tom cruise bryan singer

'Valkyrie' Director Bryan Singer Finally Speaks Out About Tom Cruise Film

A lot has been written about Bryan Singer's "Valkyrie" without a lot of information from the makers themselves. For months, controversies and whispers have surrounded the project, which stars Tom Cruise .

The German government, objecting to Cruise's religious beliefs, initially refused to let the production film in their country. Early photos of the star wearing an eye patch were met with a healthy dose of mocking on the web. And then there are [article id="1591859"]the release-date changes[/article] (no fewer than four), never an encouraging sign for a film, much less one with as much riding on it as this.

"Valkyrie" tells the remarkable true story of a group of German officers who, in 1944, plotted to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Cruise leads an impressive ensemble of actors (including Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy and Terrence Stamp) in the thriller, set for release at long last on December 26.

A few days ago, Singer -- the much-lauded director of "The Usual Suspects" and "X-Men" -- agreed to speak with MTV News for one of his first interviews since completing the film. Here, he weighs in on the controversies that have plagued the production and deftly dodges talk of a rumored "Superman" follow-up.

MTV : Is "Valkyrie" done?

Bryan Singer : The film is done! Yesterday, I looked at the first completed film print. That was pretty much the final process for "Valkyrie," or so I've been led to believe. [ Laughs. ]

MTV : It's been a long road for this one, with a lot of shuffling of release dates. Are you happy with where you ended up?

Singer : Ultimately, it was the right decision. By the time the release date moved up to Christmas, I was already on track to finish it. It all worked out probably the way it should have from the very beginning.

MTV : What was the toughest nut to crack when it came to tackling this story?

Singer : The big goal was to maintain the balance between a thriller and a historical drama. It's a history that I find very important to maintain. The movie should never lose momentum. It should first and foremost be a thriller. It's also my first historical film, and I never wanted to take that history lightly, even though the history isn't known by many people outside Germany.

MTV : It looks to be a return for you to the thrillers that defined your career in the beginning, like "The Usual Suspects."

Singer : It reminded me very much of the experiences in the beginning. I was working with ["Usual Suspects" writer] Chris McQuarrie again. You're talking about a guy I used to make 8mm World War II films with in my backyard in Jersey. It also touched upon the Nazi subject matter that "Apt Pupil" and "X-Men" did. And I grew up watching Tom Cruise films!

MTV : It occurs to me that this is actually the first movie-star-driven vehicle you've helmed.

Singer : Yes, it's the first time I've ever made a movie with a movie star. A lot of my friends say, "You've worked with movie stars before," and I have to remind them that I worked with people who have become movie stars. A historical drama and working with a movie star were two things I had never done and two things I wanted to do. I've been talking with Tom about working together since "Mission: Impossible"!

MTV : Was there anything surprising about working with a star of his caliber?

Singer : The nice part is, we became friends. We spent a lot of time together researching the character and discussing the script and getting to know each other. By the time we were shooting, there was a familiarity that existed. He was pretty extraordinary at taking off his studio-head hat and his movie-star hat and just be an actor. He would do anything that I would ask. He wanted to get it right.

MTV : This film had more than its share of negative publicity, chief among it the conflict with Germany over whether they would let you film there because of Tom's beliefs. Did all the negative hype get to you?

Singer : I'm used to speculation because of "X-Men" and "Superman Returns," so it's not something that was a surprise to me, but it does weigh on you. It's an extra stress and an extra burden, because in the end, all the Germans really want from this story is it to be told well. When I would read speculation while I was making "X-Men," I would remind myself that the best I can do for these people is make a great movie. I can't do anything about their speculation. I'm not Hitler. I can't blot it out. I want people to see the film. It's a film that people need to see before they judge. It opens with a bit of a bang, and then, about a third of the way in, a little ticking clock starts, and it moves faster and faster right up until the last frame. And you get to see Tom Cruise come face to face with Adolf Hitler!

MTV : There's a lot of confusion about whether you will be directing another Superman film. Can you set the record straight?

Singer : At the moment, I can't really talk about that. I wish I could. From my perspective, I'm going to take a brief pause. This movie has taken a long time, so I'm going to take a pause. A movie like that takes some time to do right. That's all I can say about that.

MTV : Have you ever talked superhero shop with "Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan?

Singer : We had dinner, and [Marvel Studios founder] Avi Arad ran into us. Isn't that strange? It was such a moment. The three of us were just sitting there thinking, "Isn't this bizarre?" I should have called ["Spider-Man" director Sam] Raimi up and said, "We've got sushi. Get over here!"

Check out everything we've got on "Valkyrie."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more -- updated around the clock -- visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .

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Movie Review | 'Valkyrie'

Mission Imperative: Assassinate the Führer

By Manohla Dargis

• Dec. 24, 2008

There are no discernibly nasty Nazis in “Valkyrie,” though Hitler and Goebbels skulk about in a few scenes, shooting dark, ominous looks at the heroic German Army officer played by Tom Cruise. Perhaps they’re wondering what this Hollywood megastar is doing in their midst, a sentiment that you may come to share while watching Mr. Cruise — who gives a fine, typically energetic performance in a film that requires nothing more of him than a profile and vigor — strut about as one of history’s more enigmatic players.

That enigma was Claus von Stauffenberg, a count and a colonel who, though he lost one eye, an entire hand and several fingers while fighting on behalf of the Reich, made several attempts to assassinate Hitler and seize control of the government. At the core of Stauffenberg’s spectacularly ambitious plot was Valkyrie, Hitler’s plan for the mobilization of the home army that Stauffenberg hoped to hijack in order to quash the SS and its leaders. It didn’t work, of course, for complicated reasons, though also because by 1944, as William L. Shirer bluntly puts it in “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” the conspirators were “terribly late.”

You don’t learn how belated the coup d’état was in “Valkyrie,” which might matter if this big-ticket production with Mr. Cruise in an eye patch and shiny, shiny boots had something to do with reality. But the director, Bryan Singer (of the “X-Men” franchise), and the writers, Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander, aren’t interested in delivering a history lesson: that’s why Ken Burns was born. Slick, facile entertainment is the name of the game here, as it is in all Mr. Singer’s films, including “Apt Pupil” (about a Nazi war criminal and the American boy next door who outs him) and “The Usual Suspects,” an intricately plotted story with men and guns, secrets and shadows that Mr. McQuarrie wrote. The secrets have already begun swirling by the time “Valkyrie” opens with Stauffenberg, stationed in North Africa, bitterly recording his opposition to Hitler in a diary right before losing various body parts to the war. After his convalescence he meets Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh), who, sometime earlier, tries to blow up Hitler with a bomb hidden in bottles of French liqueur. (Russian vodka might have been more effective.) Stauffenberg soon joins the conspiratorial party that includes other British class acts brandishing high military rank and speaking in lightly accented or unaccented English: Bill Nighy as Gen. Friedrich Olbricht, Tom Wilkinson as Gen. Friedrich Fromm, Terence Stamp as Gen. Ludwig Beck and Eddie Izzard as Gen. Erich Fellgiebel.

Most of the crucial rebellious officers are played by British actors, while some of the Nazi diehards are played by Germans, which wouldn’t be worth mentioning if this cacophony of accents weren’t so distracting. But, as with the casting of Mr. Cruise, whose German voice-over quickly eases into English, this international acting community invokes an earlier studio age, when Peter Lorre and Claude Rains delivered their lines in exotically flavored English and everyone pretended that Rick’s Cafe really was located in Casablanca and not on a back lot. If Mr. Cruise doesn’t work in “Valkyrie,” it’s partly because he’s too modern, too American and way too Tom Cruise to make sense in the role, but also because what passes for movie realism keeps changing, sometimes faster than even a star can change his brand.

