During Tom Cruise‘s 2002 Oscar speech, you could feel the eloquence and sense the confidence. In his physical prime, not quite 40. Planted, steady. He had the same settled, straight-from-the-shoulder quality during his big Producer’s Guild speech (the night before last). But I couldn’t stop looking at his somewhat somewhat smaller eyes, and especially those hints of Victor McLaglen** eye bags and the beginnings of a neck wattle. (He’ll probably want to do something about this stuff before long.)
As long as they take care of themselves, actors who were pretty-boy fetching in their 20s, 30s and early 40s usually develop fascinating faces when they hit their 50s and 60s. Will Cruise use his creased, older-guy features to some interesting dramatic end? Unlikely, based on his preferred choice of material over the last 20 years.
** I somehow never paid attention to the fact that Victor McLaglen was born in December 1886, which meant he was 13 years older than the calendar year. I had always presumed he was in his early 40s when he acted in Gunga Din in ’38 — he was actually 51 or 52.