Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(99)
That changed as soon as the operation was over.
Schulman arrived with some more bad news. “I talked to your doctor,” she told Haggis. “He’s not going to allow you to go back to work for another four or five months. I’ve got to hire another director.”
“Fine,” Haggis responded. He said he’d talk it over with his doctor.
The doctor confirmed the decision. “Paul, it’s not just your heart attack,” he told him. “You’ve had an operation. It’ll put too much stress on your heart.”
“I totally understand,” Haggis replied. “Let me ask you how much stress you think I would be experiencing if I were just sitting at home while another director is finishing my f*cking film!”
Production was shut down for a week and a half until Haggis returned, with a nurse at his side who checked his vital signs every quarter hour. Sandra Bullock brought him green tea and refused to let him drink coffee. Every time Haggis tried to stand up, she told him to sit down. She had a kind of implacable maternal authority. He finished the film in his chair with a cup of tea in his hands.
Clint Eastwood had been asked to read Million Dollar Baby for the role of Frankie Dunn, the boxing coach. He loved the script, but said he would only do the role if he could direct as well. Although Haggis hated to surrender the opportunity to direct, he knew it would be a bigger picture if Eastwood were behind it. Hilary Swank was cast as Maggie Fitzgerald, a part that would bring her an Academy Award. Morgan Freeman also would win in a supporting role, and Eastwood for directing—all that in addition to winning the Oscar for Best Picture. Haggis would be nominated for Best Screenplay. But that was still on the horizon.
While he was still editing Crash, Haggis began writing another movie for Eastwood, Flags of Our Fathers. They went to visit the producer of that project, Steven Spielberg, on the set of War of the Worlds, which he was shooting with Tom Cruise. Spielberg had called Haggis to talk over an idea for another script.
[page]Haggis had met Cruise on a couple of occasions, once at a fund-raiser and again at the Celebrity Centre. As the most popular and sought-after leading man in Hollywood, Cruise was given perks that few other stars could match. He had asked Tommy Davis, now his full-time Scientology handler, to set up a tent on the set of War of the Worlds in order to distribute church materials to the crew and provide Scientology assists. The precedent alarmed many in Hollywood, and Spielberg was widely criticized for letting it happen.
“It’s really remarkable to me,” Spielberg observed, as he and Haggis walked to his trailer. “I’ve met all these Scientologists, and they seem like the nicest people.”
“Yeah, we keep all the evil ones in the closet,” Haggis replied.3
A couple of days later, Tommy Davis called Haggis at home and told him someone from senior management needed to see him urgently. Haggis had no idea what was going on. He assumed that the church was going to pressure him to take some more auditing or another course, as had happened so often in the past. Davis met him at the Celebrity Centre and escorted him to a room where Greg Wilhere was waiting. Wilhere, a handsome former college football player, was a senior executive in the church assigned to be Cruise’s personal auditor. (He accompanied the star even to the shooting of Days of Thunder, where a character in the movie was named after him.) Wilhere was livid because Haggis had upset Tom Cruise by subverting years of work on Cruise’s part to recruit Spielberg into the church.
“It was a joke,” Haggis protested. He said he had no idea how that could have undermined Cruise’s efforts to draw the most powerful man in Hollywood into Scientology. Wilhere said that Steven was having a problem with one of his seven children, and Tom was working to “steer him in the right direction.” All that was ruined, Wilhere said, because Spielberg now believed there were evil Scientologists who were locked in a closet.
Haggis felt like he was trapped in a farce. It all seemed wildly ridiculous, but he was the only one who thought so. Still, he’d be crazy to antagonize Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg. He offered to explain to Spielberg that he had been kidding, there were no evil Scientologists, and if there were, they wouldn’t be kept in a closet. He couldn’t believe that Spielberg would actually think he had been serious.
Wilhere was unappeased. He said Cruise was apoplectic. He directed Haggis to write the star a letter of apology—this minute. Haggis dutifully wrote out a note on the paper handed to him, but Wilhere said it wasn’t sufficient. Haggis wrote a more contrite note. Wilhere said he would pass it along. But Haggis never got a response from Cruise.4
Haggis came away from that meeting with a new appreciation of the significance of Tom Cruise to Scientology. He had heard that Cruise had often been enlisted to try to recruit famous people. They included James Packer, the richest man in Australia; David Beckham, the British soccer star, and his wife, Victoria, the former Spice Girl; and Cruise’s good friends, the actors Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, who later funded a school that used Hubbard educational techniques. But there was no one else like Spielberg. Had Cruise been successful in his efforts, it would have been a transformative moment in the history of the church, especially in its relation to Hollywood. It would have given reality to the mythology of Scientology’s influence in the entertainment industry. Who could guess how many recruits would flood into the church because of Spielberg’s imprimatur? Or how much money would pour into Scientology’s coffers by moguls and agents and aspiring movie stars seeking to gain favor? The ambition behind such a play on the part of the church was breathtaking. And Haggis had stepped into the middle of it with an innocent jest.