ABOUT THE CAST Making his film debut in 1981 with the critically acclaimed film Taps, TOM CRUISE (John Anderton) has experienced a distinguished career in the entertainment industry, and he shows no signs of slowing down 20 years later. Beginning his rise to stardom in 1983 with his Golden Globe-nominated performance in Risky Business, Cruise then created one of the most memorable characters of the eighties, flying-ace Maverick, in the top-grossing film of 1986, Top Gun. The role established him among the most bankable stars in Hollywood and added to his remarkable list of credits, which include the Academy Award-winning films Rain Man and The Color Of Money, as well as All The Right Moves, Legend, Cocktail, Days of Thunder, Far And Away, The Firm and Interview With The Vampire. In 1989 Cruise received his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor and won his first Golden Globe for his starring role in Born on the Fourth of July. More accolades and a Golden Globe nomination followed in 1992 with the Rob Reiner film, A Few Good Men. Cruise turned to producing in 1993 when he and partner Paula Wagner formed Cruise/Wagner Productions. In 1996 they created the blockbuster hit Mission: Impossible, and that same year, Cruise teamed up with writer/director Cameron Crowe on the critically-acclaimed Jerry Maguire, which garnered him a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and his second Golden Globe win. Both Cruise and Wagner were celebrated in 1997 by the Producer's Guild of America, when they were presented with the Nova Award for the Most Promising Producers in Theatrical Motion Pictures. The following year Cruise/Wagner released the critically acclaimed film Without Limits, written by the Oscar winning writer of Chinatown, Robert Towne. Once again proving his dramatic acting abilities, Cruise starred in the 1999 ensemble drama Magnolia. Applauded by critics and audiences alike, his powerful performance garnered him his third Academy Award nomination and his third Golden Globe win, this time for Best Supporting Actor. Cruise entered the new millennium serving once again as both producer and star in the sequel hit, Mission: Impossible 2, which gave Cruise/Wagner Productions one of the most successful franchises in history, grossing over one billion dollars to date. Earlier this year, the company also produced the highly-successful film The Others, which marked Cruise's first collaboration with the film's director Alejandro Amenabar, who also wrote and directed Abre Los Ojos, the romantic Spanish thriller upon which his most recent film, Vanilla Sky, was based. Vanilla Sky marked Cruise's second collaboration with respected writer/director Cameron Crowe. A testament to his critical and popular success, Cruise has surpassed many industry standards by receiving numerous awards, tributes and nominations which include: the Blockbuster® Entertainment Awards, the British Academy Awards, the Chicago Film Critics Association, the MTV Movie Awards™, the Golden Satellite Awards, the National Board of Review, the People's Choice Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards® and the Kid's Choice Awards. In 1987, the ShoWest Convention acknowledged Cruise as the Box Office Star of the Year, and in 1990, the American Cinema presented him with its Distinguished Achievement Award. He garnered the Hasty Pudding Man of the Year Award from Harvard University in 1994; and in 1996, he received the prestigious American Cinematheque Award for his significant contributions to the art of film and video. In 1998, the Artist Rights foundation recognized Cruise with the John Huston Award, an honor given to those known for safeguarding the integrity of the artistic process. As an actor, Cruise has established himself as one of the best and the brightest by working with other elite filmmakers, including Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Cameron Crowe, John Woo, Brian De Palma, Ron Howard, Neil Jordan, Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollack, Barry Levinson, Oliver Stone and Steven Spielberg. He also has had the privilege of working with such remarkable talent as Dustin Hoffman, Cuba Gooding Jr., Renée Zellweger, Brad Pitt, Julianne Moore, Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson and Paul Newman. Tom Cruise has made over 24 films, tallying almost 40 Oscar nominations between them, with a gross of over two billion dollars, clearly marking his place in Hollywood history. