Cruise holds silence on Berlin set
Monday, 24 Sep 2007 11:21
Tom Cruise is filming Valkyrie in Berlin
Tom Cruise led the cast and crew of Valkyrie in a minute's silence to honour the film's anti-Nazi heroes yesterday.
Cruise plays Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg, the Wehrmacht leader of a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, in the film which is set in 1944.
Although the device exploded it failed to kill Hitler and instead the botched coup led to a brutal crackdown on the plot's instigators.
The site on which several army officers were executed in Berlin, the Benderblock, is revered by the German military as a symbol of their resistance to Nazism and it was only after months of negotiations that they allowed the execution scenes to be filmed on set.
It was before the shooting of this sensitive scene that the minute's silence took place.
Earlier this year the Valkyrie team faced a refusal from the German defence ministry for another reason – Cruise's membership of the Scientology "cult".
Paula Wagner, Cruise's production partner, said at the time of the dispute that the actor's "personal beliefs have absolutely no bearing on the movie's plot, themes or content".
There are conflicting reports as to whether the Scientology issue influenced the argument against filming.