adds. “You’re either going backwards or you’re moving forward. It’s either a disintegration of communication or you’re furthering yourself.”

Perhaps the most visible way in which Cruise has been moving forward these days is in his love life. During the filming of Vanilla Sky , he began to fall for his co-star Penélope Cruz, who played the same role in the original version by Amenábar. On July 6, four months after Vanilla Sky wrapped, they danced together at Cruise’s 39th-birthday party; a week later they took off for the Wakaya Club in Fiji, to the resort where he and Kidman had made reservations before they separated. (Though she was in Australia at the time, Kidman was reportedly “in shock” that Cruise brought Cruz.) The next month, Cruise and Penélope kicked back with the kids at his home in Telluride, Colorado. In a rare unguarded moment, Cruise sounds like a kid intoxicated with love, blurting out fragments of romantic thoughts—“I thought, My God, I’m your boyfriend. You’re my girlfriend !”or “Cruise and Cruz!”—that send him into hearty guffaws. Generally, though, he’s careful not to appear unseemly and overeager, and valiantly talks about the acting stuff, too. “As a person and on film, she invites you in, and she’s incredibly romantic,” he says, quietly and seriously, furrowing his brow. “And yet real , you know? She’s beautiful. She’s a very skilled actress, but has an effortless quality about her. You look at Audrey Hepburn. She had that kind of elegance and yet was accessible.”

Seamless as it all may sound, Cruise admits that the months spent falling in love with Cruz, and falling out with his wife, were trying. “When all this was going on,” he says, “I was producing and acting in Vanilla Sky. I was meeting with Alejandro Amenábar after shooting all day, 15 hours a day. I was at meetings, only getting two hours of sleep, working on The Others , for [Nicole], and for Alejandro.” In addition, there was the pressure brought on by the looming actors’ strike, and the fact that Cruise was due on the set of Spielberg’s Minority Report. If Cruise was stressed, it never showed. “Tom was always the first guy there, going, ‘C’mon,’ ” Crowe says, now going into his mock chipper-tourguide voice. “‘Let’s take a look at the car we’ll be traveling around Manhattan in. We call it the Vanilla Float.’ I think I only heard him use the word ‘tired’ once, and it was probably about someone else.”

Nor did the pressures prevent him from delivering what may be his most complex performance yet. Challenging as many of his films have been—such as Born on the Fourth of July or Magnolia — Cruise says Vanilla Sky has been his hardest film ever, chiefly because he wanted to “tip my hat” to Amenábar, who goes for a kind of elegant obscurity, while making a film by Cameron Crowe, a man whose creative sensibility is, above all, humanistic, and sweet in the best sense of the word. “You see the tone that Cameron is [going for]. You feel the emotion, the tension, the humor,” says Cruise. “You go, Well, I don’t know if it’s going to work. It’s definitely the trickiest thing I’ve ever worked on, and probably ever will work on.”

But Crowe, who recently sat down with Cruise and watched Jerry Maguire, was floored—both by how far Cruise has come since their first movie together and by the balance he was able to strike. “He has really gotten these even richer, darker colors, along with light comedy as well,” Crowe says. “He’s the kind of guy Billy Wilder would have loved. Like William Holden in his prime, he could be light but also take you to that dark place.” And as in almost every Tom Cruise movie, in which he either masters some impossible physical feat (like rock climbing or flying F-14s) or spectacularly loses control, Cruise never forgets his No. 1 responsibility: the audience. “With Tom, the movie is anchored. You’re never going to get confused,” says Crowe. “It is the story of this guy. And even if you can’t see it because he’s making you feel comfortable on the set, you look at the dailies later that night and go, Holy shit. That’s Tom fucking Cruise. ”

Just days after finishing Vanilla Sky , scenes of which were filmed in the offices of Vanity Fair , Cruise appeared on the set of Spielberg’s Minority Report. Based on Philip K. Dick’s futuristic story about policemen who arrest murderers before they kill, the movie casts Cruise as an officer who finds the system turning against him. Friends since the mid-80s, Spielberg and Cruise had long wanted to collaborate, but it was not until 1998 that they found the right project. Despite having worked his way through the roll call of A-list directors, Cruise is still wide-eyed when the occasion calls. “For me to say he’s a brilliant filmmaker is kind of redundant,” Cruise says about Spielberg, chuckling and flashing that familiar grin. “‘He’s brilliant.’ ‘Oh really? Tell us what he’s like.’ You know, he’s Steven Spielberg. ”

Given the magnitude of Cruise’s résumé, not to mention the universal praise that’s heaped on him by his colleagues, it’s reassuring to discover that Cruise still feels he has things to learn as an actor. It has little to do with the fact that the Oscar so far has eluded him. He says, “If it doesn’t happen, I won’t be disappointed,” and he sounds sincere. Rather, it’s that somewhere, deep down, Cruise still seems to feel like that kid, studiously picking things up from the artists around him, rather than plotting his own masterwork. “I wish I had that great story of Clint Eastwood with Unforgiven ,” Cruise admits. “He had this script, and he put it away for 10 years, and then went and directed this movie, and starred in this movie. And just had a culmination of an entire career.” He pauses, and thinks some more, his eyes far away. “How smart of him to recognize that, and have that there. That was just perfect for him. And so I don’t have that Unforgiven. I don’t have it.”

And then, being Tom Cruise, he makes a correction to that: “I don’t have it yet. ”

Evgenia Peretz

13 Undersung TV Gems to Binge Right This Second

By Maureen Ryan

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DVD & Streaming

Vanilla Sky

Content caution.