Though Mr. Singer’s old-fashioned movie habits, his attention to the gloss, gleam and glamour of the image, can be agreeably pleasurable, he tends to gild every lily. Hitler (David Bamber) doesn’t need spooky music or low camera angles to be villainous: he just has to show up. Mr. Singer’s fondness for exaggeration can even undercut his strongest scenes, as when Stauffenberg visits Hitler to secure approval for the rewritten Valkyrie plan. If implemented, the plan will bring down the Führer who, for his part, seems intent on bringing down the house with leers and popping eyeballs. Mr. Singer appears to have taken cues here from “Black Book,” Paul Verhoeven’s World War II romp, but he’s too serious to make such vaudeville work.

Stauffenberg, who hated Hitler but worshipped the Reich, sacrificed himself on the dual altar of nationalism and militarism, which makes him a more ambiguous figure than the one drawn in “Valkyrie.” He’s a complex character, too complex for this film, which like many stories of this type, transforms World War II into a boy’s adventure with dashing heroes, miles of black leather and crane shots of German troops in lockstep formation that would make Leni Riefenstahl flutter. It’s a war that offers moral absolutes (Nazis are evil) and narratives (Nazis are evil and should die) that seem easier to grasp than any current conflict. Truly, World War II has become the moviemaker’s gift that keeps on giving, whether you want it to or not.

“ Valkyrie” is rated PG-13. (Parents strongly cautioned.) Bombs, guns and executions, though little blood.

Opens on Thursday nationwide.

Directed by Bryan Singer; written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander; director of photography, Newton Thomas Sigel; edited by John Ottman; music by Mr. Ottman; production designers, Lilly Kilvert and Patrick Lumb; produced by Mr. Singer, Mr. McQuarrie and Gilbert Adler; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and United Artists. Running time: 2 hours.

WITH: Tom Cruise (Col. Claus von Stauffenberg), Kenneth Branagh (Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow), Bill Nighy (Gen. Friedrich Olbricht), Tom Wilkinson (Gen. Friedrich Fromm), Carice van Houten (Nina von Stauffenberg), Thomas Kretschmann (Maj. Otto Ernst Remer), Terence Stamp (Gen. Ludwig Beck), Eddie Izzard (Gen. Erich Fellgiebel), Kevin R. McNally (Dr. Carl Goerdeler), Jamie Parker (Lieut. Werner von Haeften), Christian Berkel (Col. Mertz von Quirnheim), David Bamber (Adolf Hitler), Tom Hollander (Col. Heinz Brandt), David Schofield (Erwin von Witzleben), Kenneth Cranham (Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel) and Halina Reijn (Margarethe von Oven).

Bryan Singer And Tom Cruise Reduced The Valkyrie Editor To Tears

Watching movies can certainly be an emotional experience, but so can making them. When people pour their heart and soul into their job it can be emotionally taxing. Sometimes, however, your co-workers just drive you to break down. That's apparently what happened to John Ottman, the editor on the Tom Cruise World War II drama Valkyrie. Apparently, the star would come in and work with Ottman in the editing room, then writer Christopher McQuarrie would come and make changes to what Cruise had done, which would then be followed by director Bryan Singer making more changes. Eventually the constant changes would cause Ottman to break into actual tears in frustration. According to the editor...

I would always stay with a table full of chess pieces, but I’m barely moving them. Chris would see what Tom had done, and he would make a couple little tweaks to what Tom had done, and then after a while, Bryan [Singer] would come in to see what Tom and Chris has asked him to do, and he’d put things back. So they would come back and sensed that he had put things back. I remember sitting and weeping. Literally, I would cry because I couldn’t finish because it got to the point where the changes I was making were not really making any difference one way or the other, and we were sort of a rudderless ship going in circles.

It seems that on the set of Valkyrie there were simply too many cooks in the kitchen. John Ottman was the film's editor, but he was getting multiple voices telling him how to go about editing the film. That would have been fine if all those other voices had been in agreement, but clearly they didn't all have the same vision for the project.

It's pretty standard for a film's director to be closely involved in the editing phase of a film, however, it seems that Bryan Singer didn't have complete control during Valkyrie . According to Deadline , Singer was mostly "off elsewhere" during editing. Whether he was working on other projects or simply "done" with the movie is not clear. Ottman says Singer would still show up on occasion, mostly to undo everything that Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie had done with him in the editing bay. Then the cycle would repeat. How would you not break down in tears at that point?

John Ottman worked with Bryan Singer again on the film the troubled director would start but would not finish, Bohemian Rhapsody . Singer was fired from the production and the film was completed by Dexter Fletcher. Ottman has been nominated for his first Academy Award for editing the movie

The fact that Bohemian Rhapsody was shot by two different directors likely made the editing of the movie especially challenging. All the more reason that success should be rewarded.

If Ottman wins the Oscar, you'll get to see it happen live, as the decision to award that category, and three others, during commercial breaks, has been reversed by the Academy.

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Bryan Singer And Tom Cruise Reportedly Made The ‘Valkyrie’ Editor’s Job A Nightmare

Bryan Singer has been the subject of many disturbing allegations over the last handful of months, revolving around multiple claims of sexual abuse. Compared to those, this is mild: The director — along with star Tom Cruise and writer Christopher McQuarrie — reportedly turned making the 2008 docudrama-thriller Valkyrie into a waking nightmare, at least for its editor.

That would be John Ottman, a longtime film editor and film composer, who did both on Valkyrie , which chronicled a plot from within the German military to assassinate Hitler. (Spoiler: They weren’t successful. ) The renaissance man, who’s nominated for editing Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody this year, was speaking to Deadline about his long career, which goes back to writing the score for Singer’s 1995 breakthrough, The Usual Suspects .

Still, Ottman had some choice words for his longtime collaborator. When cutting Valkyrie , Ottman wound up pulled in three, sometimes conflicting directions, by Singer, by Cruise, and by McQuarrie.

“Tom [Cruise] would come in and see what I had done and spend a week with me, kind of checking in the editing room, and then Chris [McQuarrie] would come in and check what Tom had done,” Ottman recalled. He continued :

“I would always stay with a table full of chess pieces, but I’m barely moving them. Chris would see what Tom had done, and he would make a couple little tweaks to what Tom had done, and then after a while, Bryan [Singer] would come in to see what Tom and Chris has asked him to do, and he’d put things back. So they would come back and sensed that he had put things back. I remember sitting and weeping. Literally, I would cry because I couldn’t finish because it got to the point where the changes I was making were not really making any difference one way or the other, and we were sort of a rudderless ship going in circles.”

Yahoo ’s Tom Butler singled out the anecdote , then reached out over Twitter to McQuarrie, who won an Oscar for writing The Usual Suspects and has since gone on to direct the last two (and next two) Mission: Impossible episodes.

https://twitter.com/chrismcquarrie/status/1097841038650195968

It’s an unpleasant story, if not an earth-shattering one, and Ottman did continue to work with Singer on every one of his projects, including various X-Men entries, Jack the Giant Slayer , and the aforementioned current multi-nominated Queen biopic. Ottman even praised Cruise’s particularly form of meddling.

“I told him he should be a director because he had a really good instinct for story,” Ottman said. “He rarely come in the editing room and talked about his performance. He sort of trusted that you were doing the right thing with that. He was really more concerned about the story arc and really good at it.”

Valkyrie — which also featured Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, and Eddie Izzard — had a notoriously difficult production, and when it arrived in theaters, during a valley in Cruise’s career, it was a modest hit, albeit an underperformer, considering its rather high budget. Indeed, this may be the first time you’ve remembered its existence since, let’s say, 2010.

(Via Deadline and Yahoo )

Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer Initiate Valkyrie

One of the holiday movies that has been shrouded in secrecy for a good part of the year is Bryan Singer’s WWII suspense thriller Valkyrie , starring Tom Cruise as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, an injured German soldier who became an active part in the covert German Resistance to take down the Nazi Party. After being injured on the front, the disgruntled von Stauffenberg returned to Germany and became the frontman in a plan by the Resistance to assassinate Adolf Hitler and throw a coup, just as the American invasion of Normandy seemed to foretell imminent doom for Hitler’s reign.

