Actor Tom Cruise has won viral praise after security camera footage captured him stopping to comfort a woman he believed was in distress.
The 64-year-old Hollywood star approached the worker during her break, only to discover that she was entirely unharmed and simply reading her phone.
The employee posted the security video on her TikTok account under the username Klementina. TikTok is a popular short-form video platform where clip shares routinely go viral.
In the clip, Cruise appears smartly dressed as he walks through what looks like a backstage area and hallway. He spots the worker crouched in a corner wearing a white shirt and an apron.
Unaware of his presence, she was focused on her phone screen while doomscrolling, a phrase describing the habit of compulsively reading negative news online.
Security camera footage
Cruise gently taps her on the shoulder to check if she is okay. The employee looks up suddenly and does an immediate double take after realising who he is.
After he realises she is in fact fine, the woman gets up to shake his hand, looking completely shocked by the encounter. They then wave to each other as Cruise walks off.
Writing in her video caption, the worker explained that she was in complete shock during the initial meeting and could only stutter out his name. When Cruise walked past her again later, she had processed what happened and asked him for a photo.
Red hair at London premiere
The encounter took place while Cruise was on a promotional tour for his new film, Digger.
Last Tuesday night, Cruise surprised fans by debuting bright red hair at the star-studded premiere for the film in London, ditching his usual brunette style as he arrived at Leicester Square. Leicester Square is a celebrated cinema precinct in London's West End known for hosting major film premieres.
Cruise cut a dapper figure on the red carpet in a tuxedo, dark shades, and a pair of shiny heeled boots to boost his height while posing for cameras.
A series of Cruise's co-stars attended the premiere alongside him, including Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Riz Ahmed, and Sophie Wilde. The Prince and Princess of Wales were also among the attendees at the event.
Transformation for movie role
The bold red hair followed an even more dramatic transformation for his character Digger Rockwell. To play the oil tycoon and billionaire who accidentally triggers a global ecological crisis, Cruise wore a bodysuit and prosthetics to age his appearance in the Alejandro González Iñárritu-directed film.
The film trailer shows Cruise with thinning white hair, a prosthetic pot belly, and a thick Southern accent. In the story, Digger is tasked by the President of the United States, played by John Goodman, to save the planet.
The tagline on the movie poster describes Digger as a comedy of catastrophic proportions. Cruise previously filmed the movie in the United Kingdom during a six-month production schedule.
Oscar buzz and director collaboration
Reacting to the trailer online, fans have tipped Cruise for an Oscar. One viewer wrote: "Finally, a movie where Tom Cruise's most dangerous stunt is raw unfiltered acting."
Another fan remarked that seeing an old Tom Cruise is wild, while a third commented: "I love how every once in a while Cruise does a movie that's just 'oh yeah, I can actually act when I feel like it'."
Other fans added that Tom Cruise looks so unrecognizable here it's amazing and predicted that the Tom Cruise Oscar campaign is going to be LEGENDARY. The Academy Awards, commonly called the Oscars, are the film industry's highest honors.
Digger is directed by four-time Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu, the acclaimed Mexican filmmaker known for his work on Birdman and The Revenant. He is also co-producing the movie with Cruise.
González Iñárritu praised Cruise's transformation, saying the actor told him during filming: "Alejandro, it took me 40 years to become this character."
The director recalled: "And I think we both know what it means to carry an entire career into a single moment like this. We both knew that throughout our journeys, we had never done anything even close to this."
Diversion from action stunts
Digger represents a major creative diversion for Cruise, who has become world-famous for performing extreme real-world stunts in action blockbusters.
His famous feats include scaling Dubai's 828-metre Burj Khalifa skyscraper for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, dangling from an airborne Airbus 400 military aircraft for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, and driving a motorcycle off a cliff for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.