In Theaters

Tom Cruise as David Aames; Penélope Cruz as Sofia Serrano; Kurt Russell as Dr. Curtis McCabe; Cameron Diaz as Julie Gianni; Jason Lee as Brian Shelby

Home Release Date

Cameron Crowe

Distributor

Paramount Pictures

Movie Review

“What is it that makes you happy?” the soon-to-be fatally frustrated Julie asks David. “Because this is what makes me happy, being with you.” Seconds later, she steers her speeding car off an overpass, crashing head-on into a concrete embankment.

David is plagued by dreams. Nightmares, really. He’s not always sure where his nocturnal fantasies end and his day-to-day life begins. Moviegoers will be even less sure than he is. Just when you think you’ve pegged what’s what, Vanilla Sky ’s dreamscape takes another turn. David is a playboy. A rich kid who inherited his father’s publishing empire. He’s always had everything he ever wanted. Even good looks. He never goes home from the party without the girl. But his easy life has led to lax living. And he’s used up one to many women for selfish ends. Julie is the last. He’s in the midst of falling for a new girl (Sofia) when Julie, frustrated and suicidally angry over his callousness, takes that fateful plunge. David survives the horrific wreckage, but barely. He’s badly mangled. His face and arm shattered beyond repair. And so is his life. His nightmares may now prove more inviting than what remains of his reality. That’s when what you thought was strictly an exploration into life, love, loss and destruction turns decidedly sci-fi.

positive elements: The film explores the idea of making a choice between the ethereal pleasantness of fantasy (dreams, all-consuming entertainment, etc.) and the harsh realities of real life. David’s best friend, Brian, points out several times that the beauty and luster of life is only truly appreciated when the bitterness and trials are also fully felt and experienced. The consequences of one’s actions are also given a nod, as is the idea that it’s never too late to make a fresh start (“Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around”).

spiritual content: Moments before destroying their lives, Julie asks David if he believes in God (presumably because they are to meet Him shortly). Trying to dodge work responsibilities, David tells his secretary, “I don’t care if God calls, I’m very, very busy.” Going into surgery, he sings Joan Osborne’s song, “One of Us.”

sexual content: Intense and violent . [Spoiler Warning] Suffering from delusions and hallucinations, David climaxes an act of sexual intercourse with Sofia by forcibly smothering her to death (he sees her as Julie). Explicit sexual movement isn’t accompanied by nudity in this scene, but it is both visceral and prolonged. In an earlier sexual encounter, Sofia bares her breasts to the camera and David longingly wishes he could “live” inside a beauty mark located between them. The aftermath of a sexual encounter between David and Julie is shown. The two of them discuss their activities in obscene detail. Julie figures that if they have sex four times in a single night, that it should “mean something” between them. “Your body makes a promise whether you do or not,” she yells. She’s right, of course, she’s just on the wrong side of the sheets to win much credibility. David and Brian exchange graphic and gratuitous comments about David’s sex life. Also, David is shown getting dressed, and a picture of Sofia shows her posing nude.

violent content: The car crash is brutal (but the car’s occupants are never shown). Far more explicit and troubling are scenes in which David ties up, brutalizes and ultimately kills Sophia (who appears as Julie). Elsewhere, David and Brian get into a pushing match. David angrily smashes a bottle against a wall. A suicide (by pills) is shown.

crude or profane language: The f-word is frequently used (about 40 times). Often it is used to refer to sex. The s-word is also used several times. Sofia exclaims, “Holy god, this is going to change my life in a zillion different ways.” A photo shows a man making an obscene hand gesture. David’s nickname is an object generally associated with masturbation.

drug and alcohol content: Parties are for drinking in this movie. And drinking is for getting drunk. David, Brian, Sofia and Julie all get drunk at various times in the story. Jack Daniels. Martinis. Beer. They all claim quite a bit of screen time.

conclusion: Tight directing and clever twists make Vanilla Sky a colorful, surreal experience. What turns it black as night is a firmament full of obscenities, sexualized violence and murder, and glamorized alcohol abuse.

Steven Isaac

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Cameron Diaz Was the 'Soul' of 'Vanilla Sky', Says Director Cameron Crowe on Film's 20th Anniversary

"You couldn’t take your eyes off her," Crowe said of Diaz in a PEOPLE exclusive clip from the film's 20th anniversary limited edition Blu-ray, out on Nov. 16

Director Cameron Crowe is looking back at the making of Vanilla Sky and Cameron Dia z's memorable performance in the film.

In a PEOPLE exclusive clip celebrating the 20th anniversary release of the film, Crowe says he lucked out in working with Diaz on the Tom Cruise -starring thriller after she took a break from filming 2002's Gangs of New York in Italy.

"I just remember those electric blue eyes that matched the car that she drove and her kinetic energy that she brought from Italy," Crowe says of the actress. "You couldn't take your eyes off her. It was the soul of the movie in ways I didn't realize."

The movie follows a vain publishing magnate, David Ames (Cruise), whose life turns upside after he's involved in a car accident with his jaded lover, Julie (Diaz).

Crowe touched on the car crash scene saying, "We didn't have a lot of time and what happened was something about the exhaustion of not having the time off and having come straight from Italy, something came out." He adds, "She used all of her skill to both use all of her craft but she also used all of her exhaustion and it's riveting."

Vanilla Sky is a remake of the 1997 Spanish film Abre Los Ojos , which starred Penelope Cruz. Cruz went on to star in the remake opposite Cruise and Diaz.