It’s another impressive cinematic achievement for Singer, who explores some of the Nazi themes from his earlier films Apt Pupil and X-Men , but from a very different angle, assembling an amazing cast around Cruise, including Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh and Terence Stamp.

United Artists and MGM finally opened the floodgates last week giving movie writers a chance to see the movie and talk to the cast and crew at a series of press conferences in New York. ComingSoon.net attended the following press conference with Cruise and Singer, a surprisingly casual affair as Cruise strolled in with hands in pockets, greeting everyone and shaking hands without the normal entourage of bodyguards and publicists surrounding him, before sitting down with the director for a good 45 minutes of questions and answers about the movie they made together.

Q: What was it about von Stauffenberg that made doing this movie so irresistible? Tom Cruise: When I read the script, I first just thought how incredibly suspenseful this was – really a great thriller. Bryan is someone I’ve always wanted to work with. We met first when I saw his film “The Usual Suspects” and we met actually at the premiere of “Mission: Impossible” – the first one. And I said, “Man, I want to work with you.” Then when I put (this script) down I thought, “This can’t be true, this story. How much of it is actually true?” From sitting down with Bryan and finding out it was a true story, I just thought it was a great story. I’d never heard it before, and I wanted to work with him, and off it went.

Q: Do you think this is an important movie in terms of coming out at the same time as other movies about Germany and the Holocaust. Do you think it’s important for a movie to educate the public about this aspect of WWII? Cruise: I think it’s an important story because I didn’t know it, but I also felt that I want to entertain audiences, that was a bonus really for the film, but it’s something that, Bryan and I, we’ve both spoken about that it’s important to know of course that it’s not everybody that felt that way and fell into the Nazi ideology. That to me was surprising. I grew up wanting to kill Nazis, wanting to kill Hitler. You know, as a child, you’re looking at it and I think, “Why didn’t someone just shoot him?” To take this story that it’s also here and it’s such a massive comprehensive story we could’ve made this a five-hour or ten-hour miniseries. And Bryan was always specific: “This is a suspense thriller about killing Hitler.”

Bryan Singer: Yeah, this is not a Holocaust movie. There are movies that happen to take place in this subject matter that are coming out around this time, it’s a coincidence, but this is far from a Holocaust movie. It’s a conspiracy thriller about assassinating Hitler. As Tom was just saying, the bonus is that it happens to be true, it happens to be gripping. Even things that you might think are Hollywood conventions that happen in the movie, some of the twists and turns actually really did happen.

Cruise: We spent eight months working – Bryan spent more time than that before – but when Bryan wanted me to come on board and we started working with (screenwriters) Chris (McQuarrie) and Nathan (Alexander), every time we started talking about the Holocaust and the different characters and trying to put as much into that story as possible, Bryan always went back to, “This is a piece of entertainment. This is a movie, a suspense thriller about killing Hitler.” Throughout the film, the more you know about the history and the more you study it, there are so many moments that we were able to put those things in there – with his children, the moment where his daughter’s saluting him. Of course on the day – July 20th, you know, and when you know the story there’s his children, his son was indoctrinated into the Hitler Youth. Now, knowing Stauffenberg who despised the Nazis, as a parent looking at this – and these little moments that Bryan wanted to seed in there, but never varying from the picture that he wanted to make where his daughter’s saluting him and him having not being able to have that conversation with his children, you know, down in the bunker and looking at his family. It’s both the tension and falls into, of course, he’s thinking of Valkyrie, he’s gotta come up with the idea. But, little moments like that for people who understand the history, I think the Germans who really know story intimately and thoroughly – they understand that. But it’s also there for a broad audience. We wanted to bring this movie to a broader audience.

Q: This character seems very well matched for you, so what were some of the challenges and rewards playing him? Cruise: Well, the rewards are that I thought it was a very exciting film. I wanted to work with Bryan Singer; I loved Chris – his script. Reading a script like this, rarely do you sit down where you’re just turning the pages like this, and also there’s a story I’d never heard of before, and to be able to work with these actors. That’s the reward every day going and having that challenge and also for me, as I said, to entertain an audience. I thought it’d be a very compelling story and a fascinating film. That’s what I like. That’s what I’m looking for in a film. I’m making movies – it’s about us, it’s not about me. It’s about the journey that we all take together. To have those kinds of conversations, you know, to be there. We got to shoot in locations that these people were and where they died, which was very powerful to be there and to see that, and to see the world. I grew up wanting to travel the world, you know, I wanted an adventurous life. Sometimes a little more adventure than I had ever bargained for (laughter), but this was something I didn’t want to pass on. You know, I grew up playing with the neighborhood kids in the yard wanting to kill Nazis.

Singer: Chris and I used to make war films in my backyard.

Cruise: And I saw the world at war, and also, the way that this film was told and directed, as I said, it’s not like anything that I’ve seen. You know, these films that I greatly admire, “Schindler’s List” and “Paths of Glory.” This is very different.

Q: Tom, do you see this as some kind of a comeback? Cruise: No, I don’t really see it that way. I’ve just been making movies. You know, my daughter was born, and I’ve been making films – I did “Tropic Thunder” and worked on this.

Q: Got a Golden Globe nomination? Cruise: Yeah, that’s fun. That was incredible. (Laughs)

Q: Can you talk about the relationship you two have as co-producers and as director to actor? Cruise: I have great respect for him as a filmmaker as a storyteller and that’s the way it is when you’re going into a film like this. Out of a scale of one to ten, I think this film is a twenty, as a challenge to make.

Singer: The nice part about Tom’s interest in the project, as well as position at the studios, we have the freedom to spend a lot of time working together, working with Chris and Nathan, and talking about the project. We moved to Germany, we learned more information. So now we’re having more and more meetings about it and discussing it as collaborators. And then once we get on the set…

Cruise: I want to be directed.

Singer: Yeah, he becomes an actor.

Cruise: I enjoy that.

Singer: And I become a director and for my experience there was never any difference. I knew that no matter how many takes I asked him to do it would never be as much as Stanley Kubrick did on… (laughter) And we tried, we experimented and it was phenomenal because anything you’d ask – anything, you’d be like, “Let’s do it.” There was never a lack of wanting to try and never a lack of trust. And then afterwards, the full support of an actor – it’s a rare opportunity with Tom where as a director you always feel like nobody cares about the movie as much as you do. And the partnership what you probably see here is a relationship with someone who cares about this movie as much as I do, and I think that’s where – that’s what you’re seeing here.

Cruise: And he loves cinema. So there’s stuff where Bryan and I…

Singer: We have a lot of fun taking meetings. We’ve had meetings at Tom’s house twelve hours long. We’d throw in some movies, we’d order some drinks…

Cruise: Friends come by, and we’re screening films, and we’re getting into history and…

Singer: And tangents, and we had some good experiences. We camped out in the desert when we were shooting the desert sequence, and everyone’s families were there. So you’re seeing a little bit of that too. It’s been a really great journey, but one that comes from caring about the project.

Cruise: And as an actor, I do like to be directed. I don’t stand outside myself and direct myself.

Singer: He doesn’t come to the monitor and look at it and say, “Oh, there’s none of that,” which some actors do. There’s none of that.

Cruise: Because we’ve already done the research and I just like to go on the scene. As an actor, getting direction from him, he gave great notes on behavior and we were just tracking. I like that in a movie where as an actor I’m tracking with the director, and I think you see the performances that he gets, they’re always very interesting and I have a lot of fun doing it.

