No more Mr Nice Guy

Tom Cruise Mapother IV knows how to make an entrance. For other Hollywood talent doors merely swing open, but for Cruise black curtains magically part and suddenly the 42-year-old actor is in the room, wearing an expensive-looking brown pinstripe suit, grinning that

He makes instant eye contact, his handshake is firm and he seems larger than life - or at least larger than the stated 5ft 7in that allows industry wags to describe Cruise as 'the world's smallest biggest star'. Behind his back, of course. Who would dare say such a thing to Tom Cruise's face?

Other things have been said behind his back, too. After Vanilla Sky opened to devastating personal reviews and Minority Report staggered at the box office, the word was that the world's smallest biggest star was slipping. Nasty publicity around Cruise's mysterious divorce from Nicole Kidman was partially blamed, just as his unexpected parting from Penélope Cruz was cited for ruining his chance of an Oscar nomination for last year's The Last Samurai. Not that Cruise is about to discuss his love life. Ask and his gaze hardens - there's steel beneath the practised affability. 'Am I done with love? I will never be done with love. Ever. Ever. I love relationships and I love women. I'm the guy who's going to get married again. I will never give up on that.'

Still, if the public is beginning to think of you as a bad guy, why not play a bad guy for the first time? Collateral is one of those smart career swerves Cruise is famous for, like turning ratty and taking to a wheelchair for Born On The Fourth Of July, or playing a misogynist, 'inspirational' speaker in the indie film Magnolia. As sociopathic hit man Vincent, Cruise flaunts a smooth manner which makes you believe he could recruit a reluctant cab driver as his accessory as he commits five murders across one long noir night in Los Angeles. Cruise's first screen villain has garnered dream notices and reminded every studio chief in town why he stubbornly remains on top of the A-list.

'It wasn't like I said, "I want to play a villain",' Cruise insists, shrugging broad shoulders. 'But I wanted to be directed by Michael Mann and I just had a visceral reaction to this.' He was, he explains, intrigued by his character, who, despite committing truly heinous acts, retains a disturbing aura of likeability. Cruise draws a compelling analogy to explain Vincent's appeal. 'When Churchill used to talk about Hitler, one of the things he'd say was, "I'm glad I never met the man. I might have been charmed by the little devil."'

Tales of Cruise's own good heart abound though. In her Oscars speech, Renée Zellweger thanked Cruise, her Jerry Maguire co-star, for 'showing me that success and kindness are not mutually exclusive'. And whatever your view on his legendary red-carpet walkabouts, he always makes time for fans.

But there are stranger tales, too. Hot on the heels of the US release of Collateral, the famously loyal Cruise summarily dumped his publicist of 20 years, industry heavyweight Pat Kingsley, and installed his sister, Lee Anne, in her place. Lee Anne's daughter, who recently graduated from high school, has also just joined the family business. And since his divorce, Cruise has lived with his younger sister Cass and her three children.

Is this a star clearing the decks for the next stage of his career, or - more gossip - just a man struggling through a mid-life crisis? There's certainly a restlessness about him today that hasn't always been evident. He keeps checking his watch as our 30 minutes tick away, and it's clear he wants to see more of his children, Isabella, 12, and Connor, nine, of whom he shares custody with Kidman. Damaged by divorce himself - his electrical engineer father walked out and left Cruise, his mother and three sisters impoverished - he sees the children 'a lot', yet space must be pencilled in on what is probably an artfully presented Day Planner. 'I arrange my schedule around my kids,' he says. 'I actually think being a parent is very much like being a producer. It's a question of "how much attention here?" and "how much attention there?"'

Then there's how our conversation keeps circling back to taking risks. Cruise flies his own planes, rides his motorbikes fast and performs dangerous stunts that few other actors would dream of attempting. 'When I was four,' he says, 'I had this GI Joe doll with this little parachute. I'd always wanted to parachute so I ripped the sheets off my bed, strapped them to my back with a rope, jumped off the roof and knocked myself out.

'My mother didn't stop me from doing things,' he adds. 'I remember as a kid, I'd just leave the house and go for walks. Fortunately, my mother's a very patient, loving woman, and quite fearless herself. She wasn't afraid with some of my crazy stuff. She never screamed and said, "Oh my God, you're going to kill yourself." She'd say, "Look, if you're going to leave the house, come and get me and we'll go on these adventures together."'

Cruise's own children are brought up according to the tenets of Scientology - the spiritual movement Cruise and his sisters have belonged to for many years, and to which his devoutly Catholic mother has recently turned - although, he says, 'I really work on ensuring that my children learn to think for themselves.