Billy Crudup felt 'humiliated' after Tom Cruise gave him cue cards on movie set

Billy Crudup has recalled how he felt "humiliated" after Tom Cruise offered him cue cards on the set of their 2006 movie, Mission: Impossible III.

During a recent interview for the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast, the actor recounted how the writers and director, J. J. Abrams, didn't finish work on a key "page-long" monologue for the action feature until the morning of the shoot.

Billy noted that he can usually memorise lines if he has "time" with the script, but due to the deadline, he was super anxious on set.

"The morning we're shooting it, in the trailer, I get the pages. Cut to Tom tied up (for the scene), me off camera, reading the text. Turn around to me, total panic attack, melting under pressure, can't remember anything. This is what Tom Cruise does. (He says), 'Billy, you ever worked with cue cards?' And was like, 'Uh, no, Tom, I have not.' (He announced), 'We're working with cue cards today.'"

Billy remembered how Tom had a production assistant write up the entire monologue on cue cards.

"This motherf**ker has the cue card right here (by his face) so he can still (act). I'm doing everything I can to not play the scene like (I'm reading the script for the first time)," the 57-year-old continued.

Despite the tight turnaround, Billy conceded that his monologue looked fine onscreen.

"J.J. and Tom are so good that they made it work in the film. Humiliating, I told them I needed it. I could have done so much better, guys. Tom saved me on that," he added.

Elsewhere in the chat, Billy recounted how supportive Tom was on the set after his father Thomas Crudup died in 2005.

"You haven't been consoled until you've been consoled by Tom Cruise," The Morning Show star declared.