Entertainment

Tom Cruise: The Mummy terrified me as a kid!

The star told how he hid in his sisters’ bedroom after watching the frightening 1932 film.
The star told how he hid in his sisters’ bedroom after watching the frightening 1932 film. The star told how he hid in his sisters’ bedroom after watching the frightening 1932 film.

Tom Cruise has said he was so terrified of the original The Mummy film as a child that he would sleep on his sisters’ bedroom floor.

Several decades later, the Hollywood star has faced his old fears and is taking the lead role in the latest remake of the horror fantasy franchise.

Speaking to ITV’s This Morning, the 54-year-old admitted: “I remember being six years old and seeing the old 1930s film on television.

Tom and the team launch The Mummy in Paris.
Tom and the team launch The Mummy in Paris.
Tom and the team launch The Mummy in Paris (Francois Mori/AP)

“My three sisters slept in one room and I was a guy so I had my own room… but afterwards I would have to sneak into their room and sleep on the floor, I was so terrified.”

Karl Freund’s The Mummy (1932) saw Boris Karloff play the undead Imhotep, intent on stalking the woman he believes to be his lover Ankh-es-en-amon (Zita Johann).

In this month’s new release, Tom will play soldier Nick Morton, who accidentally resurrects the spine-chilling Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) when he tries to dig up ancient artefacts in Iraq.

The action-packed movie will see him brave his customary hair-rising stunts, including a plane crash.

Asked if the ambitious moves were starting to take their toll after more than 30 years in the industry, he said: “You get a little banged up, but I train for it.“I section off these stunts so I’m not doing one fight sequence right after the other. I am very careful, I’m always training.”Of the plane crash scene, he added: “We decided to build the set inside the plane and shoot the crash from inside so that it would be authentic zero-gravity.“Some of the guys in the crew were losing it badly between the takes.”Saying he had been a daredevil since childhood, Cruise joked about how his mother used freshly baked cookies to bribe him down when he climbed tall trees.