Fans enjoy Cruise's film premiere walkabout
Hollywood star Tom Cruise pleased his fans tonight with a two-and-a-half-hour walkabout.
The 45-year-old star refrained from any of the lively stunts that he has been lampooned for recently while he met the crowd at the world premiere of Lions For Lambs.
But after a previous incident in which the former Top Gun actor was squirted with a water pistol, organisers of this year’s premiere were taking no chances.
Bags were searched to check for any devices that could cause similar embarrassment at the red-carpet event, while TV crews were told not to do live interviews.
Cruise left behind new wife Katie Holmes, 28, and their 18-month-old daughter Suri to attend tonight’s premiere, signing autographs for fans who waited patiently in the cold and rain and being photographed with them.
The film, set in Afghanistan and in which Cruise plays the role of a US senator, follows a difficult year for the actor.
He was derided for professing his love so enthusiastically for former Dawson’s Creek star Holmes by jumping up and down on the sofa on the Oprah Winfrey Show and last summer his partnership with Paramount ended after 14 years.
Co-star Meryl Streep, 58, who plays a TV journalist, did not attend tonight and director Robert Redford, who also takes on a role in the film, appeared to have slipped in through the back door.
There were no A-list guests to be seen gracing the red carpet for tonight’s event, part of the 51st London Film Festival, in Leicester Square.
The Mission Impossible actor refused to spend any time speaking to the print media, with a film spokesman saying he had run out of time.
Cruise married Holmes in a castle in Italy last November following a divorce from Nicole Kidman in 2001.
Lions For Lambs is one of a dozen Hollywood films being made or set for release which touch on the aftermath of the September 11 attack, the war on terror or on the subject of a politically-divided US.
Released a year before the US presidential election, it has been dubbed anti-war propaganda by some conservatives in the country, but the film is being tipped as an Oscar contender because of its controversial subject matter.
