Continuing with “Celebrity Day” on Casual Fridays…
There’s a lot of criticism and curiosity swirling around Tom Cruise and his abrupt change in public image. I’m no armchair publicist, so I won’t try to give my advice on what Tom should/should not be doing. Who knows, maybe teenny-bopper love and couch jumping are celebrity status symbols now.
With his previous publicist, Cruise was fairly sheltered. Interviews were select and so were the questions. In the vacuum of personal knowledge, Tom Cruise was identified more by the characters he played, than by his own personality.
Now, with his sister as his publicist, Cruise is opening up the curtain to give us a glimpse of his personal beliefs and passions. He has been gushingly open about his relationship with 26 year-old Katie Holmes, jumping on couches and performing Will Ferrell-like cheerleading drills during talk show interviews. He then jumps all over Matt Lauer discussing psychiatry and mood-altering prescriptions on the Today Show.
What effect did this have? War of the Worlds was still a box office hit and Cruise is in the spotlight for better or worse. We’ll have to wait and see the longterm effects of Tom Cruise’s latest publicity circuit, but for now the public is confused as to whether they should hang on to their previous perception of Cruise or accept the new one he’s presenting.
What do we learn?
1. Letting your performance speak for you, instead of your words, can be powerful.
2. When you change that tune and your voice begins to center around what is important to YOU, it can confuse people.
3. Changing from a professional image to a personal image is dangerous, but may have upside
Remember #3 if you’re thinking of adding a blog to your company website. Blogging is personal. Do you want customers to see that side of you? If your answer is no, maybe you’ve got some internal issues to work out.
I like Tom Cruise himself and I think he’s a really great actor, and is great at putting up an act even when he’s not on stage. His and Katie’s clothes on the Red Carpet at the UK _Valkyrie_ premiere were just very great. I went and looked over Scientology to see what it was about it that attracted to Tom Cruise. But, all it is about is an artificial act and honesty isn’t important there. It is just about putting on an act and I’m not good at putting on an act at all. I’m a writer and not an actor. A writer can use actors, but things that are about the act, can’t use any writers. I feel that Star Trek was more of the vision that America needed and not what Scientology offers, though much of it is good, but you can’t really make it work or it just wasn’t going to work for me. I’m 46 and set in my ways too much to change my act up too much at this point in my life. I’m also a former Girl Scout, an Alpha Phi Omega, and a I’m a fan of Star Trek, but a lot of my values conflict with the values of Scientology even if there is a lot of stuff in it that’s good, it just wasn’t the right Fraternity for me. Sincerely, I love Tom Cruise and I thought he did real well in _Valkyrie_ and I liked that movie and its topic, but I know that Scientology and I, we just don’t go together. We just aren’t a good fit for each other. I can’t lie through my teeth like that.