Hollywood Star Tom Cruise: AI Will Eventually Arrive, But People Want to See Reality
On September 21, local time, Tom Cruise spoke about the impact of AI on the film industry during a career retrospective talk at BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) in London. He stated, "It is coming, and it will happen, but people want to see real things." After his six-minute impromptu speech, BAFTA members gave him a six-minute standing ovation.
The event was held at BAFTA's headquarters in Piccadilly, London, hosted by Edith Bowman. The topic of AI was raised during the review of Cruise's career. He also mentioned, "Nothing can replace human beings," and emphasized that "people want that experience; they will go to the cinema. I always believe in humanity," adding, "Wherever you put your attention, that is where life will be," and urged his peers to "keep creating."
Cruise is known for his commitment to practical effects and performing high-risk stunts himself, relying less on CGI. He echoed this stance with his role in the "Mission: Impossible" series, including the upcoming "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One," where the recent sequels feature an out-of-control AI antagonist known as "the entity," which he described as a projection of people's anxiety about technology misuse.
His attitude towards AI is not purely one of resistance. In June, Cruise participated in SAG-AFTRA's negotiations regarding the use of generative AI, advocating for compensation for actors when their likeness or voice is digitally replicated, leaning more towards "regulated use" rather than a complete ban.
This speech coincides with the promotional period for his new film "Digger," which will be released on October 2. In the film, Cruise plays a wealthy oil tycoon wearing prosthetic effects makeup, which takes six hours to apply each day. He described it as the "most original film" he has encountered in his career.
From the perspective of voice and resource allocation, Cruise's statement serves as a public endorsement for Hollywood's "practical effects" camp—he is one of the few traditional stars who can still consistently draw in box office numbers in the hundreds of millions. His remarks objectively redirect industry attention and marketing budgets towards "live-action" and "cinema experience" as selling points. The direct beneficiaries are the stunt industry, on-location filming teams, and cinema exhibitors, while those under pressure are producers betting on low-cost AI-generated content, attempting to cut production budgets or weaken the status of theatrical releases.
As reference points, the AI antagonist setup in "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" and the scheduled release date of "Digger" on October 2 have become specific anchors frequently cited by the media in relation to Cruise's recent statements.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Cruise's insistence on "reality" is reflected in his specific choices throughout his career, rather than just impromptu statements. He has performed high-risk stunts such as climbing the Burj Khalifa in "Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol," hanging from the side of a departing plane in "Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation," and completing a motorcycle cliff dive in "Mission: Impossible – Fallout." These high-risk practical scenes have long been used as promotional selling points by his team. During the 2023 Hollywood actors' strike, the digital likeness rights were a core issue, and in June, Cruise personally attended SAG-AFTRA negotiations regarding generative AI usage regulations, advocating for producers to pay actors for the use of their digital likenesses and voices, maintaining a consistent logic in his actions.
From a capital perspective, Cruise's public statements essentially represent a redistribution of attention and budget. Using his star power, which still commands box office draw, he redirects industry and audience focus back to "practical effects" and "theatrical releases," indirectly influencing producers' decisions on special effects budget allocations. His role in the SAG-AFTRA negotiations aims to partially redirect the cost savings from AI doubles and digital replicas back to the actors' compensation system, essentially advocating for a redistribution of resources from producers and AI tool suppliers to performers.
Similar industry positions have existed before—James Cameron has publicly expressed cautious attitudes towards AI while gradually introducing AI tools into the visual effects pipeline of the "Avatar" series, showing a stance of "cautious embrace" rather than outright rejection. Hayao Miyazaki has taken a completely opposing stance, calling AI-generated animation "an insult to life itself." Cruise's position lies between the two: he does not advocate for a ban on AI but positions himself as the last defender of Hollywood's big-screen spectacle and traditional star system, deliberately occupying the scarce position of "real authenticity" in an industry phase where AI content supply is rapidly expanding.
The structural change behind this is essentially a shift in pricing power—when AI drives the marginal cost of content production towards zero, the scarcity no longer comes from "whether content can be produced" but shifts to "whether it is completed by real people and whether it has undergone physical risk validation" as credibility labels. The mechanism is that once supply exceeds demand, the original basic threshold of "content existence" loses its bargaining power, and the market automatically transfers the premium to attributes that are harder to replicate—real human physical risks and the credibility of the stars themselves, which is precisely the scarce resource that Cruise's statements and his practical strategy both bet on.