Oscar winner Neil Jordan told how he was struck by Tom Cruise’s ‘vampiric’ lifestyle and “extreme vulnerability” when working together.
Jordan recalled how he first met Cruise when he starred in his famous 1994 gothic horror film Interview with the Vampire.
The legendary director told The Tommy Tiernan Show this weekend that he was immediately struck by Tom’s “chilling intensity.”
“I cast Tom Cruise in Interview With The Vampire,” the Academy Award-winning director said.
“Now, Tom Cruise, at the time, was the biggest star in the world.
“I’ve always admired him as an actor. I’ve seen him in Born on the Fourth of July and seen him in things and always thought there was something really interesting about this guy.
“When they recommended that I meet him to play this character, Lestat, I was kind of shocked, because he’s half the size that the character is described as, he’s quite small.
“I went to meet him and there was a chilly thing there, there was a chilling kind of concentration there that was extraordinary.
“His life, being a huge star, having to keep his privacy so kind of insanely intact, there was almost a vampiric thing about that. Do you understand what I mean?
“So, I saw somebody like him in a state of extreme vulnerability, actually, and having to prove himself in a strange way.”
Jordan also lifted the lid on his previous encounters with disgraced director Harvey Weinstein, and their working relationship on his flick, The Miracle.
Describing the film as ‘beautiful’, but ‘a flop’, the 71-year-old revealed he was dating the star of the movie, Beverly D’Angelo, at the time, before it turned sour.
Recalling how Weinstein got involved in the lovers tiff for the sake of the movie, he said:
“It was set in Bray, oddly enough and it was released by the dreaded Harvey Weinstein, in America, who bought it.
““Halfway through the movie, the relationship [with Beverly] was fractured, put it that way.
“And we would have these screaming matches.
“By the time it came to be released in the United States, ,myself and Beverly weren’t talking to each other.
“And Harvey Weinstein is calling me up saying ‘you gotta send her flowers’ and I was going, she isn’t even talking to me, I’m not going to send her flowers. So he sent her flowers. And she calls me up saying ‘What the f*ck you sending me flowers for.”
“So the release didn’t go very well, let’s put it that way,” he laughed.
Also on the popular Saturday night show was Dublin restaurateur Elaine Murphy and Laura Sutton, who shared their remarkable surrogacy story.
The final guest of the night, and the season was fashion designer Joanne Hynes.
Tiernan closed the highly acclaimed season by saying that he will return to RTE One with the sixth series next year.
