Tom Cruise: "Why did they say that?" Controversy over insincere interview... U.S. Washington Post investigates the reporter who conducted the interview

*This content was translated by AI.

"Lots of words, but no substance"... Tom Cruise interview sparks a flood of complaints in YouTube comments

Amid a surge of comments calling it insincere, The Washington Post investigated the GQ reporter who conducted the interview

Hollywood star Tom Cruise held an exclusive video interview with GQ on the 16th (local time), his first in 20 years. However, once the interview video was released, the focus shifted not to the content of the answers but to the "manner of response."

Reactions were heated from the very start in the comment section of the YouTube-posted interview video, and this controversy eventually led The Washington Post, a leading U.S. daily newspaper, to investigate the reporter who conducted the interview.

In the roughly 20-minute interview, when asked by the reporter, "Are you afraid of death?" Cruise initially gave an evasive answer, saying something along the lines of "I view life as an adventure." When the reporter pressed again, he replied, "I am not afraid, but it's not that I don't care."

However, a few minutes later, when asked the same question again, he offered a completely different answer: "I think I am afraid. Riding a motorcycle and jumping off a cliff is definitely scary."

When asked what it means to be 64 years old, he simply replied, "It means being 64 years old."

This sparked a flood of complaints in the YouTube comment section. Comments such as "He says so much but actually says nothing" gained significant, and reactions like "He just kept repeating the same things; it seems he didn't understand the 'depth' of the questions" also emerged.

Many short comments stating, "In the end, he said nothing at all," were posted. Some went further, leaving reactions such as, "It's a pity that he is so deeply immersed in Scientology that he has lost his humanity and, even at 64, cannot talk about himself at all."

Of course, there were voices of support as well. Comments like, "I'm sorry for the negative comments; he is just grateful for his career, so why are people being so critical?" gained much, and a comment noting, "I also have a brain that never rests, so I understand completely; it's strange that people who repeat the same day every day," stood out. There were also analytical comments suggesting, "This was an Actors Studio-style interview; from the start, topics like his relationship with his daughter Suri were not going to be discussed," implying the interview had certain forbidden subjects from the outset.

As the controversy grew in the YouTube comment section, The Washington Post published an article on the 17th (local time) the next day, interviewing Jack Barron, the GQ reporter who conducted the original interview. The article was titled, "He Interviewed Tom Cruise for GQ. We Asked Him How It Went," with the subtitle, "Tom Cruise's on-camera interview was promoted as a 'deep conversation' after several years. But... something was actually there."

When asked why he thought Cruise agreed to the interview, Barron admitted, "Honestly, I still don't know very well." When questioned whether he wanted to stop the interview because Cruise kept dodging questions, he replied, "I don't think there is a 'right way' to answer an interview." Regarding criticism about why Scientology or his daughter Suri were not asked about, he explained, "I just wanted to portray him as a movie actor of the modern moment."

Even this "meta-interview" article received over 100 comments. Many reactions mocked the situation itself, such as, "An interview about an interview? This is just a non-interview," while voices defending Cruise remained strong, with some arguing, "Cruise simply said what he wanted to say politely in his own way; rather, the interviewer seemed strange."

The interview also featured an interesting anecdote from his childhood. Cruise recalled that around age four, he became fascinated by the parachute on a toy soldier figurine. He tore sheets off his bed, tied them into ropes, climbed up to the roof using jungle gym equipment, and jumped down. Of course, the makeshift parachute did not open, but he vowed then that "he would definitely figure out a way someday." In reality, he later filmed a scene for a movie where he actually rode a motorcycle off a cliff and deployed a real parachute, thus keeping his childhood promise.

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*This content was translated by AI.