Tom Cruising with the Lady of Spain

Three days before we (Bulletin’s Cris Belen, GMA’s Paolo Bediones and I) flew to Singapore third week of December last year to attend the presscon and premiere of Paramount Pictures’ much-talked-about romance-thriller Vanilla Sky (released by United International Pictures), topbilling Hollywood’s current controversial couple Tom Cruise, 39, and Penelope Cruz, 27, I caught the famously reticent superstar in a surprisingly revealing one-on-one on CNN’s Larry King Live where Tom, in an unusually "talkative" mood, tackled with a big smile, and sometimes with a big laugh, all the issues that had been hounding him but about which he opted to keep mum – that is, until the persuasive Larry King crossed his path.

The whole world knows what the issues are, to wit:

1) The gay-porn actor whom Tom sued (along with an L.A. tabloid) for $100 million for claiming that he went to bed with Tom,

2) Tom’s unexpected break-up with Nicole Kidman, 34, after 10 years of marriage (Tom and Nicole have two adopted children Isabella and Connor), and

3) Tom’s sizzling romance with Penelope, predicted to eventually end up at the altar, making, if and when, Penelope the third legally-wedded wife of Tom whose first marriage (to Mimi Rogers), a childless union that also ended in divorce.

Produced by Tom himself, Vanilla Sky is the Hollywood version of the Spanish movie Open Yours Eyes (Abre Los Ojos) directed by Alejandro Amenabar (who also directed The Others, starring Nicole Kidman, also produced by Tom who bought the rights to the two films). In Vanilla Sky, directed by Cameron Crowe (who directed Tom in the award-winning Jerry Maguire), Tom plays David Aames, a handsome, wealthy and charismatic New York City publishing executive who appears to lead a charmed life. Yet, although his existence seems to be enchanting, David seems to be missing something.

But like "the pointillism of an Impressionist landscape," highlighted by a vanilla sky (now you know why the movie is so titled, not using the title of the Spanish original), even a charmed life can turn out to be entirely its opposite upon close scrutiny. Without giving away too much of the plot, the Paramount bulletin sums it up thus, In one night, David meets the girl of his dreams and loses her by making a small mistake. Thrust unexpectedly onto a roller-coaster ride of romance, comedy, suspicion, love, sex and dreams, David finds himself on a mind-bending search for his soul and discovers the precious, ephemeral nature of true love.

Penelope, referred to by some Hollywood writers as The Lady of Spain (or Spain’s premier export), reprises the role of Sofia, the unimpressed simple lady who sweeps the dashing David off his feet, which she played in the Amenabar movie; while Cameron Diaz plays Julie Gianni, the woman fatally attracted to David whose life takes a drastic 180-degree twist when, in a fit of jealousy, Julie drives the car off a bridge, killing her and crushing David’s handsome face.

Vanilla Sky, which opens in Metro Manila theaters on Wednesday (Feb. 6), is Penelope’s fifth Hollywood movie, coming after Woman on Top, All the Pretty Horses (with Matt Damon), Blow (with Johnny Depp) and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (with Nicolas Cage). But before Hollywood, Penelope was a superstar in her own right in her native Spain where she grew up in Alcobendas, a working-class suburb 15 minutes from Madrid where her father, Eduardo, was an auto mechanic and her mother, Encarna, was a beautician. Her mentor was Spain’s top director Pedro Almodovar who cast her in Jamon, Jamon (1992) as a teenage porno prodigy. Penelope caught Hollywood’s attention in Almodovar’s All About My Mother, 1999 Oscar winner for Best Foreign-Language Film, in which she plays a nun impregnated by a transvestite and infected with the AIDS virus. A Vanity Fair story mentioned that Penelope donated her first big American paycheck – for the neo-Western The Hi-Lo Country - to Mother Teresa’s mission in Calcutta where she reportedly worked twice as a volunteer. Through her avocation as a photographer, Penelope became involved in Tibet House in Barcelona by taking photos of Tibetan children in exile in Nepal for a charity exhibition. She actually met Mother Teresa when she went to Calcutta to work with her and the Dalai Lama when she went to Nepal.

It might be coincidence but the three actors broke up with their partners while working with Penelope, or so reports said, Cage with his wife Patricia Arquette, Damon with girlfriend Winona Ryder and Tom with Nicole (a report vehemently denied by Tom who insisted that he and Penelope became "friends" after his separation from Nicole).

At the Singapore presscon, held at the ballroom of the Four Seasons Hotel just adjacent to the Hilton where we were billetted and attended by entertainment print-media journalists from all over Asia, Tom was as evasive and as "guarded" as he was at a similar press junket (for Mission: Impossible 2) in Hong Kong middle of 2000 when his and Nicole’s marriage was honky-dory. But he wasn’t as uptight as he used to be when face-to-face with the media. In fact, he was laughing a lot, exchanging (meaningful?) glances with Penelope at the presidential table they were sharing with Vanilla Sky director Cameron Crowe. However, Tom wasn’t as open and as generous with information about his private life as he was during that landmark interview on Larry King Live.