Q: Could you talk about the creative decision from an actor’s and a director’s standpoint of not going with the accents? Singer: We didn’t want that to be what the movie was about. It’s a thriller, an assassination thriller. It should be exciting and the audience should be taken on a ride through the film. The actors speak wonderfully the way they do in their current dialects and the characters are all supposed to be German anyway. So to have everyone putting on an affecting German accent… we have an international cast: American actors, Dutch, German, British. To have everyone approximating German accents when in reality they’re supposed to be speaking German, I promise after the first twenty minutes, you’d be sick of it. It would ultimately sound silly, and it would distract from the drive of the plot. So the decision was made pretty quickly. They could do it. He’s speaking German at the beginning of the movie, that’s Tom, but it would ultimately be not as fun for the audience to ride with the actors, once it’s established that they are Germans.

Q: I understand the eye patch initially gave you unexpected balance problems, Tom. Could you talk about that? Cruise: I was surprised. For a few hours and a few days, when we started working on it, yeah it did, especially when it was dark I lost depth perception and balance. Also, from visual cinematic storytelling, it was a challenge I think for Bryan. I really respect Bryan’s staging and his composition and his storytelling. When I look at his movies, it’s very cinematic, it’s classic storytelling, but it’s cool. I think that he understands cinema storytelling. And with the eye patch, he also understood it’s a different story depending on where that camera is on my face. So, different profiles, shooting with the patch and the hand because of course, part of the research, you know, we researched nineteenth century, twentieth century – all the research that we did – but also his injuries. And what Stauffenberg did and how he lived with that, and the eye patch itself and the hand, it was a challenge always going into a room, or, you know, which angle we shot…

Singer: And staging a scene – if you’re staging a scene on a set, and you really want to shoot out the set and make it look pretty, and position the actors in relation to one another, but if this side – you can’t – this side’s one thing and this side’s the other thing, he can’t see the other actor. So then that reverses where they are, that could end up reversing where the camera is in the room, which could end up reversing what part of the room we’re shooting in. So in the morning you’d have to work these things out in relation or something as simple as, “Yeah, you put your hand on his shoulder.” “What hand?” “Okay, you put your three fingers on the other hand.” You know, it was quite a… and even though all that’s removed and done digitally, Tom’s performance had to inform all of that long before we got into the visual effects and be cognizant of it.

Cruise: And there are moments that, when you’re making a film like this, where the tension – you know, you’ve got to take the audience along and build that tension, build that tension. And every scene you have to move that story along, but every scene you’re revealing more about the character and the characters. So there’s certain things very early on that Bryan, you know, this scene with Tom Wilkinson where he says, “I’ll hear you say it Colonel.” There’s certain things that Bryan knew from a story sense how you want to build to those moments because you know – and I love movies like this that there’s little pieces that build to a moment. There’s rhythms and structure to a movie that I love as an audience. When I read a script, when I’m seeing a movie, I see it by an audience and not necessarily as a filmmaker, particularly when I get caught up in the picture. So that moment is something that was very, from the director, he knew what he wanted from that moment. So, even subtle things like physically, you don’t see the hand necessarily until that it’s, you know, you see that it’s missing, but the reveal of that is what it is. They build to that so you see it in the bed, and there’s certain moments in how he shot it, and he was very specific about doing that. And you know, that kind of stuff is a lot of fun working on and building towards that.

Q: The cinematography and layout of the film is pretty amazing, quite ominous and very precise. Can you talk about that? Singer: Well, just, you know, studying a lot of war photography. There was a huge amount. One thing Hitler did is he filmed everything so we had the benefit of a lot of motion picture film both color and black and white of that era, so it was important in recreating both the dimensions of that, which is why I shot 1:85 aspect ratio. Also, we were in Germany so we shot with Aeroflex cameras and the Zeiss Lenses. I wanted to mention giving a sense of the vibrance and the color, so it would look like it did back then to people who lived back then as opposed to trying to approximate black and white and muddy the film or de-saturate it. Then, in terms of the pageantry and the military aspects of it, we have those references, thanks to all that recorded film material. So that’s primarily the stuff that I looked at, then we worked with the military advisors who knew the history and who could help us with the movements and the salutes. We could have authenticity regarding the difference between the way a Colonel would salute to a Major or would salute to a Field Marshall or the Fuehrer.

Cruise: And specifically at that time period.

Singer: Yeah, which changed after the assassination attempt. Certain things were more mandatory, a Fascist salute and things like that. That’s what made the scene where he throws up his hand so much fun. If you were missing a limb, you wouldn’t put it up and give the Heil Hitler salute. That’s why it’s interesting that he does.

Cruise: I know from a production standpoint from the choreography of this. Doing a lot of these films, this is a film that right in the beginning, when Bryan kept saying, “Look, this is a suspense thriller,” it needed that kind of dynamic choreography to go in and you had to be very specific because in editing these pieces together, they weren’t just thrown together. That was all very thought out. From top to bottom of the production we really had a lot of help and support from the Germans – their production, the stuff that they gave us. Even the wardrobe itself, the look of the film. A lot of attention and time went into how to do this. When you talk about colors, the reds – and to make it something that is gonna be what a Bryan Singer film is and feel authentic. The whole point is to try to give that audience that visceral feeling of being on the edge of their seat even down to the wardrobe because we went through and studied a lot of films and wondered, “Why does it look sometimes like people are wearing wardrobe? It looks like wardrobe.” So sitting down with Tom Sigel, the kind of film that he used, the lighting that he used, and also wardrobe with Joanna Johnston, the kind of fabrics, and also studying the fact that each guy – how certain people would make their own uniforms. The level of detail in the film, from top to bottom, you know, even down to Hitler’s signature when he signed it was to the best of our knowledge exactly the signature that he signed at that time period, and the same with Stauffenberg. I mean this is the kind of stuff that we film geeked and history geeked out on. You know what I mean?

Singer: People were taken blindfolded to people’s homes who collected Hitler’s furniture so we could see it and know the furniture of the Berghof, at his summer house. There’s these strange people who collect this stuff secretly in Germany. I had lunch with Hitler’s bodyguard; he wouldn’t.

Cruise: I wouldn’t. He needed that. I didn’t need it. I’ll read about it.

Q: Did either of you with the research find anything new about Hitler and his followers?

Cruise: I did. I know a little bit about history, I enjoy it. I fly warbirds, I fly the P-51’s myself, and by the way, all the airplanes, there’s no computer-generated airplanes. All of those planes are real.

Singer: And we’re really in them, too.

Cruise: Yeah, we’re in them.

Singer: The scene where he’s fleeing the Wolf’s Lair we actually shot in the Yunker and there was only enough room for the actors and myself and the pilots and the cameraman. So they gave me a quick lesson on how to do makeup.

Cruise: Thirty seconds before we got on the airplane because we were losing light.

Singer: So it’s a hundred degrees in there and he’s sweating and I’m like spotting his face with this little pad.

Cruise: In getting back to learning, the scene where Stauffenberg goes to Hitler, it’s challenging because for Bryan, I was thinking, “How is he going to direct this?” I was interested in the focus on Hitler because I’ve grown up with the footage of Hitler at rallies, and to see him, and particularly during that time period where he wasn’t so obviously… I mean, obviously he was insane and utterly insane and they’re all insane, but it has this eerie, terrifying feeling in that sequence. Just all of the detail where Goebbels is looking at Göring, all these little looks, that’s really set up when you look at “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and he talks about what it was like during that time period. Bryan was totally accurate to the behavior and what was happening during that time period.

