Posted on 07/19/2007 12:01:19 PM PDT by null and void
Filming started Thursday on a movie starring Tom Cruise as the real-life mastermind behind a plot to kill Adolf Hitler, amid German grumbling about the high-profile Scientologist playing a national hero.
A spokeswoman for Babelsberg Studios outside Berlin told AFP that director Bryan Singer ("The Usual Suspects") had begun shooting "Valkyrie" on location in the region surrounding the German capital.
German officials have baulked at the choice of Cruise to play Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, who was executed by firing squad in 1944 after the failed assassination attempt.
They cite the actor's ties to the Church of Scientology, which is viewed here as a "totalitarian" group that exploits vulnerable people, as making him unfit to play a German martyr.
"I find that Stauffenberg stood for the most noble motives a person can have," Frank Henkel, the general secretary of the Berlin chapter of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, told rolling news channel NTV.
"I consider Tom Cruise as a self-proclaimed ambassador of Scientology inappropriate for the role."
The remarks came after sharp criticism from a number of politicians and even Stauffenberg's eldest son Berthold, 72, who has told the German press that Cruise "should keep his hands off my father."
A spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology centre in Berlin, Sabine Weber, said the furore over Cruise's religion was discriminatory.
"The whole discussion about the faith or membership in a group of anyone should play no role in decisions of this kind," Weber said.
A spokesman for the finance ministry, which is responsible for granting permission to film at federal buildings, said that Singer had won approval for all the sites on his wish list with just one exception.
He said the Bendler Block, the former army headquarters in Berlin and now a memorial to the German resistance, where Stauffenberg was shot by the Nazis, would remain off-limits.
But he said Scientology had nothing to do with the decision.
"You can assume from the fact that we approved all the film location requests but one -- for reasons that all those involved consider reasonable -- that the beliefs of the actors are complet
Coffee spit on screen alert! (The photo)
I thought when I read this that Cruise would be playing Hitler.
I wonder of some of the film will be done in Gatow?.......
I think that what the inner circle, at least, of Scientologists really believe is that Scientology is a really great way to make a lot of money.
Tom Cruise is in the closet...and he won’t come out!
This is old news. It was posted a month ago.
As a test pilot type, I felt that he looked like a dork in USN pilot gear (Top Gun), and he looks luke an uber dork in Nazi gear. Besides, I didn’t know Hitler’s assassin was gay. Makes sense, Hitler spurned him and he reacted.
Didn’t show up on a search.
Think of this as a bump...
Tom Cruise may indeed be a dork, and Scientology is definitely a crock fit for dorks of all stripes, but Cruise's belief in Scientology doesn't make him unfit for any role, except perhaps that of a clergyman. Then again, the analogies that might be made for doing the Jim and Tammy Baker story would be worthwhile.
LOL! Cruise looks ridiculous in that uniform.
Someone should Photoshop that photo to make the wing appear over Mr. Cruise’s head.
Not to mention the fact that he was terrified of flying.
No worries. Anytime Tom cruise is exposed for the raving lunatic he is , is fine with me.
I enjoyed reading your Scientology thread. Now I understand what Tom cruise was possessed by when he started jumping up and down on Oprah saying Brooke Shields doesn’t understand psychology like “he” does.
He looks pretty authentic.... Of course many of the high-ranking nazis were, in fact, homosexual.
Tom Cruise, a kooky cult promoter, is like a rapist being the chairman of a women's crisis center.
Well, he is part of a “church” that holds the disabled with disdain and that they are better off eliminated.
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