“I want to make something clear about that scene right now. Computers didn’t do it. It’s not CGI.” The speaker is Tom Cruise. The occasion is the press conference for his new movie, the Cameron Crowe-directed Vanilla Sky, and the scene in question involves the diminutive mega-star tearing around an entirely depopulated Times Square in sheer terror, as the camera veers 360 degrees around him (through fast edits) to reveal that he is completely alone in the universe. The logistics of this set-up may seem incredible, but clearly when you possess possibly the most recognisable face on the planet, the traffic literally does come to a halt on command. “We really did shut down Times Square which is something that had never been done before. It was a Sunday morning between about 6am and 8. That’s one of the things about this movie that was a total blast to me. I just love it when I get to do something that I’ve never done before in a film.”

By now, it’s over twenty years since a nineteen-year-old Thomas Cruise Mapother IV received his first break, appearing in the movie Endless Love (1981) – and apart from a brief lull at the beginning of the 1990s, his box-office appeal has endured considerably longer than any of his brat-packer contemporaries (Where are you now, the brothers Sheen?) The only son of four kids born to his nomadic parents, by the time he was fourteen he had attended 15 different schools in Canada and the US. Cruise would seem to crave permanency and belonging – at 14 years old, he enrolled in a Franciscan seminary with the intention of becoming a priest. He dropped out a year later but remained a devout Catholic until, in 1990, he renounced his beliefs and embraced L. Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology, claiming the movement had cured him of his dyslexia. Equally, aside from a couple of brief romantic dalliances (Melissa Gilbert and everybody’s favourite drag queen Cher were among them), Cruise has gone from one stable relationship to another. His first wife Mimi Rogers was, after four years, succeeded in 1990 by Nicole Kidman, who in turn was ousted last year by Spanish starlet and Vanilla Sky co-star Penelope Cruz.

Today, when a journalist enquires about the Cruise/Cruz blossoming romance on the Vanilla Sky set, Tom stresses that this was not the case – “This relationship wasn’t going on when we were making the picture. I can’t control what people write about my personal life, I was just going to make the movie... I will always love Nic, but I’m not someone who lives in the past. I’m a realist. We have a family together but I don’t get stuck in, you know, difficult things.” Then again, an admission to initiating the Cruz relationship during the production could affect a possible divorce settlement, or worse still, impact on his fight for joint custody of he and Kidman’s two adopted children, so it’s small wonder that Cruise sounds more magnanimous and guarded than Kidman on the subject of their divorce. (She was recently quoted as saying ‘Now, I can wear heels!’, in what sounded like a cheap shot relating to his 5-foot-7 stature).

Cruise being guarded, of course, is far from atypical behaviour. As the gutter press have discovered repeatedly over the last decade, the Cruise/Kidman coupling could seem more like a regime than a marriage. Indeed, any hint in the press of impropriety on their behalf was met with stringent litigation, as British tabloids and American supermarket rag-mags found to their considerable cost. Still, the recurring rumours – that one or both of them is gay, that their marriage is/was a sham – have persisted, much to both parties’ frustration.

As recently as May of last year, Cruise filed two separate $100 million lawsuits – the first was against Michael Davis, a man who allegedly offered to sell videotapes of himself having sex with the actor ‘in order to hurt the plaintiff and gain widespread publicity for himself’. The second action was filed against gay porn star Kyle Bradford, who claimed to have had a homosexual affair with Cruise in the French magazine Actustar (though Bradford later denied he had said anything of the kind).

By extension, Cruise has always been cautious with the film roles he chooses, generally sticking to the parts that best capitalise on his all-American golden boy persona. To some extent, this is unfortunate, as Cruise himself has always seemed keen to win weightier acclaim and awards than a perennial place in People magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People. Indeed, when he has taken roles that step outside his established iconic status – such as his powerful portrayal of scarred Vietnam combatant Ron Kovic in 1989’s Born On The Fourth Of July – a part he took on advice from Paul Newman as a means of exorcising the jingoistic ghosts of Top Gun – Cruise has proved his worth as an actor. He was again deployed to excellent effect as a slimy sex-guru (‘Tame the cunt!’) in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999).

Unfortunately, his riskiest role to date, in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, was less successful, and his performance met with a critical mauling. In Cruise’s defence, it should be noted that it was not so much his acting as his fame which undermined the film, it being virtually impossible for an audience to forget they were watching Cruise and Kidman.

Vanilla Sky, however, sees Cruise on much firmer ground, in a role that neatly subverts his typically flashy on-screen hero. Set in contemporary New York, the movie tells the story of David Aames, a wealthy publishing executive and playboy who meets the love of his life in struggling dancer Sophia (Penelope Cruz). When he accepts a lift with his jealous ex-girlfriend Julia (Cameron Diaz), who then drives the car off a bridge in a hysterical rage, it leaves her dead and him horrifically disfigured. This, though, is only the beginning of David’s journey through a surreal and vivid nightmare.

“You know, he’s got the money and the trappings and he’s sort of charismatic,” says Cruise of his character. “Cameron (Crowe, the director) referred to David as a Prince of New York. He’s a guy with a lot of potential, but he hasn’t necessarily worked hard for all he has – he’s inherited a huge publishing company – and he’s careless at times about other people and their feelings. He ends up paying a price for that, and the film charts this incredible journey of self-discovery that he goes on. Part of it’s a discussion of sex versus love, of relationships, of what friendship really is and how one person’s reality is very different from someone else’s.

“I think it’s complex, and you can make it as deep as you want to go, because in one way the film asks you to consider what the important things in life truly are. All of us make decisions every day and those decisions not only reflect on where we end up, but also have a ripple effect into other people’s lives. When I look at the world today and I see what happened on September 11th, I think a lot of the way I feel about life is very much in this picture and character.

“I always want it to be about quality,’ says the former Top Gun, Cocktail and Risky Business star, “so I’m careful about the films I do, ‘cos I always make a big commitment to each picture.” His next film, Minority Report, will be directed by Steven Spielberg, who also pops up in Vanilla Sky in a cameo appearance. “I love that the movie was as challenging as it was and something that I’d never done before. That’s what keeps it exciting and constantly surprising for me, and in a way I hope that’s the same for the audience. I hope when people see Vanilla Sky, they see it as something unique, a ride they’ve never taken before. People who have seen it tell me they sit there and think they’ve got it all worked out, and that lasts about one second and it’s gone. Just when you think there can’t be any more surprises, this film has another one. That’s one of the things I love about it most.”