Singer: That meeting actually took place between Stauffenberg – it was his first time meeting Hitler and the Big Six. It was the day after D-Day and the thing that Stauffenberg noticed, and went home and told his wife–it’s not in the film–but we keyed off this testimony is that Göring had on makeup, there was this distrust between them, clearly the allies were at their door. Hitler was detached from what was going on, and the only one that seemed to have a clue was Speer, but he was just an architect along for the ride. It’s interesting, and what he did is he walked over and held Stauffenberg’s hand and acknowledged his injuries and his heroism as a way of mocking his own people. And he would do that. He would always play one against the other. It was how Hitler rose in politics – through flattery, promises, and backstabbing. He did it with Stalin and he did it with the German people, and eventually that’s how the war ended. So it was nice to put hints of that kind of detached, laconic Hitler that the people didn’t get to see in the Berghof scene. That scene genuinely happened, and all the specifics of that leading up to – you know, the reason that we have such detail, particularly in the third act of the film, is because the Gestapo did a very stunning investigation into this assassination attempt, and trials were held and filmed. So we have the benefit of all of those facts, and all of that information to inform our story as well as the research we’ve done, and actually talking to a lot of people who were with Hitler.

Cruise: Like Stauffenberg at the beginning, it might seem like a movie convention, him upbraiding the General, but he did that. He had those conversations with Generals exactly in that way and would have those kinds of conversations. Which is why he ended up in Africa because he actually had court-martialed friends of his for war crimes. His uncle was concerned for him, arranged for him to go to Africa, and he was that outspoken with Generals because he was a supply officer. He was on the front lines, but he was behind saying, “What’s happening? How can this happen? Why is this happening? This guy’s a liar. This is not the country that we want, that I’ve wanted.” The amount of desperation and pain for him, because he loved his country, he wanted a moral country, but one that was part and participated in the world, not annihilating, not the Holocaust, not world domination. He was a man that was able to really think for himself within all of that propaganda and recognized very early on that insanity. At first thinking, “Well, someone’s gotta stop him. Let’s overthrow him,” and then, “Someone’s gotta shoot that bastard,” is a quote of his. Then, you know, as early as 1938, and then suddenly being moved into the place after Africa, his uncle sending him away. It’s ironic that those injuries actually put him in the position of high command where he got on the inside and realized that the only way to stop this is from the inside. Really recognizing that it wasn’t just enough to kill Hitler, you had to have something that’s going to put people in a position where they’re gonna follow you because you have that oath which – as an American, it’s just – to open the film, that struck me. It’s so creepy to get people to not be able to think for themselves.

Singer: Because the army was compelled to give an oath. An army of ten million people in Germany was compelled to give an oath to Hitler himself personally.

Q: How about people knowing how this movie will end since it’s based on a historical fact? Cruise: You look at “Apollo 13,” “Titanic,” any film that’s made out of a book, people know how it’s gonna end. I had an idea when I read it, of course, but when I read it, I thought it was so surprising to me – this story, the details, and I was surprised in reading it that I was that caught up and I was whipping through the pages…

Singer: And I think to say we know how it ended, I don’t think audiences… you might if you know history, but I don’t think audiences know the full degree of how this particular story ends, and that’s an important thing.

Q: Could each of you talk about what you consider your definition of success?

Cruise: (To Singer) Go, man. (Laughter)

Singer: Freedom to be able to do the work that you want to do. Sometimes that comes with money – financial freedom. Sometimes it comes with trust and having trust in the people in your community, in your creative community. Either of these things give you creative freedom. So, if you’re at a point where you can, as a director, I could speak, not as an actor, but as a director, if you’re at a point where you can do what you want to creatively then you’re successful, really successful. I mean, that’s a blessing.

Cruise: I have to agree with Bryan for as far as the making films. You know, I’m gonna do this for the rest of my life and to have the ability to make the kind of films that I’ve been able to make, and work with the people that I’m able to work with. I just love movies, so it’s something that, as I’ve told people before when I was making “Taps” or “Risky Business,” there’s moments where you’re there and you think, “I just wanna enjoy these moments ’cause I don’t know if it’s gonna end right here.” I’ve had the opportunities to work with Paul Newman, to work with Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman, Scorsese and Oliver Stone and Spielberg, you know, the people that I’ve been able to work with, and Bryan Singer, that kind of creative freedom that I’ve been privileged enough to have is something that on that level I’m really proud of that. So many times I know there’s been a few things written about this film before people have seen it – just a couple (laughter)… (laughs) and we’re going through it.

Singer: We read them all… out loud… To our folks. (laughter)

Cruise: (laughs) We’ve read them all.

Cruise: So many times I’ve been through this, and certainly I think the internet has accelerated a lot of this kind of drama out there. So there’s a perception out there versus what we’re doing artistically. Even when I think people see the film, even our friends who have seen the film were like, “Oh, this is a suspense thriller.” That’s what we kept saying. I don’t know what to say. But, so many times in my career, even early on, people have said, “Why are you doing that?” Even when it was early back when I was gonna do “Top Gun” or “Born on the Fourth of July,” the things that Dustin and I went through in “Rain Man,” with that film we went through four directors, and two years to make. And of course, “Interview with the Vampire” was one also. I’ve always chosen things that I felt would be challenging, but I always wanted to entertain an audience. I feel very privileged to do that, so I feel that I’ve been fortunate in having that kind of success. Personal success for me is raising my kids and my family and that to me, as much as I love movies, has always been the priority. I feel also happy my family’s happy and healthy and doing well. So that’s the most important thing and always has been for me.

Q: The movie was moved around a lot before plopping down in the middle of awards season with all these other WWII movies. You both have so much control over this project, so why put it out at this time of the year but not screen it for critics and awards groups?

Singer: Originally the schedule of completion had to do with that. It was gonna come out a lot earlier, but then there was a sequence – the Tunisia sequence which took time. I ended up scouting Jordan for a location, and then Spain, and those two locations didn’t work out both aesthetically and economically. Then we figured we would just see what movie we had when we got home, cut it all together, and then go back and go to California where the location we found is – it looks far more like Tunisia. We would have the equipment and resources, and we would sort of drop and pick up. And then that moved our intentions of release day, and then it was a crowded Christmas, and we didn’t know where we were at finishing the movie, and then we felt… I mean, is that pretty much as you remember it?

Cruise: You know, we were making a film not for a release date to be honest with you.

Singer: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Thank you.

Cruise: I mean, I know today everything is about a release date, but I…

Singer: “The Usual Suspects” we made it and a year and a half later it was released.

Cruise: February was never a firm date. This is a film that’s made for a broader audience. We also never wanted to say, “Hey, we want to put it in awards season.” That’s not even why we moved to Christmas. Christmas is a great time for audiences. It’s the biggest time of the year for people to go (to the movies). You want to put your film in a place where it can have the opportunity to have it available to as broad an audience as possible because that’s the nature of the film. As I said, we could’ve taken this film and made it two and a half, three and a half, four and a half, you know, it could’ve been very different kind of movie. And this – right from the beginning this is a suspense thriller, and yes, actually, when you know the history – these events occurred. They really did occur. When I read the script I thought, “That had to be a movie convention.” Stauffenberg going to Hitler the day after D-Day and, I went, “Whoa.” It’s cool. And then you find out it really happened. These was actual dialogue in the film that I discovered were from letters and from journals that Chris and Nathan had studied. So always for me – and I get this opportunity to work with Bryan and we’re going through it and the most important thing is the film because as I said, I want to entertain an audience, and when I’m making a film, that’s so important. It’s important. I’ve always felt that you want to get it right. And within the limited amount of time and economics, you want to do the best that you can for the audience, for the subject matter, whatever it is.

