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All Heil Herr Cruise

Society Materials 20 July 2007 19:03 (UTC +04:00)
All Heil Herr Cruise

(metro.co.uk) - He's played a bar man, a pin-up fighter jet pilot and now Tom Cruise has unveiled his latest look as a Nazi. New images of the 45-year-old Hollywood star show him looking remarkably similar to Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, complete with eye-patch and receding hair line.

Cruise will play the German aristocrat in his new movie, Valkyrie, due to be filmed in Berlin and out next summer.

Stauffenberg was a German officer who led the secret 'July 20' plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944.

In the script, Stauffenberg, returns from Africa to join a German resistance. He leads a coup and is in charge of killing Hitler himself.

But as per usual with Cruise, the role is not absent from the controversy that comes with his territory - Scientology.

Some German MPs are protesting against him, as the country's government considers Scientology a 'commercial enterprise that takes advantage of vulnerable people.' Protesters say one of the few heroes of the Nazi era should not be played by a Scientology advocate.

Social Democratic MP Klaus Uwe Benneter said, Stauffenberg: 'is to be played by an actor whose sect, through dubious methods, attempts to lure people and make them pliable.'

'This is a slap in the face to all upstanding democrats, all resistance fighters during the Third Reich, and all victims of the Scientology sect.'

Cruise's production partner, Paula Wagner, said the actor jumped at the role, saying: 'As soon as we read the screenplay, we new this was a movie we had to make.'

Meanwhile back in Tinseltown, Cruise, has become neighbours with couch jumping buddy, Oprah Winfrey.

He and his wife Katie Holmes have reportedly splashed out on a new ?1.7million mansion next door to the chat show queen, in the exclusive Californian neighbourhood, Montecito.

The actor and Hollywood chum, Will Smith, are also reportedly planning a 'welcome to Hollywood bash' for new best friends the Beckhams this Sunday.

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