Penelope Cruz and Tom Cruise
A new documentary reveals that Tom Cruise tried to convert his then-girlfriend Penelope Cruz to Scientology and asked her to forgo her Buddhist beliefs.
Mark 'Marty' Rathbun, former Inspector General of the Church, spoke out in a new documentary called 'Scientologists at War' on Britain's Channel 4, TV3.ie reports. Rathbun says top Scientologists were tasked with helping Tom recruit Penelope for auditing, which is the cleansing of negative influences in order to heighten spiritual awareness and access untapped potential in Scientology.
After three years together, Tom and Penelope split in 2004. It was later reported that Tom's Scientology beliefs were the main reason for their break-up.
Penelope is now married to Javier Bardem. Penelope is pregnant, and expecting her second child with Bardem. They have a two-year-old son, Leonardo, together.
According to TV3.ie, Marty said in the documentary: ''Cruise started making some noises about getting some help [from the Church of Scientology, and] Miscavige had me drop me everything.
''I helped him on his divorce from Nicole and then I was auditing him and I was helping him get Penelope auditing. I was helping him in all aspects of his life.''
Tom and his second wife Katie divorced in June 2012, after six years of marriage, and they have a seven-year-old daughter, Suri, together.
In other news, Yahoo! UK reports that Penelope Cruz is in the running to be the next Bond girl for the newest installment of the franchise. If the rumors are true, the 39-year-old actress would be the oldest woman to play the part.
interesting choice of words used to translate German story
Chicago play takes on celebrity culture
June 18, 2013
By: Diana Buendia
(Photo Courtesy of The Tomkat Project)
The TomKat Project actors playing Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise and David Miscavige, the leader of the Church of Scientology.
Six actors file into a black-box theater dressed all in black.
Julie Dahlinger, who portrays Hollywood star Katie Holmes, acts out verbatim dialogue from a Seventeen magazine interview, as her overprotective family from Toledo, Ohio, tells the audience how Holmes got the leading role in the late 90s teen drama Dawson’s Creek.
Walt Delaney, as a scrawnier version of Cruise, is heartbroken after the end of his relationship with Spanish actress Penelope Cruz. He’s always had bad luck with women, Cruise and his agent explain, and he blames it on his abusive father.
These quick-paced vignettes kick off The TomKat Project, a two-act play that takes on the most public of Hollywood relationships: the marriage and divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (known as TomKat in the tabloids).
The satirical play isn’t just trying to be funny. The TomKat Project is trying to send a message about our obsession with celebrity.
The different characters in the play – 54 in total – are played by seven actors. One moment, an actress is playing Nicole Kidman. The next, she’s playing Oprah for the public revelation of the TomKat relationship that comes, of course, through the infamous couch-jumping incident.
This world of celebrity gossip is all too familiar to the play’s writer and narrator, Brandon Ogborn. He’s an improv actor and aspiring TV and film writer with encyclopedic knowledge of the movie business. Tabloid chatter is like a newsfeed for his career.
But when news of the TomKat relationship flooded every media outlet, he got drawn into it as entertainment, like so many of us do.
“I’ll have, like, Yasmina Reza plays in my bag and instead of reading those while I’m waiting somewhere, I’ll be reading US magazine about Tom and Katie,” he said.
When Ogborn started writing a play about TomKat, he thought the couple would make good comedy. The eerie Scientology rumors that surrounded the TomKat relationship gave Ogborn plenty of material to work with.
The TomKat Project is complete with humorous reenactments of auditing sessions, the routine therapeutic meetings in Scientology in which Cruise supposedly revealed very personal details to fellow church members. Ogborn made David Miscavige, the head of the Church of Scientology, one of the main characters in the play.
But halfway through writing it, Ogborn had a realization that changed his approach to his subject: He started to question why 14-year-old girls and 45-year-old women end up having opinions about things like TomKat and Justin Bieber’s haircut. And Ogborn realized he was making the same mistake as some of the public—he was buying into a tabloid version of events that probably wasn’t true, or at least was greatly exaggerated.
“You might be an A-hole for thinking what you’ve read in tabloids over the years is true about these people, and about most other human beings that happen to have jobs in film and television and also happen to be attractive,” Ogborn said.
Ogborn takes that dilemma onstage in the second act, as he plays himself. He shows himself as the narrator and writer of The TomKat Project, questioning why he believes what he reads in the tabloids and why he even wrote a play about the VIP couple in the first place.