In August 2021, Diaz opened up about stepping away from acting in an interview with Kevin Hart on his Peacock talk show Hart to Heart .

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE 's free weekly newsletter to get the biggest news of the week delivered to your inbox every Friday.

"Why did Cameron Diaz step away from the world of acting?" Hart asked Diaz. "What is it that motivated you to stop?"

Diaz answered by saying "when you do something at a really high level for a long period of time," other parts of you have "to sort of be handed off to other people."

Diaz said she started to realize around age 40 that there were "so many parts of my life ... that I wasn't touching and that I wasn't managing."

"For me, I just really wanted to make my life manageable by me," she explained. "My routine in a day is literally what I can manage to do by myself."

After the change, Diaz told Hart, "I feel whole."

A limited-edition Blu-ray of Vanilla Sky will be released on Nov. 16 with new bonus content including an alternate ending with commentary by Crowe and deleted scenes.

"We waste our money so you don't have to."

"We waste our money, so you don't have to."

Movie Review

Vanilla sky.

US Release Date: 12-10-2001

Directed by: Cameron Crowe

Starring ▸ ▾

Tom Cruise , as
David Aames
Penelope Cruz , as
Sofia Serrano
Cameron Diaz , as
Julie Gianni
Kurt Russell , as
Dr. Curtis McCabe
Jason Lee , as
Brian Shelby
Noah Taylor , as
Edmund Ventura
Timothy Spall , as
Thomas Tipp
Tilda Swinton as
Rebecca Dearborn

Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky .

Vanilla Sky is one of the saddest movies I have watched in a long time. At the end of this movie I had overwhelming urges to hug my wife and kids. Unfortunately, they were all asleep and they probably would have yelled at me for waking them up had I hugged them.

Tom Cruise plays a spoiled rich guy who inherited a business he does not treat very seriously. He has a lover who is only there for sex and to feed his ego. One day he meets a woman who he could potentially fall in love with. The very next day his lover turned stalker attempts to kill him by driving the car they are in off a bridge. He survives the attempt but his face gets horribly disfigured and his life becomes pathetically lonely.

Cruise does a great job of acting. In several scenes he is teary eyed and effectively emotional. Diaz shows that she has some serious potential. Her screen time is limited, but Diaz is proving to be an actress to be reckoned with. Cruz is adequate here, but I preferred her va-va-voom look in Woman on Top .

This movie has a surprising twist ending. It took me a minute to catch up. I mean, the film starts as a love story and then ends in science fiction. However, the movie has plenty to say about being lonely and reality. Although I found the ending to be a bit out of place, it still emotionally grabbed me. Now you will have to excuse me as I have to go and hug my family.

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky .

Vanilla Sky is a remake of the 1997 Spanish language movie Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). Penélope Cruz plays the same character, Sofia, in both movies.

I agree with Eric that the movie is sad but it is much trippier than he makes it sound. Yes the twist ending becomes pure science-fiction but the entire movie has a confused dreamlike quality to it. The audience is led to believe that Tom Cruise, as the disfigured David Aames, is going mad. He is unable to tell reality from fantasy. He doesn't even know for sure whether or not he murdered his girlfriend.

During most of Vanilla Sky I felt like I was watching a David Lynch movie and kept hoping that (unlike most of Lynch's movies) everything would be made clear before the end credits rolled. I usually don't like movies that play out too ambiguously. I'm sure for a director it is fun to make these 'anything you want to imagine is what happened' type movies but they are not very satisfying to watch. Fortunately all of the confusions in Vanilla Sky are made clear by the final scene.

One amazing scene worth mentioning is at the beginning of the movie. David Aames awakens to a deserted Manhattan. He drives to a completely personless Times Square, gets out of his car and starts running down the empty street. It is a powerful scene and shows the power of Tom Cruise. Very few stars have the box-office weight to take over Times Square to that extent just to film one short scene.

I have not seen the original version of this movie so I can't compare the two. All I can say is that Tom Cruise does a good job of inhabiting David Aames and making us feel his frustration and confusion. The special face-mask that he wears is creepy as hell looking. I agree with Eric that Cameron Diaz is good in her few scenes and that Penélope Cruz is surprisingly bland.

Vanilla Sky is filled with the kind of details that are more easily recognized on the second or third viewing. Twist endings have been popular in America ever since The Sixth Sense . Vanilla Sky is not as good a movie as that but as far as surprise endings go it does have a pretty good one.

Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz in Vanilla Sky .

I enjoyed Vanilla Sky , but I can't say that I was satisfied with it. I was fine with the surprise ending, and wasn't even very surprised by it. All the clues to what is going to happen are right there in the movie. My disappointment stemmed rather from the feeling that I'm still not completely sure of what was the point of the movie. It seems to be that the character of David (and by extension, we the audience) needs to take life more seriously and recognize his impact on the people around him. If this is the case, it takes an awful long time to make that point.

While I agree with Eric and Patrick that Diaz does a good job (and I'm not even a fan of hers), but I disagree about Cruz. I wouldn't use the word bland to describe her, but rather subdued. It's not hard to see why David would fall in love with her, or why Cruise would do the same in real life.

As for Cruise himself, I think he's adequate, but not great. While playing the cocky guy cruising through life at the start of the film, he's perfect, but after the accident he spends most of his time behind a mask or extreme makeup, both of which convey more of who he is than Cruise does.

A good movie, but one that takes too long to get where it's going.

