Photograph: Paul White/AP
Having seen his career recently come close to implosion, Tom Cruise might now be expected to be keeping a low profile. Instead, as you may have read yesterday, the actor has become embroiled in yet another controversy after the German defence ministry were reported to have banned him from using military sites while shooting Valkyrie - the forthcoming account of the July 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, with Cruise cast as plot leader Claus von Stauffenberg.
As the near-blanket media coverage has pointed out, the root of the furore is Germany's longstanding refusal to recognise Scientology as a religion, instead officially classing it as a business. Beyond that, the episode could almost have been scripted to cast the Church in the plaintive light of the unjustly persecuted, with Cruise's membership given by authorities as the reason for his non-grata status. Whether or not we agree that Scientology is designed only to make money, it all seems a tad excessive, does it not? After all, it's not like Valkyrie is likely to become a cinematic recruitment ad for the Church, is it?
Two points to consider. First, given the nature of the story in question, it's understandable Germans would be sensitive about a mob of American movie stars descending to tell it (the film is being directed by Bryan "Superman Returns" Singer). Von Stauffenberg's own son Berthold has been quoted as personally objecting to Cruise portraying his father: "He should climb a mountain or go surfing in the Caribbean. I don't care as long as he stays out of it."
Perhaps more tellingly, however, there's also the question of backstory. Because none of this is without some pretty substantial context. As far back as 1996, amid claims of serial discrimination on one hand and murky real estate dealings on the other, Germany's refusal to recognise Scientology as a religion provoked an enraged response from the Church. Principal weapon in the somewhat one-sided PR war that followed was an open letter of protest from a clutch of Hollywood notables to then-chancellor Helmut Kohl, in which the most wince-inducing comparison possible was duly made: "In the 1930s, it was the Jews. Today, it is the Scientologists."
Although co-signed by the likes of Dustin Hoffman and Oliver Stone, the letter was in fact written by Hollywood lawyer Bert Fields - then the legal representative of, among others, Tom Cruise. But Germany didn't budge, and Scientology's status there remained a deep-seated sore point for the Church and, you presume, its most high-profile member. Indeed, fast forward to January 2002, and Cruise was devoting a chunk of a promotional trip to Germany to lobbying the US ambassador to push for a change in German law.
All of which could, of course, be wholly co-incidental to the current ruckus. After more than a decade of bitter squabbling, it could be mere chance that the Church's star turn is now once more highlighting the issue. There again, if you were Tom Cruise and you wanted to create a scenario where a predictable over-reaction from the German government could be presented to a western liberal audience as the latest in a series of victimisations of an innocent faith, well - could you find a better vehicle?
If nothing else, once the film finally opens, it might be interesting to note Cruise's response to that most hackneyed of film journalists' questions: "So - what attracted you to the role of Claus von Stauffenberg?"
