Tom Cruise was asked about artificial intelligence in filmmaking at BAFTA's Life in Pictures event in London on 21 September. Moderator Edith Bowman raised it, and he replied with an unplanned speech of about six minutes that drew applause, Deadline first reported.
“You know, it is coming and it’s going to happen. But people want to see real things.”
Tom Cruise, actor, at BAFTA's Life in Pictures event, to Variety · au.variety.com ↗
His view was that AI use will arrive regardless, but viewers still look for real things. He has no quarrel with streaming, he said, yet cinema is its own art form that brings people together. He cited this summer's record US box office, $4.76 billion from 1 May to Labor Day, and urged creatives to keep creating.
Cruise speaking into a microphone on a stage with a red backdrop
Getty (as shown on the page; no photographer named) · Image: Variety Australia
The question suits an actor known for practical effects and real stunts, whose last two Mission: Impossible films featured a rogue AI villain.
He also discussed Digger, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, in which he plays an oil tycoon in a fat suit and prosthetics that first took six hours to apply; it opened in cinemas on 2 October.