The Directors Guild of America awards (DGA) took place on Saturday, and the host was comedy director, Judd Apatow, who had some choice words about Tom Cruise.
Apatow’s jokes about the Top Gun: Maverick star revolved around his involvement with the Church of Scientology, his height, and his parenting – or lack thereof.
“The special effects in ‘Maverick’ were so top notch, I couldn’t even see the stack of phone books Tom Cruise sat on to reach the flight controls,” he started, per Variety.
“Remember when Tom Cruise jumped up and down on the couch and we all thought, ‘What a lunatic!’” he continued, referencing Cruise’s appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005. “And now he rides a motorcycle off a cliff and BASE jumps and we’re all like, ‘Tom’s fine!’”
“Tom is not fine,” Apatow declared. “Someone needs to explain to him something called CGI. You’re 60. Calm down. But every time he does one of these new stunts, it does feel like an ad for Scientology. I mean, is that in Dianetics? Because there’s nothing about jumping off a cliff in the Torah.”
Shifting from Cruise’s beliefs, Apatow turned to poking fun at Cruise’s questionable parenting techniques and views on medication.
“The only thing he seems to be afraid of is co-parenting and antidepressants,” he said. “I doubled my Prozac today just for this. I doubled it! Do you think if Tom Cruise took antidepressants, he’d be like, ‘I’m not jumping out of a f—king cliff. I’m rich!’”
The Mission: Impossible alum wasn’t the only subject on Apatow’s rant. He continued by making jokes about Austin Butler, Steven Spielberg, and even calling out the lack of diversity from the DGA’s best film director nominees, saying, “People are complaining this year that all five of the best director nominees are men. But that’s not true. One of the nominees is two men,” referencing Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who co-directed Everything Everywhere All At Once.
But Apatow didn’t stop at the expense of others. As any comic would, he made jokes about his own work in 2022.
“Do you know what it’s like to work hard, and then go see the Top 10 on Netflix, and you’re behind Is It Cake?” he said, referring to his 2022 Netflix movie, The Bubble, which didn’t do too well. “And then you watch Is It Cake? and you realize you like it better than your movie?”
Apatow has proven he can direct great comedy movies, however, despite his recent failure. He directed Step Brothers, Knocked Up, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and the Netflix series, Love, as well as receiving credits in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Superbad, Bridesmaids, and Pineapple Express.
Apatow’s jokes don’t always cater to mainstream opinion, as seen by Top Gun: Maverick’s director, Joseph Kosinski, who wasn’t amused by Judd’s comments on Cruise.
Kwan and Scheinert ended up winning the DGA award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film, for Everything Everywhere All At Once, starring Michelle Yeoh.
Sources:
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/judd-apatow-dga-tom-cruise-scientology-1235528263/
https://www.today.com/video/10-years-ago-tom-cruise-jumps-oprahs-couch-449205827898
