Simon Pegg says Tom Cruise helped him get sober while they worked on the Mission: Impossible films. Pegg also said Cruise told him he had to get in shape if he was going to play an agent, turning a casting note into a personal reset that changed how he handled himself off camera.
2006 and six films
Pegg first played Benji Dunn in 2006's Mission: Impossible III, and by 2025 he had appeared in six Mission: Impossible films. That span gives his comments weight: this is not a passing set story, but a long-running working relationship inside a franchise built around Cruise's discipline and physical risk.
Gym work and sobriety
Pegg said he found joy in looking after himself and realized that eating well and going to the gym made him feel good. He credited Cruise and the spy franchise with helping him get sober after his character changed job positions, which makes the advice more than a movie-set anecdote; it reads like a practical shift in routine that carried into daily life.
He described Cruise as thoughtful and said he had a very big heart. In 2023, Pegg said Cruise made him feel welcome right away, and he added that “Of all the mist of stuff that's around him, in the center of that mist is a generous, sweet guy who looks after everybody,” while also saying, “He leads from the top down.”
Tom Cruise in the center
Pegg has also called Cruise “the last movie star of the old kind” and said he feels an obligation to the audience to risk his life for them to entertain them. That tension sits at the center of these comments: Cruise can look intense and hard-driving from the outside, while Pegg’s account puts generosity, encouragement, and day-to-day care in the same frame.
He also said Cruise is on the list of people who receive his coconut cake every Christmas, a small ritual that fits the larger picture better than any studio line ever could. For readers watching the Mission: Impossible franchise, the useful takeaway is simple: Pegg is describing Cruise not just as the face of the series, but as a force that shaped his work habits and his recovery.
