Tom Cruise, he of the ageless face, body and energy level, is celebrating a birthday July 3.
Contrary to what's visible to the naked eye, the actor is turning 60.
He has the appropriate amount of work under what must be a utility belt to back that up, including his first-ever billion-dollar box office haul with Top Gun: Maverick. But it's Cruise's sheer zest for entertaining audiences that continues to awe and delight.
And his viral lecture in December 2020, when COVID-19 pandemic protocol wasn't taken as seriously as he demanded on the set of Mission: Impossible 7, proved that the world's biggest movie star isn't afraid to throw his hard-earned Hollywood weight around, either.
"I said what I said," he told Empire in an interview published in May 2021. "There was a lot at stake at that point."
Alas, production was suspended anyway in June 2021 after a positive COVID test, but after all sorts of pandemic-induced delays, Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One is finally slated for July 14, 2023, with Part Two to follow on June 28, 2024.
"I have an aggressive side, absolutely," Cruise told Cameron Crowe 36 years ago for Interview magazine. "I need a creative outlet. Now I work out every day. I get up and work out 45 to 60 minutes. And that's how I start my day. Discipline is very important to me."
When Brad Pitt, who's only 58, told GQ Australia a few years ago that he thinks making movies (or at least being in them) is "a younger man's game," you could practically hear Cruise's inimitable laugh.
So, with our need for speed recently fulfilled, in honor of his milestone birthday here are 60 things to know about Tom Cruise:
Asked about the criticism that he hadn't really played any grown-ups yet, Cruise told Cameron Crowe for Interview in 1986, "God forbid if I do everything I want to do before I'm 26. When I get to [Paul] Newman's age, I'm looking to still be playing the great characters he plays.
"I hope the public and everyone realize that I'm still growing. I'm still feeling my oats here. I'm working toward the long range of what I can be as an artist. And I work my ass off trying. Because I know what I want to be."
Mission: accomplished.
(Originally published July 3, 2019, at 3 a.m. PT)