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were laid out like a banquet for public consumption. Several top executives at United
Artists, including Cruise’s partner, Paula Wagner, decided to leave.
Haggis was in his oce in Santa Monica when he got a call from Cruise. He hadn’t
heard a word from him since writing the apology for his wisecrack to Spielberg. Haggis
still had his deal at United Artists, which Cruise was running. Now the star had a favor
to ask. He wanted to gather a group of top Scientologists in Hollywood—Kirstie Alley,
Anne Archer, and Haggis—to go on Oprah or Larry King Live to denounce the attacks on
Cruise as religious persecution. Haggis told Cruise that was a terrible idea. He said that
Cruise should stop trying to be a mouthpiece for the church and go back to doing what
he does best—being a movie star. People love him for that, not for having the answers
to all of life’s problems. He also advised the star to have a sense of humor about himself
—something that is often lacking in Scientology. Instead of constantly going on the
attack, he might simply say, “Yeah, I get that it sounds crazy, but it works for me.” 4
Cruise didn’t want to hear what Haggis had to say at the time, but soon after this
conversation, he took a wildly comic turn in the Ben Stiller lm Tropic Thunder, playing
a profane studio executive who reminded a number of Hollywood insiders of Sumner
Redstone. He also went back on the Today show for another interview with Matt Lauer.
This time, he was chastened and introspective. “I came across as arrogant,” he admitted,
when reecting on their previous interview three years earlier. “That’s not who I am.
That’s not the person I am.… I’m here to entertain people. That’s who I am and what I
want to do.” Outside the windows of the studio, a crowd of people in the plaza of
Rockefeller Center waved and blew kisses.
HAGGIS WAS CASTING The Next Three Days in the summer of 2009, and he asked Jason Beghe
to read for the part of a detective. Beghe’s best-known lm role was as the love interest
for Demi Moore in G.I. Jane. In the late nineties, when Haggis had worked with the
gravel-voiced actor on a CBS series, Family Law, Beghe had been an occasional front
man for Scientology. He had come to the church, like so many others, through the
Beverly Hills Playhouse. In old promotional materials for the church, Beghe is quoted as
saying that Scientology is “a rocket ride to spiritual freedom.” He says that Miscavige
once called him “the poster boy for Scientology.”