17 December 2020
Newsdesk
George Clooney has defended Tom Cruise after the movie star was caught on tape blasting Mission: Impossible crew members for ignoring COVID protocols.
Cruise reportedly lost his cool when he spotted two assistants huddled around a monitor, watching the playback, and he fired off an angry rant threatening to fire anyone who didn't take the health and safety rules he helped put in place seriously.
"I'm on the phone with every f**king studio at night, insurance companies, producers, and they're looking at us and using us to make their movies. We are creating thousands of jobs you motherf**kers," he fumed in part of the tirade.
Cruise's tirade was caught on audio that was then leaked by The Sun, and now Clooney has weighed in during a chat with satellite radio host Howard Stern, insisting Tom had every right to reprimand crew members.
"He didn't overreact because it is a problem," Clooney said.
"I have a friend who's an AD (assistant director) on another TV show who just had the almost exact same thing happen with not quite as far out a response," he went on.
Clooney reflected that while he "wouldn't have done it that big", he would have pulled the offending crew members aside to admonish them.
"You're in a position of power and it's tricky, right? You do have a responsibility for everybody else and he's absolutely right about that," he commented.
Explaining: "If the production goes down, a lot of people lose their jobs. People have to understand that and have to be responsible," Clooney added: "It's just not my style to, you know, to take everybody to task that way... but, you know, everybody has their own style."
Cruise's seventh Mission: Impossible movie has been filming around Europe for the last few months after the production was shut down in March due to the COVID pandemic. Filming has been halted a couple of times due to coronavirus-related issues.
