The Passion of the Cruise

"Want to meet my mom?" Tom Cruise asks as we walk through the halls of the Celebrity Centre, ground zero for Scientology in Los Angeles.

Um, sure.

We round a corner and enter the president's office, where Mary Lee (a.k.a. Mom) has just ordered a salad. In town from Florida, she is leaning against a door frame near Lee Anne DeVette, Cruise's sister and publicist, and Tommy, who manages Cruise's philanthropy work. Mom is thin and tan, and she beams an even toothier smile than her son when she is introduced.

Considering that she is a practicing Catholic, it is somewhat surprising to see her in the Celebrity Centre. "I just finished taking the Way to Happiness course," she says. "I learned so much."

She pauses for a moment and reflects on the day's lesson: "And I thought I was happy before."

Cruise joined Scientology, the controversial church of religion and life philosophy started by L. Ron Hubbard, after church courses helped him overcome his dyslexia in the Eighties; he was followed, one by one, by his three sisters. His mother was the lone holdout in the clan. A year ago, however, after going through what she describes as "some things," she relented.

But doesn't Scientology conflict with her Catholicism? Not at all, she says: "I think Jesus wants me to be here right now. My church may not agree, but I personally know that."

We sit down on the couch, and Lee Anne puts in a video. It is a tape of Tom Cruise speaking at her daughter's graduation from the Delphian School, which uses L. Ron Hubbard's learning principles. It is a passionate speech, in which Cruise sings the praises of Hubbard's "Study Tech" and rails against psychiatry and psychiatric medication. After graduating, Lee Anne's daughter will work in Cruise's office. They're a tight little family.

On the surface, Cruise seems to be at a turning point in his life and career. Romantically, he is alone, having divorced Nicole Kidman after ten years and broken up with Penelope Cruz after three. And he recently left his longtime -- and notoriously overprotective -- publicist, Pat Kingsley, preferring representation by his family. Meanwhile, in his movies, he is taking steps to shed his old persona of headstrong-young-hotshot-with-a-good-heart-underneath-it-all in favor of progressively more evil characters -- from Lestat in Interview With the Vampire to Frank "T.J." Mackey in Magnolia to Vincent in his latest film, Collateral. An older character with salt-and-pepper hair, Vincent is not a nice guy: He is a cold-blooded killer and an unredeemable sociopath who leaves a trail of bodies in his wake.

But the most surprising change is that the famously press-phobic Cruise seems more open than ever about his commitment to Scientology, having provided funds for a detoxification clinic to help New York firefighters who became sick after 9/11.

Since Scientology, in the popular imagination, is such a loaded word -- often associated with heavy-handed recruitment tactics, strong-arm-lawyer assaults and steep membership and course fees -- one would think that Cruise wouldn't be so willing to take a journalist through that world.

"Who are those people that say those things?" Cruise asks when I bring it up over lunch one day. "Because I promise you, it isn't everybody. But I look at those people and I say, 'Bring it. I'm a Scientologist, man. What do you want to know?' I don't mind answering questions."