Actor, Tom Cruise meets the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky

In 2005 Tom Cruise jumped all over Oprah Winfrey’s couch—and in doing so prompted a nation to reassess the being that is Tom Cruise. Who is he, really? we all wondered, and what other feats of weirdness is he capable of? But even then, it would have been hard to believe the following sentence: “Tom Cruise Meets Ukrainian President to Talk New Film.”

No, really! In fact, that’s the very headline the Hollywood Reporter used to reveal that—yes, we’ll repeat that one more time—Tom Cruise recently met Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, reportedly to discuss locations for an upcoming film project. This, just days after Congress launched impeachment proceedings due to a phone call in which Donald Trump pressured Zelensky to dig up compromising information on Joe Biden.

Per THR, the Ukrainian president’s press surrogates said in a statement that “Cruise told Zelensky that he was interested in Ukrainian locations for the filming of one of his new film projects,” but did not reveal identifying details about the project beyond that. (THR does report, however, that there was some speculation that Cruise was filming the latest Mission: Impossible film in the former Soviet country.) Ukrainian representatives added that Cruise and Zelensky discussed Ukraine’s new tax-rebate system for film producers, and THR reports that in footage of the meeting, Zelensky can be seen calling Cruise “good looking.” The actor’s response? “It pays the rent.”

Source: Vanity Fair