Cameron Crowe Says He Hid Nirvana’s “You Know You’re Right” In Vanilla Sky A Year Before It Was Released

Cameron Crowe’s 2001 thriller Vanilla Sky has a reputation for being… divisive . (Incoherent, some might say .) It also turned to be weirdly prescient. In its opening scene, Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place” plays soon before Tom Cruise finds himself in an empty Times Square — a sight that is unfortunately familiar now due to the pandemic. Cruise also wears a mask in the film. And in a new quarantine interview with Vulture , Crowe talks about some of the hidden Easter eggs in the movie.

The big one is this: Vanilla Sky sort of features Nirvana’s “You Know You’re Right,” illegally, a year before it was released. Cameron Crowe explains:

This is a good thing. I don’t think this has ever come out before: I did a lot of subliminal music cues, and in the scene where Cruise has his freakout and he’s come from [Sofia/Julianna’s] murder, and he’s coming down those winding stairs to Todd Rundgren, there are bits of studio chatter of Brian Wilson freaking out while he’s trying to make “Heroes and Villains,” mixed in with what was then the only unreleased Nirvana song, “You Know You’re Right.” We couldn’t credit it in the movie and it was actually illegal, but Courtney Love gave it to us. She said, “This is the only Nirvana song that’s never been released. Hide it in your movie somewhere.”

Of course, Cameron Crowe is a big music guy — Hello, Almost Famous! Hi, Roadies! — and there’s a lot of other music in the movie, much of it significantly less subliminal. “The music for Vanilla Sky , I’m really proud of,” Crowe says. The final scene had a live version of Sigur Rós’ “Untitled 4,” aka “Njósnavélin,” a year before ( ) came out. And of course, there’s the Radiohead scene at the beginning.

“[When we were filming], everybody was into Radiohead, and they let us have ‘Everything in Its Right Place,’ which we’d been listening to a lot making it, and at that point, it was kind of jolly,” Crowe explains. “But when you watch the movie with that song in it, it just gets under your skin. A big part of people who discover the movie — it stays with them, in large part I think, because of the music. And the performances. And the opening, which I hear about more and more over time.”

Crowe talks more about how they shot the opening scene in Times Square. And there’s this funny bit: “I remember getting a cab, and the driver says to me, ‘You know, they emptied out Times Square for Tom Cruise.’ I was like, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘Only one other person they’d do that for. Billy Joel!’ So I always thought, if I ever meet Billy Joel, I’d say, ‘I think you got Times Square if you want it.'”

And in case you were wondering if Bob Dylan saw Vanilla Sky …he did. Crowe recalls:

I was writing something with Penélope Cruz in mind after we’d made Vanilla Sky , and I went to go see her on the set of her movie, Masked And Anonymous , with Bob Dylan. Somebody introduced me to him, though I’d interviewed him once. I was nervous, but he had this big grin. He said, “You did that movie Vanilla Sky , didn’t you?” And I said, “Yeah, I did,” knowing that I had his music and the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan meticulously recreated in the film with Tom and Penélope. And he said, “I saw your movie in Times Square, and I was watching it, and I was thinking, ‘I’ve been here before.’ And then I realized, I was! I was there before.” I was like, “Okay, I can check the box of Vanilla Sky right now. Bob Dylan took the Vanilla Sky ride and recognized himself. In a way, that was the dream. That everybody would take a little ride with that movie.

Read the full interview here .

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DVD Review & High Definition

Home entertainment information, news and reviews since 1997, vanilla sky.

Reviewed on July 23, 2002 by Glenn Magas in DVD , Reviews // 0 Comments

I’ll be honest – I hated this movie.

Then… I loved it so much I wanted to be in it… somewhere… anywhere… A fly on the wall I suppose. I wanted to feel the pain and the loss. I wanted it all. I wanted to be David Aames. That’s my Vanilla Sky, my fantasy! I didn’t get what I wanted from this film the first time but I watched it again and got what I missed.

As Cameron Crowe puts it, "You’re not going to get a movie about a love affair between two people." He’s right. And it’s the want and yearning for a love story that never really happens. What you get is a thought provoking film that has more meaning every time you watch it (like "Joe vs the Volcano" – seriously).

There are so many little things that make this movie a brilliant piece of filmmaking. Paraphrasing Tom Cruise’s commentary about the movie: "People always overlook those little moments. It’s always those little moments that add to a performance in a scene." People who ‘got it’ really ‘got it’. They took the ride and appreciated it. If you’re able to accept the movie for those little moments you’ll get a ‘buzz’.

I’ve heard, ’the ending came out of nowhere’. This was honestly my first impression. But it didn’t. Crowe set it up throughout the film and the overall structure and thematic elements hit every beat.

Vanilla Sky is a remake of the Alejandro Amen&aaucte;bar film, "Abre los ojos." This movie is about David Aames (Tom Cruise) a boy, figuratively speaking, who lives in a fantasy world built by his father, and wants desperately to fall in love. He has it all: Great looks, money, toys, and a woman who desperately wants him, Julie Gianni (Cammeron Diaz). When his best friend, Brian (Jason Lee), introduces him to the perfect woman, Sofia (Penelope Cruz), there is no doubt that he has fallen in love. But when he makes a decision to get into a car with Julie, her obsession rears its ugly head and she determines his fate by driving them both off a bridge in a jealous rage. She dies and David’s face is "Phantom of the Opera-ishly" disfigured

We learn that we are actually watching back-story of an investigation of a murder that David is allegedly involved in and the movie becomes a murder mystery as well as a ‘coming to terms with ones reality’ story. A therapist, Dr. Curtis McCabe (Kurt Russell), who wants to get the true story behind the murder, analyzes David. Russell’s honest and convincing performance is overshadowed by the performances of Cruise, Diaz and Cruz.