CS: Do you find that Tom Cruise the actor ever has to compete with Tom Cruise, the businessman who’s heading a studio like United Artists, especially when it comes to financing your movies? Tom Cruise: Well, you know, I’ve produced a lot of films. “Mission: Impossible” was the first film that I produced and then I went on and I produced all the “Mission” films, “The Last Samurai.” You know, I’ve just produced a lot of movies beforehand, so there’s always the balance of art and commerce, and the challenges of that that I like to look at that as opportunities as opposed to with restriction, so that aspect of it has always been there. And as a director Bryan faces that. And it’s not just having talent in making a film, it’s also important to know to surround yourself with great people. I own a piece of United Artists and we’re starting it up and, you know, we had the writers strike, we have a pending actors strike. And you know what? It just comes down to I’ve got very good people that I work with. I’ve always tried to surround myself with people that I respect, that I enjoy working with, and that’s what we have. We have great people that we work with. I’m very happy to have these guys on board (laughs) with MGM, Vollman, Terry, the gang we have. At the studio it’s actually a very exciting time with Mary Parent who’s come on at MGM and it’s interesting. But I am an actor first and foremost. The thing is that, even with the way we’ve set it up, I’ve never had an exclusive deal as an actor with anyone ever, even as producing films. I produced “The Last Samurai” at Warner Brothers, I produced “The Others” with Miramax and I have always been very careful not to say, “I am just going to be with one.” And I am an actor. That is my love – acting and so that’s first and foremost for me.

Q: Do you know what you’re doing next? Cruise: You know, I’m waiting for things to come in. I’ve been working with writers and filmmakers, and just going to decide.

Valkyrie opens nationwide on December 25.

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• "Tom Cruise fails to convince in sluggish 'Valkyrie' (...) [It] is a World War II thriller without enough thrills (...) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"  Claudia Puig : USA Today
• "[It] has visual splendor galore, but is a cold work lacking in the requisite tension and suspense."  Todd McCarthy : Variety
• "'Valkyrie' is a meticulous thriller (...) If I say that Cruise is not electrifying, I must add that with this character, in this story, he cannot and should not be (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"  Roger Ebert : rogerebert.com
• "Cruise starring in the fact-based story of a plot to kill Hitler by Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg sounds like Oscar bait. It isn't. And the sooner you accept it, the more fun you'll have at this satisfying B movie (...) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"  Peter Travers : Rolling Stone
• "Think of Valkyrie as a reasonably entertaining drama about the time Tom Cruise tried to kill Hitler. Do that, and it becomes possible to enjoy the movie"  Mick LaSalle : SFGATE
• "A handsome hybrid of conspiracy thriller and history lesson, of Mission: Impossible and The Day of the Jackal"  Lisa Schwarzbaum : Entertainment Weekly
• "As a suspense movie, this works pretty well: director Bryan Singer ('X-Men', 'The Usual Suspects') maintains a crisp pace"  J.R. Jones : Chicago Reader
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First Look: Tom Cruise in Bryan Singer's Valkyrie

by Alex Billington July 19, 2007

The recently reformed United Artists has released the first photos of Tom Cruise as Nazi Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in Bryan Singer’s latest project, Valkyrie . The WWII film just started its principal photography over in Berlin and stars Cruise as well as Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Carice van Houten, Eddie Izzard, Thomas Kretschmann, and Terrence Stamp. Anyone interested should definitely take a look at these photos of Cruise in his uniform and direct comparison photos.

Valkyrie is the first time in 12 years that screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and director Bryan Singer have partnered since The Usual Suspects (in 1995). The film is a suspense thriller based on the true story of the daring German officers’ plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944.

On this comparison photo, the left is the actual Claus von Stauffenberg, and on the right is Tom Cruise.

This second photo is of Tom Cruise in full costume as Stauffenberg.

The "July 20 Plot" on Hitler's life is one of the most heroic but least known episodes of WWII. Severely wounded in combat, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg returns from Africa to join the German Resistance and help create Operation Valkyrie, the complex plan that will allow a shadow government to replace Hitler's once he is dead. But fate and circumstance conspire to thrust Stauffenberg from one of many in the plot to a double-edged central role. Not only must he lead the coup and seize control of his nation's government … He must kill Hitler himself.

Interesting Note: IMDb has listed the actual title of the movie as Rubicon instead of Valkyrie , stating that Valkyrie was just a working title (used for filming and initial naming) and that I guess Rubicon might be the official release title we'll see next August.

Anyone who is following this should be quite excited. If this isn't proof that Tom Cruise can both look and play the part, despite his personal off-screen beliefs, than I don't know what else would. Just as they're doing with Indiana Jones IV, these early photos will just start building good buzz and interest that I know I'll certainly be following. Anyone else?

Find more posts: First Look , Hype

Where are the pics of Carice van Houten? No one wants to see Cruise.

Heckle0 on Jul 19, 2007

Yes, I beleive when Tom got criticisms, he's better than usual. Born on the fourth of July, Interview with a vampire, anyone? Ask Anne Rice! Look forwards to it.

annie on Jul 20, 2007

talk for yourself Heckle0, arrogant prick! I want to see Tom, actually, everyone but you want. Whiner!

"tom cruise", makes stance: * one of cruise's first showings after saying no to corp hollywood: how appropriate for cruise to make such a statement in one of his first films; regarding the fight against crazed, wrongdoers. old corp hollywood (whose founding roots were directly involved with hitler's evil ways against them) has become what they say they hate. this film cruise has chosen is an ingenius way to state why he left the current old corp hollywood and why he fights them. right on cruise! best wishes, the vishitor thanks for having me FirstShowing

vishitor on Jul 23, 2007

hey: right on cruise. brilliant move! everybody check this out!!! this title—and writings--will further explain the above posts regarding just what tom cruise ran in to, with it's well maintained roots (see cruise's new film= see hollywood) ...of the current old hollywood: “The Dark Mirror” -- Mirror German Cinema between Hitler and Hollywood 1.HOLLYWOOD IN BERLIN, 1933–1939 2.BERLIN IN HOLLYWOOD, 1939–1955 a.5. Wagner at Warner's http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt5489q3vv/ best wishes, the vishitor for freedom of speech, free our arts! thanks FirstShowing for having me

vishitor on Jul 26, 2007

Tom Cruise is really a damned good actor 🙂

Valkyrie on Oct 10, 2007

Tom cruise is a great actor and sexy tOo xx

Hannah on Oct 29, 2007

Awsome movie great acting!!!!!

Mr. Billington has made a mistake, like most people who do not know too much about the difference between the German Army (Wehrmacht) of WW2 and the Nazi Party. The majority of the German officer corps were not members of the nazi party. Rommel was an excellent example. As a matter of fact, many German officers were anti Nazi. Von Stauffenberg was NOT a Nazi member, as Mr. Billington described.The uniform that von Stauffenberg(picture) and Tom Cruise are wearing is not an SS uniform (which should be a black tunic with the double lightning insignia. The uniform that Cruise is wearing is a regular Wehrmacht (Army ) tunic.), although I am not familair with the combination of a field grey army tunic with a pair of black pants with a red stripe. If memory serves, the real von Stauffenberg lost one arms also (?) If someone wants to make a movie pertainign to the second world war, let's keep it historically accurate. Karl

Kal C on Nov 15, 2007

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Bryan singer floating doc that will address sexual misconduct allegations.

A 2019 exposé in The Atlantic detailed sexual assault and misconduct claims against the director by four accusers.

By Mia Galuppo

Mia Galuppo

Film Writer

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Bryan Singer is planning a documentary feature that would address the sexual misconduct allegations against him and also chronicle his attempt to make a filmmaking comeback years after a career implosion. Documentary sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that the project has been floated in the nonfiction world, with Variety reporting that the disgraced director is self-financing the endeavor.

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Rebecca romijn addresses why she didn't speak out amid #metoo allegations against bryan singer, brett ratner, rob young, oscar-nominated sound mixer on 'unforgiven,' dies at 76.

Prior to the exposé in The Atlantic , Singer was attached to direct the remake of ’80s action film Red Sonja but was dropped from the project following the publishing of the report. In 2017, he was replaced as the director on Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody after reported absences from set. He was also dropped by his agency, WME.

