"Tom Cruise offered his most extensive public personal interview to date Monday night at UCLA discussing his career, family, Scientology and a few secrets he's never before divulged.

I've never done anything like this before, with showing clips, says Cruise, laughing as he watched many of his movies shown on a big screen at a capacity crowd of 1,800 in Royce Hall. His family and friends, as well as longtime collaborator Paula Wagner was in the audience watching.

A Conversation with Tom Cruise was sponsored by the American Film Institute and run by DreamWorks, and although it was filmed for UCLA archival purposes, there were strict restrictions about recording the informative chat, with some journalists' tape recorders and cameras confiscated during the nearly three-hour retrospective of his career.

Wearing a black leather jacket, black shirt and jeans, Cruise spent an hour before the event chatting with a few dozen film critics and entertainment journalists at a reception. Then, he relaxed in a lounge chair on stage while writer Chris Connelly asked questions and fielded questions from the crowd, who gave the actor three standing ovations.

Earlier in the day he says he was on the set of a remake of War of the Worlds with Steven Spielberg. He says he was doing an emotional scene as Justin Chatwin, an estranged father in the middle of a Martian invasion of Earth.

As I was looking at a photograph I found of my son in the scene, Steven told me to think of the good times I had with my own son, and to get into the mood that way, Cruise explains. Things like that really help.

But, unlike many of his fellow actors, he's not into Method Acting, saying, I tried it and it doesn't work for me.

Click here to read about the rest of the night.

Source: Variety"