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ A native of Ireland, COLIN FARRELL (Danny Witwer) came to the attention of American audiences in Joel Schumacher's Tigerland. Farrell won a Best Actor award from the Boston Film Critics for his portrayal of a roughneck Texan recruit in boot camp during the Vietnam War. Most recently, he appeared with Bruce Willis in Hart's War. Farrell's early teen ambitions were to follow in his father's footsteps and become a football player. However, his interest soon turned toward acting, and he joined the Gaiety School of Drama in Dublin. Before completing his course, he landed in a role in Deirdre Purcell's miniseries Falling for a Dancer. A starring role in the BBC series Ballykissangel, in addition to a featured role in Tim Roth's directorial debut The War Zone soon followed. More recently, he has been seen in Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Dublin gangster movie Ordinary Decent Criminal, co-starring Kevin Spacey. He was also seen as Jesse James in American Outlaws. He recently starred for director James Foley in The Farm, opposite Al Pacino, and he will soon be seen in Phone Booth, a thriller that reunites him with director Joel Schumacher. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ SAMANTHA MORTON (Agatha) most recently appeared in the films Jesus' Son, directed by Alison McLean, and opposite Sean Penn in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000. Her feature film debut in Carine Adler's Under the Skin received widespread critical acclaim, and proved to be her breakthrough performance for which she was voted Best Actress by The Boston Society of Film Critics, and was nominated for Best Actress at the British Independent Film Awards in 1998. She has appeared in Bruce Beresford's Boswell for the Defense; Julien Temple's Pandaemonium; Amos Gitae's Eden; This is the Sea, with Gabriel Byrne, Dreaming of Joseph Lees, opposite Rupert Graves, and The Last Yellow, directed by Julian Farino. Her other credits include the made for television films Jane Eyre (as Jane Eyre), Tom Jones (for BBC TV), and the mini-series Emma, based on Jane Austen's novel. Morton will next be seen in Jim Sheridan's East of Harlem and Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ MAX VON SYDOW (Lamar Burgess), an internationally-renowned actor of more than a hundred films, received an Academy Award Best Actor nomination in 1988 for Pelle the Conqueror, one of only four men so honored in a foreign language role. Within the broad American filmgoing public, he is perhaps best known for his indelible portrayals of spiritual figures: Tracker in What Dreams May Come, Father Merrin in The Exorcist, an indomitable minister in Hawaii, and Christ in his American debut film, The Greatest Story Ever Told. Von Sydow played very different roles in such films as Snow Falling on Cedars, Non Ho Sonno (I Can't Sleep), Judge Dredd, Hannah and Her Sisters and Duet For One, and is memorable as the charismatic mercenary in Sydney Pollack's 1975 film, Three Days of the Condor. He has shared the screen with icons such as Conan the Barbarian, James Bond in Never Say Never Again and Flash Gordon. Though his career spans five decades and several languages, Von Sydow is mainly identified with the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, for whom he made ten now-classic films including The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring, Winter Light, Hour of the Wolf and The Magician. He also starred (with Liv Ullman) in two popular films directed by Jan Troell, The Emigrants and The New Land. A later Troell film, Hamsun, garnered him numerous European best actor awards. A scholarly, literate man, Von Sydow is the son of a professor at the Royal University of Lund, where he was born and raised. He began performing in student dramas. After military service, he enrolled at the Royal Academy in Stockholm and while there appeared in two films by another master, Alf Sjoberg (Only a Mother and Miss Julie). He commenced the Swedish equivalent of repertory after graduation and within four years had become one of Scandinavia's best known actors. He received the Royal Foundation Culture Award in 1954 when he was only 25 years old. In 1955 he joined the Malmo Municipal Theatre where Ingmar Bergman was chief director. Bergman directed him in such plays as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Peer Gynt and Faust. Their first film together, The Seventh Seal (1956), was an allegory in which von Sydow is cast as a disillusioned Knight who plays chess with a black-robed figure representing Death. The Seventh Seal won a special award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957 and was a huge success in American art houses. Three years later, another von