Having first broke out with Sundance indie Public Access (1993), Singer solidified his status as an up-and-coming director with sophomore feature Usual Suspects (1995), which earned star Kevin Spacey an Oscar. Singer has long been considered an architect of the X-Men franchise, having directed the original 2000 film and the 2003 sequel, X2: X-Men United , as well as X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) and X-Men: Apocalypse (2016). His other directing credits include Superman Returns (2006) and the Tom Cruise World War II historical thriller Valkyrie (2008). His Bad Hat Harry production banner was also behind the long-running series Hous e.

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2008 Directed by Bryan Singer

Many saw evil. They dared to stop it.

Wounded in Africa during World War II, Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg returns to his native Germany and joins the Resistance in a daring plan to create a shadow government and assassinate Adolf Hitler. When events unfold so that he becomes a central player, he finds himself tasked with both leading the coup and personally killing the Führer.

Tom Cruise Kenneth Branagh Bill Nighy Terence Stamp Tom Wilkinson Carice van Houten Kenneth Cranham Thomas Kretschmann Eddie Izzard Kevin McNally David Bamber Tom Hollander David Schofield Christian Berkel Jamie Parker Ian McNeice Danny Webb Bernard Hill Chris Larkin Matthew Burton Gerhard Haase-Hindenberg Matthias Freihof Halina Reijn Anton Algrang Werner Daehn Matthias Schweighöfer Andy Gätjen Philipp von Schulthess Karl Alexander Seidel Show All… Justus Kammerer Frank Christian Marx Florian Panzner Julian Morris Tim Williams

Director Director

Bryan Singer

Producers Producers

Gilbert Adler Bryan Singer Christopher McQuarrie

Writers Writers

Christopher McQuarrie Nathan Alexander

Casting Casting

Roger Mussenden Heta Mantscheff Jeremy Rich

Editors Editors

John Ottman Elliot Graham

Cinematography Cinematography

Newton Thomas Sigel

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

John Ottman

Lighting Lighting

Anthony G. Nakonechnyj Sebastian Beutler Martin Frank Mark Carlile

Camera Operator Camera Operator

P. Scott Sakamoto

Additional Photography Add. Photography

Ross Emery David Luckenbach Paul C. Babin Gregory J. Schmidt

Production Design Production Design

Lilly Kilvert Patrick Lumb

Art Direction Art Direction

John Warnke Keith Pain Cornelia Ott Ralf Schreck

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Bernhard Henrich

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Kenneth Nakada Mark Freund Brice Liesveld Kim Boyle Phillip Hoffman Richard R. Hoover Maricel Pagulayan Diana Stulic Ibanez Hiroshi Mori

Title Design Title Design

Kyle Cooper

Stunts Stunts

Greg Powell Zack Duhame Brian Avery

Composer Composer

Sound sound.

Skip Lievsay Warren Hendriks Dan O'Connell Craig Henighan John T. Cucci Michael Herbick Erik Aadahl Wayne Lemmer Jonathan Klein

Costume Design Costume Design

Joanna Johnston

Makeup Makeup

Bill Corso Yasmin Iqbal

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Yasmin Iqbal

United Artists Bad Hat Harry Productions Achte Babelsberg Film

Germany USA

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English German

Releases by Date

25 dec 2008, 22 jan 2009, 23 jan 2009, 28 jan 2009, 29 jan 2009, 30 jan 2009, 05 feb 2009, 13 feb 2009, 19 feb 2009, 20 feb 2009, 26 feb 2009, 20 mar 2009, 26 may 2009, 17 may 2016, 01 apr 2019, 01 apr 2021, 10 jun 2009, 20 jul 2009, 22 jul 2009, 23 sep 2009, 03 may 2010, releases by country.

• Theatrical M
• Theatrical 14
• Theatrical 11
• Theatrical K-13
• Theatrical U
• Physical DVD
• Digital VOD
• Digital Netflix
• Digital Prime Video
• Theatrical 12
• Physical 12
• Theatrical PG
• Theatrical 12A
• Theatrical T
• Theatrical N-13

Netherlands

• Physical 12 DVD, Blu ray
• TV 12 SBS 6
• Theatrical M/12

South Korea

• Physical 11
• Theatrical 保護級

Turks and Caicos Islands

• Theatrical PG-13

121 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by rom 10

bluray was $3 at 7/11. only $3 for this shot of tom cruise's ass. greatest god damn $3 i have ever spent. a steal

Review by matt lynch ★★★ 1

Tom Cruise is so completely dedicated to his craft and showing the audience something they've never seen before that he actually went back in time to kill Hitler.

Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🇵🇸 ★★★½

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NAZI

Review by Andy Summers 🤠 ★★★★½ 3

Historical dramas usually have one thing going against them, history. How do you build a tension filled plot when everyone knows the outcome? That was Bryan Singer's biggest problem in the making of this brilliantly constructed thriller than focused on the unsuccessful attempt by a leading group of German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler in the Summer of 1944. Bringing together an all star cast that would put most productions to shame, Singer made us invest our faith in these men who tried in vain to do the right thing. Led by Tom Cruise as colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a disillusioned officer who finally wakes up to the atrocities his country has committed under Hitler, he joins a secret committee…

Review by ellie ✨ ★★★ 3

there's literally no point in letting tom cruise star in films that aren't homoerotic

Review by Jamelle Bouie ★★ 1

Incredible that a movie about TRYING TO KILL HITLER is among the most boring things I’ve seen this year.

Review by YI JIAN ★★★ 6

The illusion of risk. Drama without drama. English speaking German officers that completely gave up hiding their accents halfway through. Valkyrie portrays Adolf Hitler in the most non-threatening way possible and is the tamest and safest depiction of Nazi Germany I've ever seen.

Review by Josh Lewis ★★

Me for 2 hours: jeez, I hope this plot to kill Hitler doesn't at any point go sideways for these good guy Nazis... Interesting to consider that all those great recent Mission Impossible sequels can be traced back to one movie...

Review by A. J. Black ★★★½ 4

Let's be honest, Valkyrie should never have worked, should it? Hollywood taking a true-life story about a heroic rebellion inside the Nazi regime during World War Two, and throwing all-American cheese meister Tom Cruise into the lead role of a German Colonel, throughout which he speaks with a traditional American brogue. Combine all those elements, it really should have been a car crash... yet it actually works really rather well, arguably down to the proven combo of director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie; two superb talents who rein Cruise's charm in here and allow a very dark, very tragic tale to unfold in a largely effective way. It's no spoiler to tell you at this point: there is no…

Review by Brennan ★★★★ 2

Fascinating story! Very suspenseful movie! Took a lot of guts to attempt what these men did! 

I remember our history class getting out of school to go to the cinema to watch this my freshman year. I was obsessed with it then and it’s still a movie I think is underrated among WW2 movies. 

Also RIP Tom Wilkinson.

Lists: 2008 Movies Ranked Tom Cruise Ranked

Review by Colin the dude ★★ 18

Someone has to take this movie outside and knock it around a bit. It's given a free pass by a majority when in fact it is quite poorly executed. There is little to no passion for the subject matter being conveyed through the film-making with its bland composition, even blander color pallet and cinematography, deadly slow pace, and suffocating performances. The Nazi uniforms are doing a lot of the leg work with these actors. They all have their collar buttons tightly choking their necks. The costume design is a metaphor for the choking gridlock of momentum and excitement sorely lacking from the plot and the performances. Cruise in particular is so shockingly bored and uninteresting here. He put on that…

Review by bombsfall

These guys suck at killing Hitler! Holy shit!

