Your mission: spot Tom Cruise
Hollywood A-lister has been getting around as he films blockbuster in city
AFEW decades ago you might be lucky to spot a member of the Crossroads cast on the streets of Birmingham.
How times have changed. Nowadays Birmingham is becoming something of an epicentre of big budget film-making – and right now Hollywood’s finest appears to be everywhere.
Mission: Impossible actor and producer Tom Cruise is currently filming scenes for the seventh instalment of the movie franchise in Birmingham’s Grand Central shopping centre.
And commuters below in New Street Station have been straining their necks to catch a glimpse of the star as he films upstairs, which has been decked out to look like a Middle Eastern airport.
They weren’t disappointed as the star waved and blew kisses to fans in between takes this week with co-star Hayley Atwell.
And Cruise is still finding time to charm the locals elsewhere, it seems.
The A-lister stopped on Monday for a brief chat outside the city’s Grand Hotel with passer-by Phil Oldershaw.
Walking his dog Dylan, Mr Oldershaw had seen Cruise hours earlier at Grand Central only to bump into him again outside the hotel entrance in Church Street.
Posting on his Facebook page, Mr
Oldershaw said: “I was walking the dog and we got to meet Tom Cruise. He was charming.
“He was chatty. I asked if he’s enjoying Birmingham. He said ‘definitely, it’s a lovely city.’ I asked ‘how’s filming?’ He said ‘it’s going very well indeed’.
“I asked if he liked Dylan, he said he was ‘a real cutie’.”
But, asked if he wanted a picture with Mr Oldershaw’s pet, the movie star declined. “He said ‘no thanks’. I said see you around Tom. He said ‘sure thing’ and waved.”
On Saturday night Cruise was also spotted eating nearby at Asha’s Indian restaurant in Newhall Street.
Asha’s general manager Nouman Farooqui was delighted with the attention the visit garnered.
The restaurant was only told hours
before that Cruise was going to be coming in.
When the star arrived at 6pm along with five others and a security detail, he insisted he should not be treated differently to anybody else.
The group was even happy to sit on a table in the middle of the restaurant.
Their meal was so low key that not everybody inside recognised him or was aware they were dining so close to Hollywood royalty.
Mr Farooqui said: “Tom arrived at 6pm. When he came he said he didn’t want any fuss and just wanted to be part of the atmosphere.
“He wanted a meal just like any other guest and simply wanted to enjoy an authentic Indian meal.
“A few diners recognised him but not all. Nobody made a fuss, though when he left people went a little bit crazy.
“He agreed to have his picture taken outside in a socially-distanced way and had his mask on for the first picture.
“He then took his mask off and said: ‘Take another one’.”
Mr Farooqui said the party was sharing meals – with Cruise enjoying what he’d had of his first chicken tikka masala so much that he ordered a second portion.
He added: “Tom asked for it to be served with extra spices and he really liked it. Once he’d finished it he ordered a second portion.
“He wasn’t drinking alcohol so it was all washed down with Birmingham water, which is my favourite in the whole country, nowhere else tastes as good.”
Lights were set up above the Grand Central atrium in what is expected to lead to the filming of a stunt, possibly this week to tie in with the Bank Holiday. But Mr Farooqui said Cruise had not divulged any filming secrets, though admitted he was in the city ‘for a few days’.
“He is my all-time favourite actor,” said Mr Farooqui, who has run Asha’s for ten years. I love all of the Mission: Impossible series and can’t wait for the new Top Gun film, too, because he does his own stunts.”
A Warwickshire family were also stunned when Cruise recently dropped into their back garden – literally.
A helicopter piloted by the star landed in Alison Webb’s field in Baginton, near Coventry.
Mrs Webb said two men arrived at her front door, asking if a helicopter could land as they were looking for a space after Coventry Airport had closed.
“I thought it would be kind of cool for the kids to see the helicopter land in the garden,” Mrs Webb said.
“Tom Cruise basically arrived and got out and it was like, ‘Wow’. He went over to the children for a chat, then came over and elbow bumped us and said thank you very much.”
Cruise paid the family back by letting her children and her partner Neil take a ride around the field in the chopper.