He physically tussles with the character of Maureen Orth (played by Allison Yolo), the Vanity Fair contributor who wrote a controversial cover story about TomKat last year. Ogborn accuses Orth of trying to make a name for herself by writing about celebrities. She accuses him of trying to turn lowbrow nonfiction into highbrow theater. Ogborn escorts her out of the theater.
Ironically, Ogborn himself is making a name out of writing about famous people. The play sold out most of its run at Lakeview’s Playground Theater, and took the stage last weekend at Just for Laughs Chicago. Now it’s heading to Second City’s UP Comedy Club on June 20, then moving on to New York’s Fringe Festival in August.
A DePaul University sociology professor who specializes in celebrity culture doesn’t share Ogborn’s conflicted feelings on dishing about them. Deena Weinstein recognizes the stars are easy targets—she calls writing a play on the TomKat relationship “kind of like shooting fish in a barrel.”
But she says gossip about other people is a tradition that goes way back in time, and she sees meaning in it.
“When we lived in small societies, we could gossip about people we know. Living in the metropolitan area, we don’t know very many people about whom we can gossip but we all feel we know celebrities,” Weinstein said.
She said many people today are increasingly isolated. They live farther from their families, and they may have hundreds of friends on Facebook, but only know a few of them well.
Weinstein says talking about Hollywood stars can provide a false sense of intimacy, and that can help some people feel less isolated.
Diana Buendía is a WBEZ arts and culture intern. Follow her @buendiag
LeBron James, Kanye West, Tim Tebow and Odds to Be the Messiah
Jon Ridewood is a writer for FanSided partner BroJackson.com. For more great content, head on over to Bro Jackson and check out Jon’s work.
While Kanye West has always draped himself with Christ imagery before, ‘Yeezus’ has taken the pose to its ultimate conclusion: Kanye West is a god. This has us thinking. Who are Kanye’s competitors as humanity’s one, true messiah?
Steve Jobs – 2/1: After the current and previous U.S. presidents, the mercurial Jobs is perhaps the single most important American of the last thirty years. The man gave us the game changing iPod, iPhone, and iPad. He brought style and fonts to computing and suffered a tragic, significant death. If Jobs is our messiah, then technological consumerism is our true religion. This is a safe bet.
Kurt Cobain – 40/1: Cobain is rock’s great Christ figure, dying for the sins of sleek corporate rock, but the odds of Cobain being the messiah have grown longer since his death. Cobain’s success gave birth to a million less talented imitators that destroyed the rock landscape for the latter half of a decade, almost like if the Crusades had occurred directly after Jesus’s death.
Allen Iverson – 100/1: Ann Iverson claimed in a 2002 Sports Illustrated profile of her son that she was a virgin when he was conceived. This keeps Allen Iverson’s odds high despite a steep fall from grace.
Keanu Reeves – 75/1: A tempting long shot bet: the messiah plays a Christ figure in a popular film. This would almost be as mind blowing as the original Matrix. Almost.
Jennifer Lawrence – 50/1: See above but the Hunger Games actress improves her chance by actually having talent.
Tom Cruise – 100/1: A bet that Tom Cruise is our messiah is a bet that scientology is the one true religion and that Tom Cruise will rise to the top of Scientology’s ranks. The latter is possible. According to “Going Clear”, Lawrence Wright’s Scientology exposé, Cruise has risen to the number three spot in the church. But to bet that scientology is anything but the creation of a brilliant, pathological liar is pure lunacy.
Barack Obama – 10/1: One of the most common critiques of the President is that he is more motivated by his legacy than leading the American people. While this is undoubtedly true of all politicians, what’s a better legacy move than dying for humanity’s sins? It’ll get you in the history books.
LeBron James – 40/1: Nike tried to brand him as a messiah with their ‘Witness’ campaign during the 2005 season, but his odds suffer because true messiahs would never lose in the finals.
Mel Gibson – 500/1: Too hateful, sure, but he is a glutton for punishment.
Russell Brand – 100/1: The motor-mouthed Brand has named his recent tour ‘Messiah Complex’ while claiming to have no messiah complex himself. His hairstyle and megalomania beg to differ, and he ups his chances by beingthoughtful and wise.
Timothy Richard Tebow – Even odds: Tebow is a man of faith who performs miracles and good works on and off the football field. I believe in Tebow, and it’s difficult to believe in anything. He is a strong bet.
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