To draw similarities between the actor and John Anderton, his complex, haunted character in Minority Report, is irresistible. In Spielberg's sci-fi mystery, Cruise stars as a seemingly stalwart cop in 2054 who heads an elite squad known as Precrim e. Using a trio of psychic mutants called precogs, he can detect a murder before it happens, strap on a jet pack, then arrest the would-be perpetrator. But Anderton leads a double life, scoring a drug called neuroin in dark alleys, seeking oblivion after the unraveling of his family. Based on a 1956 short story by Philip K. Dick, the movie takes off when Anderton is accused of a future murder and goes on the run.

Cruise not only brought the story to Spielberg but also tapped into his most harrowing fears as a parent. The father of an adopted son, 7, and daughter, 9, Cruise said Anderton should have a son who was missing. "Tom came up with that to give the characte r complicated emotional baggage," says Spielberg, who confesses that he "had much more of a popcorn movie in mind until I began to think about the ramifications of arresting people without due process." The director says it was his friend Doris Kearns Goo dwin, the historian, who alerted him to the constitutional problems of Precrime. "She said, 'This would be a wonderful thing,'" recalls Spielberg, "'but what about the Bill of Rights?'"

Although Cruise and Spielberg, friends for two decades, have been developing the script since 1999, the movie turns out to be topical, a celluloid mirror of current events. Jointly financed by DreamWorks and Fox, it opens amid controversy over Attorney Ge neral John Ashcroft's decision to put a terrorism suspect in military detention. Many have noted the similarity between the movie's idea of Precrime and the legal ramifications of arresting but not charging suspected terrorists.

The timing for Cruise couldn't be better. Minority Report is a smart move for him at this point in his career—an edgy, mind-bending piece of film noir in the vein of Memento and The Matrix. Cruise's audience is vast, but like him , it's getting older. It's the Matrix generation that he needs to capture if he is to remain top gun at the box office. Driving toward Hollywood, he shrugs off a question about his aging demographic. "I'm getting older," he says. "But a story is a story, and a character's a character. That's what I think about."

To begin to understand Cruise, you must understand his relationship with the Church of Scientology, an organization that advocates self-styled scientific methods as cures for ailments of the body, mind and spirit. Founded by the prolific science-fiction n ovelist L. Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986, Scientology has been accused of using coercion to keep its members in line and intimidation to squelch criticism of its tactics. (Scientology sued Time in 1992 for libel over a 1991 cover story's portrayal of the church as a ruthless cult; the case was decided in Time's favor in 2001, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Scientology's appeal.) Cruise is more than a defender of Scientology; he is a resolute advocate. "It's something that has helped me to be able to live the kind of life that I'm living and work toward being the kind of person that I want to be," he says.

Cruise says that Hubbard's teachings helped him put a hard-knocks childhood behind him. "I went to 15 different schools growing up," he says, "because of parents divorcing, father losing jobs, transferring, trying to find another job." Even today, Cruise, whose father died in 1984, often mentions the trauma of always being the new guy. "I thought, I can't wait to grow up because it's got to be better than this," he says. "The politics and the fights and always wearing the wrong shoes and having the wrong accent."

He also had a devil of a time learning in class. "It was a real problem for me," says Cruise. "I was diagnosed as having dyslexia. I confused letters. I was a slow reader. I didn't know how to use a dictionary. I tried, but I didn't have a system where I could learn. I couldn't catch up." In high school, he lived in Glen Ridge, N.J., with his mother. Cruise found confidence on the stage (he skipped his graduation because he was appearing in a dinner-theater production of Godspell) and started his movie ca reer in 1981. His first audition was for a small role in Endless Love, and he got the part. "Suddenly I'm working," he says.

In the 1980s, his first wife Mimi Rogers (they would divorce in 1990) introduced him to Scientology. Cruise credits Hubbard's "study technology" with helping him overcome his learning disability. "It really changed my life," says Cruise, who in the past f ew years has given considerable time and money to the Hollywood Education and Literacy Project (H.E.L.P.). It is a secular organization but uses Hubbard's study technology to offer free tutoring to children and adults.

As Cruise walks through H.E.L.P.'s crowded headquarters on Hollywood Boulevard, none of the tutors or children—seated at desks that he paid for—seem to take special notice of him. He comes here often. "Do I wish I'd had something like this when I was a kid?" asks Cruise. "Absolutely. It would have saved me many hours and days and weeks of pain and embarrassment." When asked if H.E.L.P. could be used as a recruiting tool for the church, he says, "Listen, people who want to know about Scientology, they can read books. People may go in there and say, 'Who is this guy?' and start reading [Hubbard's] other books. Good for them. There are tools that he has that can improve their lives. But the purpose of H.E.L.P. is to help. "

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