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• Bryan Singer

IMDbPro Starmeter Top 5,000 114

• Contact info
• 19 wins & 26 nominations total

• Producer (produced by)

• executive producer
• 29 episodes

• executive producer (uncredited)

• 16 episodes

• 13 episodes

• 48 episodes

• Guard (uncredited)
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• Special Guest
• Prison Security Officer (uncredited)

• Kelly (uncredited)

Personal details

• 5′ 10″ (1.78 m)
• September 17 , 1965
• New York City, New York, USA
• Dashiell Clunie-Singer
• Parents Norbert Dave Singer
• Relatives Gregory Singer (Cousin)
• Other works Special guest voice on the 'Jaws in 30 Seconds performed by Bunnies' segment on www.angryalien.com.
• 1 Biographical Movie
• 3 Interviews
• 2 Pictorials

Did you know

• Trivia Turned down the chance to direct ''X-Men'' three times because he believed that comic books were unintelligent. He changed his mind after reading some of the comics and watching the animated series.
• Quotes [on Superman's costume for Superman Returns (2006) ] I always had the general idea of the suit. With X-Men, although they had extraordinary powers, they also had physical weaknesses. The suits were for protection as well as costume. Superman is the Man of Steel. Bullets bounce off him, not the suit.
• Trademarks Frequently uses music by John Ottman
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Where to Watch

Rent Valkyrie on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Given the subject matter, Valkyrie could have been an outstanding historical thriller, but settles for being a mildly entertaining, but disposable yarn.

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Cast & crew.

Bryan Singer

Col. Claus von Stauffenberg

Kenneth Branagh

Henning von Tresckow

Friedrich Olbricht

Tom Wilkinson

Friedrich Fromm

Carice van Houten

Nina von Stauffenberg

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Meet Christopher McQuarrie, wingman to Tom Cruise’s death-defying maverick

This article was published more than 6 months ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Christopher McQuarrie attends the U.K. premiere of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, on June 22, in London. John Phillips/Getty Images

If Tom Cruise is the Maverick of defying death, undertaking increasingly ludicrous and often sky-high stunts in his action-heavy blockbusters, then Christopher McQuarrie is his wingman.

The director might have got his start in the industry making small-scale thrillers (writing Bryan Singer’s Public Access and The Usual Suspects , directing The Way of the Gun ), but ever since 2008, McQuarrie has been all-in on the Cruise canon. After working together on Singer’s 2008 Second World War thriller Valkyrie – Cruise starring, McQuarrie writing – the pair have almost exclusively worked with one another. McQuarrie has now written eight Cruise projects and directed four of them, including the latest instalment of the Mission: Impossible series, Dead Reckoning Part One .

Yes, we ranked all 44 Tom Cruise movies

The Tao of Tom Cruise, our last action hero

The film features easily the most ambitious stunt of either men’s careers: a motorcycle ride off a cliff that turns into a BASE jump that turns into ... something not to be spoiled. Shot without green screens or stunt doubles, the adrenaline-fuelled moment represents the high point of Cruise’s go-big-or-go-home relationship with the man he calls McQ.

Ahead of Dead Reckoning ’s release July 12, Cruise’s partner in crime spoke with The Globe and Mail about his own many impossible cinematic missions.

You’ve talked about how from the moment Dead Reckoning began filming in 2020, you knew there would be a moment when Tom Cruise drives a motorbike off a cliff. But you weren’t yet sure “why.” Is that typical of the set-pieces constructed for your Mission: Impossible movies – that set-piece concept comes before the narrative structure?

Sometimes. Not always. I tend to view plot and story as two entirely separate things. Plot is merely the reason or reasons why things need to happen. Story is what happens when character and plot collide. Reasons and motivations tend to be quite fungible and can change as we make discoveries about the characters. Reasons of plot tend to be very general (I have to get to X before Y happens, for example). Reasons of character tend to be very specific (I care deeply about this person, yet I cannot tell them the truth). You end up with a movie where the characters are discovering the story much in the way the audience is. That’s a massive oversimplification, but that’s the gist of it.

Dead Reckoning has had one of the most complicated production periods in contemporary Hollywood history thanks to the pandemic. How do you manage the vision of the final film that you might be holding in your head as you’re encountering one challenge and delay after another?

Very simple. There is no vision of a final film. I find the entire notion to be limiting. The pursuit of a specific vision, in my experience, cuts me off from genuine discovery. Dead Reckoning Part One represents a complete surrender to the process of discovery. Given the conditions, there was no other way. Every shot, every angle, was one dictated by time, place, varying constraints and the needs of the ever-evolving narrative.

Has there been a moment working with Cruise that crystallized the idea that, yes, this is the man who I want to dedicate years of my career to?

I met Tom out of sheer curiosity at a time in my career when I was ready to quit the film business. We just talked about our mutual love of movies. Our first film together, Valkyrie , evolved naturally out of that conversation. I fully expected to hand the script over and walk away. When I was asked to stay on as a producer – something I had never done before – I fully expected to be promptly fired. I assumed every day was my last. I never took my position for granted. Sixteen years later, I still function that way.

Has Tom ever had an idea that was just too complex, something that you had to tell him, “no”?

We always come up with things that are too complex to execute. We usually discover this after we’ve committed. Rather than back out, we push on. In Africa, while shooting a sequence for Dead Reckoning Part Two , he came up with an idea that I told him could not be done, simply because no camera rig existed that could capture it. By that afternoon, our team had built it.

How important do you believe the box-office success of Dead Reckoning is to the future of the theatrical industry as a whole?

Every movie’s success is vital. That’s why I can’t understand this modern notion of box-office competition. We shouldn’t be competing with one another at all. We should be working together so that everyone can win. When we all win, the theatres win. The audience wins. And cinema wins.

It is hard to ignore how the villain of this film is an algorithm that attempts to stifle Ethan’s rogue brand of problem-solving at every turn. How much of that is your dig at the predictability of the streaming world?

As a filmmaker, I’m not here to tell you what I think. I’m here to give you things to think about.

Do you see yourself returning to smaller-scale filmmaking after Part Two ?

I’d love to. Tom and I have plans for a (comparatively) smaller film. And no movie is easy. A bigger budget doesn’t mean smaller problems. Small movies are just as hard – often harder. I love a challenge. Bring it.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One opens in theatres July 12.

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Suri Cruise celebrates her 18th birthday in rainy NYC as estranged dad Tom works in London

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Suri Cruise was photographed celebrating her 18th birthday in New York City while her estranged father, Tom Cruise, worked abroad in London.

According to pictures obtained by Page Six, the birthday girl stepped out in the rainy weather with a friend on Thursday. The pals chatted as Suri held a pink umbrella over their heads.

The teen, who is also the daughter of Katie Holmes, wore jeans, a denim jacket over a brown shirt and black shoes. She carried a blue backpack and held what looked like a birthday gift in her hand.

A day before Suri’s big day, her father, Tom, was spotted overseas in London filming a new project.

The “Mission Impossible” star, 61, flashed a wide grin as he arrived at a helipad and piloted a jet.

Tom and his youngest daughter have not had a close relationship over the past years. In fact, a source exclusively told Page Six earlier this month that the movie star has not seen Suri since 2012 (they were last seen together at Disney World that summer).

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“Katie has safeguarded Suri and she’s a devoted mom,” the insider told us. “This is a girl who is a private citizen. She hasn’t lived her life in public.”

Holmes, who filed for divorce from Tom when Suri was only 6 years old in June 2012, previously told Glamour that she wanted to keep her daughter out of the public eye “because she was so visible at a young age.”

The 45-year-old also revealed in November 2013 court docs that she filed for divorce from Tom “to protect Suri from Scientology ,” a religion that is often referred to as a cult.

While it is believed that Holmes signed several non-disclosure agreements to prevent her from speaking about her marriage to Tom and the Church of Scientology, Suri will be free to discuss the religion and her father now that she is legally an adult.

Though it’s unclear whether the teen will publicly speak about her father, she won’t be joining Scientology anytime soon.

“Suri is not a Scientologist and never will be … she deserves love and sympathy,” former Scientology spokesperson Mike Rinder told Page Six.

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