Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief

by Lawrence Wright

Early on, Cruise and Miscavige shared a powerful sense of identity with each other. They were both short but powerfully built, “East Coast personalities,” as Parman diagnosed them. They shared a love of motorcycles, cars, and adventurous sports. Miscavige was bedazzled by the glamour surrounding the star, who introduced him to a social set outside of Scientology, a world Miscavige knew little about. He had spent most of his life cloistered in the Sea Org. He was thrilled when he visited Cruise on the set of Days of Thunder, and the actor took him skydiving for the first time. Cruise, for his part, fell under the spell of Miscavige’s commanding personality. He modeled his determined naval-officer hero in A Few Good Men on Miscavige, a fact that the church leader liked to brag about.