The Harvard Crimson recently had the opportunity to speak about the new movie Vanilla Sky with writer/director Cameron Crowe and film star Tom Cruise in a roundtable.

Q: Was this film a departure from past films for both of you?

Tom Cruise: I’ve always wanted to make different kinds of films. First of all, I never thought that I’d be able to do what I’m doing. I did Taps, Losing It, and I realized, “You know what? Here I am in this place. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m going to do the things that interest me and learn,”—and I learn from every film that I’ve made. I’ve always tried to do something that I felt was a challenge to me. And I feel very fortunate where I am. I’ve never taken for granted the opportunities I’ve had, and the gifts that I’ve been given by many people. So this kind of picture, it is out of bounds. It’s subject matter that I’m interested in, that I love talking about with Cameron—the effects of pop culture on society, what is casual sex, what is love. And to have Cameron Crowe direct you and write you in this kind of story—we knew you had to go hard to the basket with it. It’s a film that gives you a pop culture thrill ride, yet there’s all those other elements involved. Cameron has these jewels placed for the audience, all the clues are in there, and when you see the picture again, it’s a film that can mean more, or something different, the next time you see it. Films like that interest me. I’ve definitely made all kinds of movies, but this film—our second film together, and hopefully not our last—is a departure. Life is that way. It’s an evolution. You have to push yourself to learn about life, to learn about yourself, and you want it to reflect in the work that you do.

Cameron Crowe: To me, it’s just stories around a campfire. One guy says, “A kid is a young journalist, and his mother won’t let him listen to rock and roll,” and that’s one story. And then the next guy goes, “A guy has a nightmare that he’s alone in Times Square.” It’s all different ways of telling a story. This is a slightly different one than the last one, and to work with Tom, you get everything. You get all the benefits of a character, and all the benefits of a person that can represent love, and it’s just a joy.

Q: What about Tom Cruise as an actor made you want him for this role?

CC: We were definitely looking for something that we could do together, and we both loved Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). It’s just a great movie and a great jumping-off point for asking questions in a different way. I’m not a fan of movies where something happens physically and the whole movie is about the affliction. Sometimes they’re good, but it’s hard to get past the affliction into the story. This one, it just felt like part of the character, and Tom plays it that way. It’s a guy whose journey includes the effects of an accident. But as you know, people in real life have been through that, and they work very hard to show you who they are inside, and sometimes it only happens when they’re forced to show you what’s inside. And that’s how we played it. If you see the movie again, you start to go right past whatever physical affliction is present, and you see what’s going on in the person, and that’s a great thing. That’s why I made the movie.

Q: What brought you both to remake Abre Los Ojos, and what do you think you added?

TC: Well, we’re both big fans of Abre Los Ojos, and we spent a lot of time to make sure that [its director] Alejandro Amenábar was okay with it. But Abre Los Ojos is a story that asks a lot of interesting questions, and it’s a story that was open-ended. I loved Cameron’s approach to it. It’s a story that allows an artist such as Cameron, a writer and director, to come in and ask his own questions, and come to his own conclusions. And that’s where it opened up. The way that Cameron designed the picture was to have a dialogue between the two films. I’ve never seen that before. I’ve been offered a lot of foreign films to buy and remake, and I never have. But this was a universal story that was still open-ended, that still felt like it needed another chapter to be told. And when Alejandro saw it, he was amazed. The first thing he said to Cameron was, “I feel like we are two brothers, asking the same questions, but we have different answers.” I think that Open Your Eyes is very much an Alejandro Amenábar picture, and Vanilla Sky is very much a Cameron Crowe picture. His voice is in it, and you see the dialogue between pictures. When you look historically at films that have done this, they’re never approached in this way. It’s a remake, as opposed to a cover. And for me, someone who loves movies, I was fascinated to see what it was going to be like, and I felt that the characters that Cameron was going to bring to the table were very special.

Q: Cameron, was there a film that you watched for inspiration for this movie?

CC: When we were making the movie, Rain Man was on TV, and I came home and watched it. Rain Man really kicked my ass, because Barry Levinson is so good at creating a world of characters where every little twitch matters. And those are my favorite—movies that remind you that everything counts, that people watch everything, and that they see so much more than you’d ever dream they would. And in the same way, every little frame in this movie is packed with stuff, and everything the characters say matters. Any movie that you watch for inspiration would hopefully remind you that the audience is always listening and always watching, and that you shouldn’t squander the opportunity.