Tom Cruise pushed back on being labeled the "last movie star" during a rare interview with GQ, instead praising longtime friend Brad Pitt as one of several great talents still working in Hollywood.
The 64-year-old actor spoke with GQ's Zach Baron for a wide-ranging profile published on Tuesday. When Baron floated the description of Cruise as the last movie star, the Top Gun actor disagreed and pointed to other current performers, including 62-year-old Pitt.
"There's really talented actors. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, Brad Pitt is a great actor, great star, great charisma and there's many, many, many," Cruise said.
Cruise went on to describe learning the craft of filmmaking from the people around him early in his career. "I'm on the set with great craftsmen as a young kid and it's not just 1981 where they're there... it's generational, so as you're making movies, you're learning from other people, and then you're making it your own, but you're learning it is a skill making films," he said.
Cruise and Pitt have appeared on screen together only once, in 1994's Interview with the Vampire. Cruise played the French vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, who turns Pitt's character, 18th-century drunkard Louis de Pointe du Lac, into a vampire.
The pair have remained friendly in the years since, with Cruise joining Pitt on the red carpet for the London premiere of F1 in June 2025.
Suri Cruise's name change
The interview came as another parallel emerged between the two stars: their children distancing themselves from famous surnames. In July, Cruise and Katie Holmes's 20-year-old daughter Suri legally dropped her father's last name, changing it from Suri Cruise to Suri Noelle, taking her mother's middle name.
According to voter registration records obtained by The Daily Mail, Suri registered to vote in Pennsylvania, where she attends Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, in October 2024 under the name Suri Noelle. Pennsylvania law requires residents to register using their legal name.
Suri registered in Allegheny County but did not file a name change request there, suggesting according to Page Six, which first reported the story, that the change may have been filed in New York before she left for college. The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives for Cruise and Holmes for comment.
Cruise has reportedly been estranged from his daughter for years following his 2012 divorce from Holmes, 47, and her decision to leave Scientology. Suri's move follows a similar path taken by several of Pitt and Angelina Jolie's children amid their own ongoing estrangement from their father.
Before college, Suri lived with Holmes, who is currently dating 39-year-old artist Jason Bard Yarmosky, in New York, where name change records are typically sealed. While the exact date of her legal change is unclear, Suri had been using the name Noelle publicly for years, including at her high school graduation in June 2024 and on the casting sheet for her senior year production of The Addams Family: A New Musical, according to Yahoo.
Holmes married Cruise in 2006 and filed for divorce in 2012. She has had custody of Suri ever since, and the teenager has reportedly had no relationship with her father since 2013.
Brad Pitt's children drop his last name
Pitt's son Maddox, 25, has also legally removed Pitt from his name, following his younger sibling Shiloh, 20, who did the same. Their siblings Zahara, 21, and fraternal twins Vivienne and Knox, 18, have informally stopped using their father's surname and plan to make the change legal.
A Los Angeles judge granted Maddox's petition on Monday, officially changing his name to Maddox Chivan Jolie, according to Page Six. "There are no objections, the petition for change of name is granted," the court order stated. "The Decree is signed and filed. The Petitioner's name is changed from Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt to Maddox Chivan Jolie."
Maddox attended the hearing at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse remotely, alongside his attorney, Peter Levine. Earlier this year, Maddox and Zahara had published legal notices in the Los Angeles Daily Journal declaring their intent to drop their father's surname. Zahara has a name change hearing scheduled for September 28.
In July 2024, Shiloh's attorney made a statement regarding her decision to drop her father's last name. She had filed for the change on her birthday in May, with the move publicly announced through a legal notice in the Los Angeles Times.
Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston from 2000 to 2005 before beginning a relationship with Jolie, now 51, his co-star in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Pitt and Jolie split in 2016 after a 12-year relationship and two-year marriage, with their divorce finalized eight years later in December 2024.