Before finally firing the first salvo at Tom’s tightly-guarded private life, Larry King sort of "conditioned" Tom by asking him such harmless questions as those concerning his feelings and opinions about censorship, choice of roles, etc. And then, referring to the tabloid stories as "lies," Larry King caught Tom unaware by asking, "Okay, what happened with the guy who made charges about having a relationship with you? I know that you sued (the guy and the L.A. tabloid publisher). Did you win that suit?"

Looking straight at Larry King’s eye, Tom answered, "Of course, I sued him and I won. Of course, (that guy) was lying. I told my lawyer, ‘Get a retraction and sue him!’ That was it. You know, my life is so blessed and I don’t usually let myself be distracted by lies. But when those lies become too much and they start affecting my family, especially my children, then I have to do something to stop those lies."

Larry King didn’t have to ask Tom to recall and relive the painful details of his break-up with Nicole. No need to. The whole world knows. The details have been chronicled in tabloids and movie magazines. It happened, or so Nicole claimed in interviews and in her response papers filed in connection with the divorce case and settlement of properties, on Feb. 4 last year, one month and two weeks after they celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary on Dec. 24, 2000. Nicole testified that Tom walked out and that she had been pregnant with his child which she later miscarried.

All that Tom would say, as quoted in interviews, was, "Nicole knows the real reason why we broke up." Their divorce became final in August last year and the property settlement followed soon after, according to a People magazine account, with Tom getting his minifleet of planes (a Beech F90, a $100,000 Pitts S-2B and a $28-million-plus Gulfstream IV jet); a 10,000-square-foot home in Telluride, Colorado (resting on 28 acres of land with sweeping mountain views), among others. On the other hand, Nicole got the five-bedroom Pacific Palisades (California) mansion she shared with Tom for two years and a multi-storey waterfront home in Australia’s Sydney harbor, among others. (According to reports, Tom’s net worth is $250 million while that of Nicole is half that much.)

"Now I can wear high heels," Nicole, who at 5’10" is an inch taller than Tom (5’9), was quoted as goodnaturedly saying after the kinks (legal and otherwise) between her and Tom had been ironed out. "I’m looking forward to going out with taller guys."

Asked by Larry King if the separation (physical and legal) was "amicable," Tom candidly answered, "When you’re going through the steps, it was difficult at times. Do you know what I mean? But where we are now is really beautiful; I love Nicole, I’ll always love her."

Cruising the world with the Lady of Spain is very obviously a beautiful experience, too, as evidenced by the couple’s light mood (the jet lag, notwithstanding) even during the mild "grilling" at the Singapore presscon and, later that day, when they acknowledged the cheers of screaming fans lined along the red carpet from the sidewalk to the lobby of the Lido Theater on Orchard Road where the premiere was held. Tom and Penelope shook hands with the fans, signed autographs and even posed for souvenir photos with them.

They flew (with their entourage) to Singapore from Japan on Tom’s customized Gulfstream jet which stood ready to fly them to Seoul for another leg of the Vanilla Sky promo before Tom was to make a Christmas stopover in Sydney to visit Nicole and their kids. (In its latest issue, US Weekly reported that Tom and Penelope, along with her parents, spent the week after New Year in Tom’s Colorado hideaway where residents noted in the usually reclusive Tom an unusually unguarded public display of affection that went on as the couple headed for Las Vegas on Jan. 5 to watch a show by the flamboyant Siegfried & Roy at the Mirage Hotel.)

"Are you in love with this beautiful woman?" Larry King asked Tom who was caught so red-handed that he leaned back and laughed and laughed without answering, prompting Larry King to rephrase the "very personal" question. "Let’s put it this way... I’ll put it delicately. You are either the greatest actor in the history of mankind or you like this lady."

Put on the spot, Tom could only confess, "Of course, I do! Absolutely!" And then Tom proceeded to explain that as their roles in Vanilla Sky called for, they had to be in love with each other.

During the open forum at the Four Seasons Ballroom, we were tempted to ask (but we stopped ourselves from doing so) the same juicy questions Larry King was asking Tom on his show. But we were fully aware of certain "reminders" that we were not supposed to pry into Tom’s – and Penelope’s – personal lives and ask only questions relevant to Vanilla Sky.

So how did it feel working with Penelope?

"Great, just great! Penelope is a good actress and a joy to work with."

Penelope gave an almost similar answer to the same question.

During the very brief (not lasting longer than three minutes) "Q&A" along the red carpet a few minutes before the screening of Vanilla Sky at the Lido Theater, I asked Tom the most harmless question I could think of at that moment. You know, what does he remember most about the Philippines when he shot Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July in Ilocos Norte in the late ’80s?

"Oh," he said, flashing a wide smile, little beads of perspirations on his forehead glistening under the klieg lights on that humid afternoon. "I remember the smell of the place. I just loved that smell."

(Postscript: Asked by Larry King if he wanted Nicole to remarry, Tom said, "Yes, of course!" And would he marry again... soon? Again, Tom thought awhile before he answered. "I wouldn’t say I’m not getting married again because I would, someday. As of now... no plans." Oh, well, why spoil a beautiful romance by getting married again... soon?)