After the accident, David secludes himself from work, friends and the potential of true love with Sofia. Then, like a schoolboy asking a girl out for the very first time, he approaches Sofia and they agree to a date. David’s insecurity and self-consciousness lead to a disastrous night with Sofia which leaves David passed out on the street overdosed on drugs and alcohol.

Sofia rescues him the next morning and his world is suddenly perfect. He gets reconstructive surgery, he has the love of his life with him, and he finally has everything he wants and needs. And as soon as all is perfect… all is not. His mind plays tricks on him.

Julie suddenly appears in what seems like a nightmare and claims that she is actually Sofia. David’s world becomes a mind-blowing sequence of confusing events where reality and nightmare are completely indistinguishable. Confused and frustrated, David beats up Julie but is arrested for beating up Sophia. At Sophia’s apartment David finds every single picture and detail of Sophia are actually pictures and details of Julie. David is relieved when Sofia actually appears and his nightmare seems to be over. They make love and during lovemaking Sofia turns back into Julie (they literally switch places in the scene during filmmaking). David snaps and kills Julie by suffocating her with a pillow. As it turns out, he realizes the person he really killed is Sofia – in a brilliant filmmaking reveal. The mix of music and the editing in this past sequence is breathtakingly genius! And trust me, it’s not that confusing.

David, in jail, is convinced he did not kill anyone but knows someone has died. He recognizes the same commercial he saw about cryonics on the first night with Sofia. McCabe whisks David off to the Life Extension (cryonics) office and both are informed that David signed a contract with "LE" and chose the Lucid Dreams option where he can be suspended in a dream based frozen state. In an exceptional performance by Noah Taylor, who you may recognize as the Band Manager in "Almost Famous", David’s life, death and the start of his Lucid Dream is explained.

When he died, "LE" froze him and he started his Lucid Dream, which picks up after he passed out on the street that one night with Sofia. He did not kill Sofia nor did he kill Julie. But he did overdose through a binge of alcohol and drugs and realizes it is he that has died. His suicide was erased from his memory during cryonization. The dream program had a glitch that caused David’s nightmare. Noah Taylor is acting as Tech Support and has entered David’s dream to pull him out and offer him a different scenario and gives him two options to choose from.

By facing his fear of heights and jumping from a tall building to his death David can start his life again 150 years after his original death, still disfigured, without his company and without Sophia. Or, he can go back to his Lucid Dream without nightmares. David shows that he has grown from a boy to a man ready to face reality without his father, money and people who pampered him and decides to jump. This ends the movie only to spark questions of what was really a dream and what was really reality. Is it possible the whole movie was a dream? It is up to the viewers’ interpretation. There is no right answer. This, along with David’s decision to jump, has created many hot topics in movie discussion groups on the Internet.

The movie is warm, cold, edgy, honest, a bit romantic, and thought provoking. For most, it does warrant a second viewing in order to appreciate the little nuances and details that make up all the brilliant performances and story structure that this cast has put together.

The biggest problem with the movie is the exposition in which ‘Tech Support’ explains what has happened. I felt the same way I felt when watching "A.I." after the ’real’ ending when the boy found his Blue Fairy. I was reluctant, but within the story of "Vanilla Sky", I accepted the exposition.

This transfer is presented by Paramount in 1.85:1 . Cameron works again with a spectacular Director of Photography, John Toll from "Almost Famous", whose cinematography creates an image quality that is beautiful in the transfer. There were a few shots that seemed a bit soft but overall, it is sharp and detailed – which is exactly what this film deserved. There weren’t any obvious or other flaws throughout.

Crowe and Toll really paid attention to their colors from scene to scene which presented a visually crisp and ‘cool’ look and feel overall. Every director would want to work with Toll after his amazing cinematography in "Vanilla Sky".

The soundtrack is presented in 5.1, which probably features Crowe’s vast library of CDs and records. The music is reinforced by the surrounds and the best description I can use is: it rocks! Audio quality is excellent, and the dialogue and sound effects are clear. It’s a cool arrangement of music which made me run out to get the CD.

The DVD provides an insightful and extremely casual commentary by Cameron Crowe and his wife, Nancy Wilson, as well as a few candid phone calls – one notably by Tom Cruise.

Two featurettes are included: "Prelude To A Dream" – an introduction to the film with Cameron Crowe narrating his dream and inspiration to reproduce "Abre Los Ojos". "Hitting It Hard" – a behind-the-scenes look at the movie making and promotional tours the Stars went on prior to the movie’s release.

Accompanying the special features are an interview with Paul McCartney, a music video "Afrika Shox" by Leftfield/Afrika Bambaataa, Photo gallery with audio introduction by photographer Neal Preston, an Unreleased teaser trailer and the International theatrical trailer.

The DVD Menu is simple and calming with Nancy Wilson’s "Elevator Beat" playing in the background. The two featurettes provide a wonderful fervor prior to watching the movie literally pumping you with excitement before your movie experience.

Cameron Crowe fans won’t be disappointed. His story, visualization, music and characters always seem to be memorable. Even if the roles are small, notably Jason Lee, Kurt Russell and Noah Taylor, Crowe makes sure the characters bring something to the table. Vanilla Sky adds depth to my DVD library. From wonderful performances by Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, to the insightful commentary by Cameron Crowe and special features, this DVD is a must have for DVD collectors and film buffs. The love story and romance you want from this film don’t happen. Or do they? That’s up to you to decide. If you’ve seen it once, ‘open your eyes’ to it again. You’ll get a ‘buzz’. (then give "Joe vs the Volcano" another chance!)

