Cruise: 'I Get Paid Because I'm Worth It'

Writer-director Cameron Crowe, whose show business career began as a teenage celebrity interviewer for Rolling Stone, has returned to his earlier specialty by interviewing Tom Cruise in June's Vanity Fair.

Referring to Michael Caine's joking remark at the Oscars that if Cruise had beaten him for Best Supporting Actor, he would have had to lower his asking price, Cruise commented: "Michael Caine's speech was very funny, and I enjoyed that ... But I've never done work for money, ever.

"But [after the Oscars] I went home and I thought about it. And I thought, 'Is this what people think]?...Because I take it for granted that no one thinks that."

On the other hand, when Crowe asked Cruise about his $20-million-plus fees, he responded, "I get paid because I'm worth it, and they should pay me that much."

About the commercial failure of Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut," Cruise remarked, "I think [the public] expected some big sex movie."