Cruise Control: How Tom has changed Katie
On the first anniversary of Tom Cruise’s wedding to Katie Holmes, we look at the transformation of 28-year-old Katie, from fun-loving New Yorker to sedate Scientologist and mum-of-three.
Back in early 2005, Katie Holmes had the world at her feet. The in-demand actress had just finished filming Batman Begins, she’d relocated to New York and had begun dating heartthrob Josh Hartnett. So she was thrilled when she got a call to fly to Los Angeles to discuss a potential role in Mission Impossible 3. It was then that she first met her future husband, twice-divorced and 16 years her senior, across a boardroom table.
Katie was incommunicado for the next two weeks, emerging on Tom Cruise’s arm at the David di Donatello Awards in Rome, the Italian equivalent of the Oscars. The pair left no one in doubt about their blossoming relationship when they snogged on the red carpet in front of hundreds of photographers.
Tom obviously doesn’t believe in taking things slowly or living his life out of the limelight – in May, just two weeks later, he made his now-infamous appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, laughing manically and jumping on the couch as he declared his love for his new girlfriend, then running backstage and pulling a mortified Katie onto the set.
In June he proposed on top of the Eiffel tower and, in keeping with the public nature of the relationship, Tom happily showed off the five-caret ring to reporters at the base of the tower. Just hours later, he held a press conference to announce his big news. “Today is a magnificent day for me; I’m engaged to a magnificent woman,” the actor told a roomful of reporters. Katie was pregnant by July and daughter Suri was born in April 2006, the first anniversary of their first date.
Rushing To The Alter
TomKat, as they were now dubbed, married in an extravagant Scientology ceremony in Italy on November 18 2006, despite the fact that Katie was raised a devout Catholic. Tom’s best man was David Miscavige, the head of the Church of Scientology, and it’s been reported that a Scientology adviser sat at every table during the reception to answer questions about the unusual ceremony. The wedding guest list was seriously A-list – Victoria Beckham, Will Smith, Jennifer Lopez and Jim Carrey were among the stars that scored invites – but none of Katie’s co-stars, past or present, were on the list. No expense was spared during the ceremony – all the guests were kitted out in Armani and at the end of the night, the happy couple was serenaded by Italian singer Andrea Bocelli. It’s just a shame that 27-year-old Katie had no idea who he was.
In a little over a year, Katie had gone from being a single actress living in New York, to a married mother of three (she’s a step-mum to Tom’s two adopted children with Nicole Kidman, aged 12 and 14), living in a walled compound in Beverly Hills with her mother-in-law ensconced next door.
As the breakout star of long-running TV series Dawson’s Creek, Katie was once widely praised for her down-to-earth nature. But she now has little or no contact with her friends BC (‘Before Cruise’) including her best friend since childhood, Meghann Birie. Katie has forged an alliance with Victoria Beckham since the Beckhams moved to the United States, but their friendship has soured somewhat since Tom forbade Katie from appearing on Posh’s reality show, Coming To America.
Mission Accomplished
Katie’s budding film career was really beginning to take off when she met Tom in 2005. She had just finished filming Batman Begins, her most successful film to date, raking in nearly £200 million at the box office. But before long, Tom began tightening his grip on his young wife’s career – she surprised her co-stars by pulling out of The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, allegedly because Tom was unhappy about love scenes she would share with Christian Bale. He was also said to be upset over a topless scene in Thank You For Smoking, which Katie filmed before meeting Tom, and eyebrows were raised when the offending scene was mysteriously cut from the final edit of the film when it was showcased at the Sundance Film Festival.
Katie’s next film is Mad Money, specifically chosen by her agent because it is a female buddy movie with no love interest or sex scenes. It is a comedy about three women who plan to steal millions from the Federal Reserve Bank and also stars Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah. Despite the innocent nature of the film, Tom informed the movie’s director that he would be on set with Katie every single day of the six-week shoot, often with Suri and his mother in tow.
Not surprisingly, Tom is now hoping to produce all of Katie’s future film projects, as it's rumoured she is no longer receiving an abundance of scripts that she is interested in. That could be due to the fact that she fired her longtime manager on meeting Tom, and her new constant companion is “Scientologist chaperone” Jessica Feshbach Rodriguez. A senior member of the Church of Scientology, Rodriguez accompanies Katie everywhere, even sitting in on interviews and advising the star on what to say.
Early in 2008, Katie will start work on The Other Side, a film billed as a modern-day fairy tale in the spirit of Moulin Rouge or Amelie. She will star alongside Jason Lee, the star of the Channel 4 comedy My Name Is Earl and, luckily for Tom, a devout Scientologist. After filming is complete, Tom is eyeing a project he and Katie can star in together, with himself as the producer, of course.
What Katie Did Next
As the pair celebrates their first wedding anniversary on November 16, Katie’s transformation from fun-loving movie star to obedient Scientologist wife seems complete. She has ditched her pre-Tom friends, adopted a more restrained lifestyle in keeping with her husband’s beliefs (Tom doesn’t drink or smoke), and sports a simple hairstyle and minimalist make-up. According to reports, Tom isn't keen on his wife in full make-up and prefers a pale, understated look (wonder what he makes of Posh’s elaborate get-up?!).
But Katie may be about to claw back some of her lost independence. According to reports, she is considering enrolling daughter Suri in ‘kiddie Catholicism’ classes as soon as she’s old enough, and regrets the stress her relationship with Tom has placed on her parents. The youngest of five children, Katie was raised a Catholic and her parents were said to be dismayed when she embraced her husband’s controversial religion.
Katie has openly admitted she idolised Tom as a child and had posters of her hubby-to-be on her bedroom walls. “We all keep dreaming, and luckily dreams come true,” she said of her relationship. Let’s just hope, for Katie’s sake, she doesn’t wake up one day and realise it was all a nightmare
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Best wishes from Shahzad