The chemistry between Tom Cruise and ex-wife Nicole Kidman on the 1999 drama Eyes Wide Shut was tangible for many viewers, but the famed screenwriter behind the film said otherwise while boldly branding the box office star an “egocentric control freak,” RadarOnline.com has learned.
Frederic Raphael, now 91, authored an explosive new book titled Last Post, in which he detailed his falling out with legendary film director Stanley Kubrick and thoughts on Cruise, who starred as Bill Harford alongside Kidman’s Alice Harford in the hit erotica film.
Raphael stirred up drama with the Kubrick family after the release of his 1999 memoir, Eyes Wide Open, spilling secrets about their behind-the-scenes drama.
His latest work features letters that he wrote about their past experiences together, Daily Mail reported, calling out Kubrick yet again while dragging Cruise into the mix within some of the pages.
One letter to Kubrick had Raphael accusing Cruise, along with Kubrick’s wife, Christiane Harlan, and her brother, Jan Harlan, of trying to omit him from the director’s “history” and said he was being misrepresented online.
Christiane previously spoke out after his 1999 book and notably said, “Mr. Raphael’s analysis of Stanley’s personality bears no relation to the man we knew and loved so well.”
Raphael, nonetheless, made it clear he still felt slighted in his latest work.
“Until the Writers Guild intervened, they tried to eliminate me from the credits,” he alleged, adding, “The Harlans and Master Cruise have managed to insert some derogatory stuff in my Wikipedia entry.”
In that same letter, Raphael took special aim at the Jerry McGuire actor. “I have never been called a liar by anyone as I have been by the Harlan clan and by Tom Cruise, egocentric control freak to whom I have never spoken,” he wrote.
“[Cruise] did offer me a job though, soon after you finished shooting; the better to have me on a leash, no doubt. In his turn, he too seems to need the control he finds in Scientology,” the author alleged.
Eyes Wide Shut was Kubrick’s final film completed before his death in 1999. Kubrick suffered a heart attack just six days after he had screened the final cut.
In the aforementioned letter, Raphael went on to slam the casting choice while illuminating their power struggle.
“Was there something just a touch naïve in your idea that casting a married couple as a married couple would enable you to put ‘the truth’ on the screen?” he pondered.
“Did you honestly suppose Cruise and Kidman were bound in genuine passion, rather than embraced in a careerist merger?”