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Inside Tom Cruise's Peculiar Reaction To Seth MacFarlane After Being Ruthlessly Parodied On Family Guy

Tom Cruise laughed off Family Guy's harsh parody, praising Seth MacFarlane's comedic talent.
Despite South Park's controversial portrayal of him, Cruise backlash resulted in halting subsequent episode reruns.
Tom Cruise rejected a role on The Simpsons, leaving fans to wonder if he disdained being parodied.

Tom Cruise is one of the most famous stars in the world. In his decades-plus career making some of the most iconic films ever, Cruise has been publicly parodied numerous times. This includes a brutal satirization by Seth MacFarlane on Family Guy.

During a joint interview on The Graham Norton Show, Cruise had the chance to confront MacFarlane about his parody. In this article, we will take a look at just how Tom Cruise responded when he came face to face with Seth MacFarlane, as well as Cruise's response to being satirized on South Park and The Simpsons.

How Did Tom Cruise Respond To Seth MacFarlane After He Roasted Him On Family Guy?

Tom Cruise faced one of his most pointed parodies in an episode of Family Guy that depicted him as a tiny, homosexual kidnapper. While Cruise has been the butt of many jokes, this Family Guy bit was easily one of the most pointed. But unlike many celebrities who have been satirized on the Fox show, Cruise got a chance to look the creator in the eye.

Alongside his Edge of Tomorrow co-star, Emily Blunt , Tom Cruise sat with Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane on The Graham Norton Show.

Sitting alongside Cruise and Blunt were other A-list celebrities, Charlize Theron and Seth MacFarlane, who were there to promote their movie A Million Ways to Die in the West. During one particular segment, the show's host brought up Family Guy. This gave Cruise the perfect opportunity to confront the man responsible for his brutal parody. But he didn't take it...

One might suspect that Tom Cruise (known for his short temper when he feels disrespected, for example, the time he lost his temper when someone touched him ) would have harbored some form of animosity towards Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane for his constant jokes about him. But surprisingly, there was nothing but love between the two stars.

During another segment on the Graham Norton Show, Norton brought up the topic of voice impressions, for which McFarlane is famous. Not to be outdone, Cruise started by revealing his near-perfect interpretation of Donald Duck, which left the host, the guest, and the audience in a fit of laughter.

Why Twitter Hasn't Canceled Family Guy, According To Seth MacFarlane

Seth MacFarlane later mimicked Kermit the Frog as he recited a monologue from the film Taken. At that point, Tom Cruise laughed hysterically at McFarlane 's spot-on interpretation of the fictional character. The Vanilla Sky actor commended Seth MacFarlane on his superior voicing skills, adding that he was a "funny guy."

Tom Cruise Was Livid After South Park Parodied Him During An Episode

Family Guy isn't the only animated series that made fun of Tom Cruise. The actor also infamously appeared in a 2005 episode of South Park. The episode in question, titled 'Trapped in the Closet', portrayed Tom Cruise as a homosexual man who was hiding in a closet . The episode also made fun of his Scientology beliefs .

According to a report in Indie Wire , the South Park episode was written using the consultation services of author Mark Ebner, who wrote a book entitled "Hollywood, Interrupted," a criticism of Scientology.

Leah Remini Revealed On Real Time With Bill Maher That Tom Cruise Doesn't Follow Every Rule With Scientology

Due to the graphic nature of the South Park episode, Tom Cruise threatened not to do a promotional tour for his film Mission: Impossible III due to the fact that Paramount Pictures ' parent company, Viacom, had been responsible for re-running the South Park episode on Comedy Central.

Although Paramount and Viacom agreed to cease subsequent re-running of the South Park episode and justly complied, a report in Fox News noted that Paramount Pictures' later signed a deal with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for additional movies.

Tom Cruise Flat Out Rejected A Voice-Over Role in The Simpsons

In Season 4 of the widely popular animated series The Simpsons, Tom Cruise was parodied in an episode entitled "Brother From The Same Planet."

In the episode, Homer Simpson and his son Bart are at odds because of the latter's sudden popularity. Due to their rift, Bart applied for a surrogate father via a Big Brother program and was assigned a military pilot specialist known as Tom, with whom Homer Simpson later engaged in a fight.

Tom's voice was spoken by the late actor Phil Hartman , who had voiced many characters on The Simpsons since its inception.

The Simpsons Recruited Lady Gaga To Guest Star But The Result Was A Complete Nightmare

While the Tom character was a reference to Tom Cruise in his role in the film Top Gun: Maverick, the actor would have been an obvious choice to speak in the role. In fact, many celebrities on The Simpsons have been voiced by many stars, playing themselves, in the past.

According to a report in the editorial Screen Rant , The Simpsons producers initially approached Tom Cruise to voice the character of Tom. However, Cruise declined the opportunity seemingly without reason. But many fans have since debated whether the actor was too busy to take on the role or just disdained the idea of being parodied.

Inside Tom Cruise's Peculiar Reaction To Seth MacFarlane After Being Ruthlessly Parodied On Family Guy

TOM CRUISE is a global cultural icon who has made an immeasurable impact on cinema by creating some of the most memorable characters of all time. Having achieved extraordinary success as an actor, producer and philanthropist in a career spanning over three decades, Cruise is a three-time Oscar® nominee and three-time Golden Globe Award® winner whose films have earned over $10 billion in worldwide box office—an incomparable accomplishment. Eighteen of Cruise’s films have grossed over $100 million domestically, and a record 23 have made more than $200 million globally. His latest film, Mission: Impossible – Fallout has made over $775 million worldwide becoming Cruise’s most successful film to date.

