Rock of Ages’ Tom Cruise for W Magazine

By Lynn Hirschberg
Photographs by Mario Sorrenti
Styled by Arianne Phillips

As a kid, did you sing around the house?
You know what? I did the scene from Risky Business around the house. I would sing Bob Seger—my mother worked, my sisters were out, and I’d turn the music up. I learned how to dance watching Soul Train. I noticed that if a guy could dance, he’d get a lot of attention and girls would want to dance with him. I worked very hard at imitating those moves.

Were you ever in a school musical?
In my senior year I was in Guys and Dolls. I was Nathan Detroit—the Sinatra part. I wish I’d had Ron Anderson back then. He would have made a big difference.

Why did you want to do a musical now?
Kate [Holmes, Cruise’s wife] loves musicals. She sings and dances, and we kind of went through the history of musicals together. And Suri loved Hairspray. With kids, you watch everything over and over; I watched Hairspray 15 times with Suri. I thought Adam Shankman did a great job directing the movie, so I arranged to meet him and said, “Where’s our musical?” He came back and said, “Rock of Ages.” We went and saw it in L.A., and for me…I didn’t know how to play the character like that. I had to find my own Stacee Jaxx.

You began training.
I needed to find out if I could really sing! Ron came in and worked with me. And then I had to learn how to play guitar. I’m very good at air guitar—and air drums—but I had never played an actual guitar. After working for weeks on Stacee’s technical skills, I was thinking about the character, and I said, “You know what? I need a monkey.” Adam said, “What the fuck are you talking about?” And I said, “I’m serious—I need a monkey” [laughs]. When Stacee’s not onstage, he’s kind of sad. And I thought, This guy has to have a monkey that’s his best friend. Adam found this baboon. He sent me the baboon’s audition tape, and I said, “The baboon’s name has to be Hey Man” [laughs]. Stacee Jaxx doesn’t work without Hey Man.

There are a lot of sexy scenes in this movie: At one point you’re climbing a stripper pole; in another scene, you’re grinding up against a ­Rolling Stone reporter, played by Malin Akerman.
I knew we had to push the sexuality because of the nature of the character and the songs. He’s singing, “I Want to Know What Love Is.” Adam has a sweetness with this stuff, so you can push things pretty hard. With Malin, I thought of Susan Sarandon in The Rocky Horror Picture Show—incredibly sexy and very sweet.

It’s hard to get that balance.
When you read a lot of rock biographies, you find that when these musicians are doing their work and it’s going well, that’s when they’re really alive. It’s all the other stuff—the noise and complications—that gets them into devilish behavior. Stacee is kind of floating until he comes onstage. That’s where he’s at home. Everything else is kind of a mess.

Was your goal to show something intimate?
Yes. It’s a little uncomfortable at times. But funny. Uncomfortable and funny: That was the goal.