Tom Cruise Talks About Coping After Katie Holmes Divorce

A-lister acknowledges being a little shell-shocked after the actress called off their union last summer but is doing his best to move on

By Josh Grossberg Apr 09, 2013 2:34 PMTags
Katie Holmes, Tom CruiseDave Hogan/Getty Images

Life hasn't been easy for Tom Cruise lately. 

After remaining mum all these months, the erstwhile Top Gunner is finally opening up about his surprising divorce last summer from actress Katie Holmes.

In a sit-down with German TV network ProSieben (via Germany's Bunte magazine) while making the press rounds for his new sci-fi blockbuster Oblivion, Cruise confessed to being taken aback when the 34-year-old actress decided to end their five-year marriage abruptly last June.

"I did not expect that," the Hollywood star said.

Holmes announced their separation on June 29—five days before Cruise's 50th birthday. After speedy negotiations, both sides' lawyers reached a settlement two weeks later that gave Katie custody over their 6-year-old daughter Suri and Tom generous visitation rights.

But Cruise revealed the split gave him "an incredible amount of time to reflect" as he celebrated his milestone birthday. 

"Life is a challenge," admitted the thesp. "To be 50 and have experiences and think you have everything under control, and then it hits you—that's what life is…Life is tragicomic. You need a certain sense of humor."

Now that he's single again, Cruise has thrown himself back into work.

Aside from Oblivion, which hits theaters on April 19 and costars Morgan Freeman, he's toplining another sci-fi adventure, All You Need Is Kill, directed by Doug Liman.

And Cruise also announced during a recent appearance on the U.K.'s The Graham Norton Show that he's "working on the story" for a fifth Mission: Impossible film, though he declined to divulge any more details.