Cruise has starred in numerous legendary films such as Top Gun, Jerry Maguire, Risky Business, Minority Report, Interview with the Vampire, A Few Good Men, The Firm, Rain Man, Collateral, The Last Samurai, Edge of Tomorrow, The Color of Money and the Mission: Impossible series, among many others. Combined, the Mission: Impossible franchise has brought in over $3.5 billion since Cruise conceived the idea for a film adaptation of the classic television series and produced the first in 1996. He is currently in production on the long-awaited sequel to Top Gun.

A consummate filmmaker involved in all aspects of production, Cruise has proven his versatility with the films and roles he chooses. He has made 43 films, contributing in a producing role on many of them, and collaborated with a remarkable list of celebrated film directors including Francis Ford Coppola, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollack, Neil Jordan, Brian De Palma, Cameron Crowe, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ed Zwick, Steven Spielberg, Michael Mann, J.J. Abrams, Robert Redford, Brad Bird, Doug Liman and Christopher McQuarrie.

Cruise received Academy Award® nominations for Best Actor for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire. He was a Best Supporting Actor nominee for Magnolia and won Golden Globes (Best Actor) for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire, in addition to a Best Supporting Actor prize for Magnolia. He also received Golden Globe nominations for his roles in Risky Business, A Few Good Men and The Last Samurai. Cruise has earned acting nominations and awards from BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild, the Chicago Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review.

Cruise’s previous few films include the critically acclaimed American Made, The Mummy, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Oblivion and the suspense thriller Jack Reacher, which earned $218 million worldwide. Prior to that, he made a memorable appearance in Ben Stiller’s comedy smash Tropic Thunder, as the foul-mouthed Hollywood movie mogul Les Grossman. This performance, based on a character Cruise created, earned him praise from critics and audiences as well as his seventh Golden Globe nomination.

Cruise has been honored with tributes ranging from Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Man of the Year Award to the John Huston Award from the Artists Rights Foundation and the American Cinematheque Award for Distinguished Achievement in Film. In addition to his artistic contributions, Cruise has used his professional success as a vehicle for positive change, becoming an international advocate, activist and philanthropist in the fields of health, education and human rights. He has been honored by the Mentor LA organization for his work on behalf of the children of Los Angeles and around the world. In 2011 Cruise received the Simon Wiesenthal Humanitarian Award and the following year he received the Entertainment Icon Award from the Friars Club for his outstanding accomplishments in the entertainment industry and in the humanities. He is the fourth person to receive this honor after Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra. Empire magazine awarded Cruise its Legend of Our Lifetime Award in 2014. Most recently, Cruise was the first actor to receive The Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation’s Pioneer of the Year Award in 2018.

Top Gun: Maverick (2021)
Mission: Impossible Fallout (2018)
American Made (2017)
The Mummy (2017)
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation (2015)
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Oblivion (2013)
Jack Reacher (2012)
Rock of Ages (2012)
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)
Knight and Day (2010)
Valkyrie (2008)
Tropic Thunder (2008)
Lions for Lambs (2007)
Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)
War of the Worlds (2005)
Collateral (2004)
The Last Samurai (2003)
Minority Report (2002)
Vanilla Sky (2002)
Mission: Impossible 2 (2001)
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Magnolia (1999)
Jerry Maguire (1996)
Mission: Impossible (1996)
Interview with the Vampire (1994)
The Firm (1993)
A Few Good Men (1992)
Far and Away (1992)
Days of Thunder (1990)
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Rain Man (1988)
Cocktail (1988)
The Color of Money (1986)
Top Gun (1986)
Legend (1985)
Risky Business (1983)
All the Right Moves (1983)
The Outsiders (1983)
Losin’ It (1983)
Taps (1981)
Endless Love (1981)

Beautiful, interesting, incredible cinema.

VANILLA SKY

This Hollywood remake of Alejandro Amenábar’s 1997 mind-bending thriller Open Your Eyes stars Tom Cruise as a wealthy playboy whose life of privilege is disrupted following a car accident with a scornful ex-lover.

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Tom Cruise interview about Vanilla Sky
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COMMENTS

