Tom Cruise attends the 'The Mummy' New York Fan Event in June this year. Photo / Getty
Tom Cruise attends the 'The Mummy' New York Fan Event in June this year. Photo / Getty
Hollywood A-lister Tom Cruise gets older with each passing year - but his leading ladies stay exactly the same age.
It's a phenomenon tracked by movie industry website Film School Rejects in a new article tracking Cruise's career - complete with a Google Doc showing that as Cruise gets older, the age gap widens between he and his big screen female (and often romantic) leads.
At 55, Cruise may be well into middle age, but if this trend continues, his leading ladies will stay at around 30 years old for many years to come.
Don't believe us? Take a look at Cruise's film roles over the past decade of his career:
A 33-year-old Rosamund Pike stars alongside Cruise in this thriller. AGE GAP: 17 years
Oblivion (2013)
Cruise and 33-year-old Olga Kurylenko play interstellar housemates in this sci-fi drama. AGE GAP: 18 years
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Cruise teams up with British star Emily Blunt, 31 for another sci-fi adventure. AGE GAP: 20 years
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015)
Rebecca Ferguson, 31, is an undercover M16 agent working alongside Cruise in this Mission Impossible instalment. AGE GAP: 22 years
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016)
Actress and model Cobie Smulders, 34, teamed up with Cruise for this next instalment in the Jack Reacher franchise. AGE GAP: 20 years
The Mummy (2017)
This resurrection of The Mummy franchise pairs Cruise with actress Annabelle Wallis, 32, playing an archaeologist who has a complicated history with Cruise's character. AGE GAP: 22 years
American Made (2017)
In his latest film, a biopic about drug runner Barry Seal (who died at the age of 46, almost a decade younger than Cruise), Sarah Wright Olsen, 33, plays the star's on-screen wife. AGE GAP: 22 years
Actress Sarah Wright Olsen hosts a community garden in honor of Earth Day earlier this year. Photo / Getty
While sexism is rife in Hollywood, where actresses routinely struggle to find work after 'a certain age', some of the blame for Cruise's endless stream of age-inappropriate leading ladies could fall at the actor's feet, if reports from the set of The Mummy are to be believed.
Calling it a "textbook case of a movie star run amok," Variety quoted several sources from the film who say Cruise "exerted nearly complete creative oversight, essentially wearing all the hats and dictating even the smallest decisions on the set."
The mag reported that Cruise was contractually afforded input into just about every aspect of the film's production and promotion, from script approval through to when it would hit cinemas