Sydow/Bergman collaboration, The Virgin Spring, won the Academy's Best Foreign Film Oscar. Though he makes his home in France, with his wife, documentary filmmaker Catherine Brelet, the actor is constantly in motion to spots around the world. He has amassed a large body of international television work, including: Citizen X (HBO), The Last Place on Earth (U. K.'s Central Television), Radetzky March (Progefi) and, most recently, Solomon for Lux and The Princess and the Pauper for Anfri, both in Italy. Any request from Scandinavia gets special attention. When noted Bergman cinematographer Sven Nykvist made his directorial debut with The Ox, the actor was there to lend a supporting presence, as he also did for Bille August in The Best Intentions. He responded to the call of Danish director Lars Von Trier for Zentropa. A singular presence, von Sydow rightfully belongs in the company of unforgettable performers Scandinavia has given to the world. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ KATHRYN MORRIS (LARA CLARKE) was raised in Texas and Connecticut and began performing as a child. After attending Temple University in Philadelphia, she moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in acting classes. She soon began landing small parts in film and television and eventually was cast in more important roles in several miniseries, including a lead role in Showtime's highly acclaimed Inherit the Wind. Morris came to the attention of director Rod Lurie who cast her cast her in both Deterrence and subsequently in The Contender. It was in the latter that she won critical praise for her role as FBI Special Agent Paige Willomina. Likewise, it was her performance in the DreamWorksí release that brought her to the attention of Steven Spielberg. The director cast her in a small role in A.I., which led to her appearance in Minority Report. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ TIM BLAKE NELSON (Gideon) is an award-winning playwright, director and actor. Perhaps best known for his role as one of three convicts on the lam in O' Brother, Where Art Thou?, Nelson recently completed A Foreign Affair, in which he stars opposite David Arquette. He was also seen on screen in two films at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival - Cherish and A Good Girl. As a director, Nelson is perhaps best known for O, the controversial screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello, starring Mekhi Phifer, Josh Hartnett and Julia Stiles. Nelson also wrote and directed the critically acclaimed The Grey Zone, starring Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Mira Sorvino and David Arquette, which he based on his award-winning play. His debut as a filmmaker was in 1997 with the drama Eye of God, which he also wrote. Nelson's other screen credits include Hamlet, The Thin Red Line, Donnie Darko, Amateur, This is My Life and Dead Man's Walk. He has also acted extensively in the New York theatre where his credits include Oedipus, Troilus and Cressida, Les Bourgeois Avant-Garde, Mac Wellman's Dracula, The Amazon's Voice, Richard III and Twelfth Night. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ PETER STORMARE (Dr. Eddie) is best known to audiences as Steve Buscemi's psychopathic sidekick in the Coen brothers' Fargo. The Swedish actor has made a very successful career in Hollywood since his role in Penny Marshall's Awakenings in 1990. His film work includes Dancer in the Dark, Chocolat, The Million Dollar Hotel, Armageddon, The Big Lebowski and Flirting with Disaster, as well as the upcoming Windtalkers and The Tuxedo, among others. Stormare has appeared in numerous productions for the National Theatre of Sweden, including five classic plays directed by Ingmar Bergman. He also appeared in Bergman's Larmar och gor sig till for Swedish television and on screen in Fanny and Alexander. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Since the 1950s, LOIS SMITH (Iris Hineman) has appeared in a number of memorable films, including the classics East of Eden and Five Easy Pieces. Other credits include The Pledge, Tumbleweeds, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, Fried Green Tomatoes, Green Card and Dead Man Walking. © 2002 Twentieth Century Fox and DreamWorks L.L.C. All rights reserved. Property of Fox. Permission is hereby granted to newspapers and periodicals to reproduce this text in articles publicizing the distribution of the Motion Picture. All other use is strictly prohibited, including sale, duplication, or other transfers of this material. This press kit, in whole or in part, must not be leased, sold, or given away.