Vanilla Sky: Tom Cruise Interview
Check out Movie Behind the Scenes, Interviews, Movie Red Carpet Premieres, Broll and more from ScreenSlam.comPart of the Maker StudiosSUBSCRIBE: http://goo.g...
Tom Cruise "Vanilla Sky" 2001
For more interviews and stories go to www.bobbiewygant.com
BBC
Vanilla Sky. Interviewed by Film 2002. The character you play, David Aames, is a high-flying New Yorker, leading a privileged but somewhat self-centred life... When you look at the character in ...
"Vanilla Sky": Tom Cruise Interview
In fact, as the actor fielded reporters' questions, the only thing that emerged stronger than Cruise's enthusiasm for Vanilla Sky was his laser-like intensity. When he talks he makes eye ...
Tom Cruise interview about Vanilla Sky
About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright ...
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Vanilla Sky: Directed by Cameron Crowe. With Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell. A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover.
Cameron Crowe Talks About How Tom Cruise Shut Down Times Square For
In an interview with Vulture, writer-director Cameron Crowe discussed filming the iconic scene, and how no one else, including Danny DeVito, has been able to replicate it. ... Cameron Crowe Tom Cruise Vanilla Sky. Share On: Tweet. Shane Carruth Says Retirement Is Coming In 3 Years; Suggests 'Modern Ocean' Is Dead ...
Vanilla Sky
Vanilla Sky is a confusing movie until you realize it's very simple. ... Tom Cruise is having a lucid dream. He did die (sort of) and was saved by Life Extension. He didn't kill Sofia. He does have a choice of waking up or continuing the dream. ... You can watch the interview Paul did with ET in 2002. The themes and meaning of Vanilla Sky ...
Grin and bear it
Grin and bear it. In Vanilla Sky, Tom Cruise plays a hedonist who doesn't know whether he's experiencing real life or a dream. Joe Queenan doesn't lose any sleep over it. Joe Queenan. Sat 19 Jan ...
Vanilla Sky movie review & film summary (2001)
Vanilla Sky. Think it all the way through, and Cameron Crowe 's "Vanilla Sky" is a scrupulously moral picture. It tells the story of a man who has just about everything, thinks he can have it all, is given a means to have whatever he wants, and loses it because--well, maybe because he has a conscience. Or maybe not. Maybe just because life sucks.
Vanilla Sky
Vanilla Sky is a 2001 American science fiction psychological thriller film directed, written, and co-produced by Cameron Crowe.It is an English-language remake of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 Spanish film Open Your Eyes, which was written by Amenábar and Mateo Gil.The film stars Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Jason Lee, and Kurt Russell.It follows a magazine publisher who begins to ...
Vanilla Sky
Rated: 3/4 • Nov 26, 2021. Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe reunite after "Jerry Maguire" for "Vanilla Sky," the story of a young New York City publishing magnate who finds himself on an unexpected ...
20 years later: Vanilla Sky Was Some Entertaining Nonsense
Revisiting Vanilla Sky. A certain story has been told over the years about Vanilla Sky, the Cameron Crowe-directed movie with Tom Cruise that arrived in December of 2001, 20 years ago this week.. It was a director, coming off his beloved film Almost Famous a year earlier, teaming up with Cruise — whose star was about at its highest level at the time — with the still-ascendent Cameron Diaz ...
Tom Cruise on Divorcing Nicole, Scientology, and Vanilla Sky
Dyslexic, Cruise reports that Scientology "helped me with my rehabilitating my own education.". Estranged from his abusive father—an electrical engineer whom Cruise remotely describes as ...
Vanilla Sky
Tom Cruise as David Aames; Penélope Cruz as Sofia Serrano; Kurt Russell as Dr. Curtis McCabe; Cameron Diaz as Julie Gianni; Jason Lee as Brian Shelby ... Vanilla Sky's dreamscape takes another turn. David is a playboy. A rich kid who inherited his father's publishing empire. He's always had everything he ever wanted. Even good looks. He ...
Cameron Diaz Was the 'Soul' of 'Vanilla Sky', Says Director Cameron
Vanilla Sky is a remake of the 1997 Spanish film Abre Los Ojos, which starred Penelope Cruz. Cruz went on to star in the remake opposite Cruise and Diaz. Cruz went on to star in the remake ...
Vanilla Sky (2001) Starring: Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz
Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky. Vanilla Sky is a remake of the 1997 Spanish language movie Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). Penélope Cruz plays the same character, Sofia, in both movies. I agree with Eric that the movie is sad but it is much trippier than he makes it sound. Yes the twist ending becomes pure science-fiction but the ...
VANILLA SKY Bloopers & Gag Reel (2001) with Tom Cruise and ...
Vanilla Sky Outtakes starring Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell, Tilda Swinton...A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his p...
'Vanilla Sky' Easter Eggs: Cameron Sky Reveals Secrets ...
A Year Before It Was Released. News May 21, 2020 2:03 PM By Peter Helman. Cameron Crowe's 2001 thriller Vanilla Sky has a reputation for being… divisive. (Incoherent, some might say .) It also ...
Vanilla Sky
Vanilla Sky (2001) Paramount Home Video Cast: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz Extras: Commentary Track, Featurettes, Interview, Music Video, ... Vanilla Sky is a remake of the Alejandro Amen&aaucte;bar film, "Abre los ojos." This movie is about David Aames (Tom Cruise) a boy, figuratively speaking, who lives in a fantasy world built by ...
Inside Tom Cruise's Peculiar Reaction To Seth MacFarlane After ...
The Vanilla Sky actor commended Seth MacFarlane on his superior voicing skills, adding that he was a "funny guy." Tom Cruise Was Livid After South Park Parodied Him During An Episode
Official Tom Cruise Website
The Official Tom Cruise Website: Featuring Tom Cruise's biography, filmography, links to social media accounts, and information about his latest films. ... Vanilla Sky (2002) Mission: Impossible 2 (2001) ... Jerry Maguire (1996) Mission: Impossible (1996) Interview with the Vampire (1994) The Firm (1993) A Few Good Men (1992) Far and Away ...
Vanilla Sky (song)
"Vanilla Sky" (2001) "Tropic Island Hum" (2004) "Vanilla Sky" is a song written and recorded by Paul McCartney for the 2001 film of the same name. ... He showed us about a half-hour of and they look very intriguing with Tom [Cruise] acting his heart out. I said "What's the title?". He said "Vanilla Sky". I said "Oh, that's the ...
Vanilla Sky (2001)
This Hollywood remake of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 mind-bending thriller Open Your Eyes stars Tom Cruise as a wealthy playboy whose life of privilege is disrupted following a car accident with a scornful ex-lover. ... Vanilla Sky Directed by. Cameron Crowe. Awards & Festivals Show all (7) ... An interview with Christian Broutin, designer of ...

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