Seth Rogen details ‘absurd’ Tom Cruise encounter in new memoir

Seth Rogen has described a “bizarre” meeting he had with Tom Cruise, in which the actor allegedly tried to convince him of the merits of Scientology.

In an interview on Howard Stern’s radio show, Rogen recounted some of the stranger Hollywood experiences documented in his forthcoming book of essays, Yearbook, including a trip to Cruise’s house around 2006.

The actor began what he called his “bizarre” story by explaining that approximately 15 years ago, at the “peak” of Cruise “mania”, he and film director Judd Apatow were invited to visit the actor’s Los Angeles home to talk about films.

The visit took place shortly after the birth of Cruise and his then-wife Katie Holmes’s daughter, Suri. Rogen said he thought Holmes “had a vague ‘please rescue me from this place’ look on her face”.

Calling the encounter “very absurd”, Rogan revealed that the topic of Scientology came up, and more specifically “how weird” Cruise had been “looking in the press lately”.

Cruise allegedly told Rogen: “I think the pharmaceutical industry is making me look bad.”

Rogen said he thought that was “an odd conjecture to make”.

The Superbad star claimed that Cruise then started to talk to him and Apatow about the appeal of his religion, saying: “It’s like with Scientology. If you let me just tell you what it was really about... just give me like 20 minutes to really just tell you what it was about, you would say, ‘No f***ing way. No f***ing way.’”

In response, Rogen said he and Apatow gave each other a look as if to say, “Is he gonna bite? Am I gonna bite? Can we come out of this? Are we strong enough to have him do this to us and not be converted?”

Rogen added that he was very grateful the filmmaker was with him at the time because he sees himself as a “generally weak-willed, weak-minded person”. He added: “Thank god Judd was like, ‘Eh, I think we’re good. Let’s just talk about movies and stuff.’”

He said that Cruise’s pitch was “tempting” and “if I was there alone, I would be singing a very different tune right now” but he had managed to “dodge that bullet”.

Cruise is one of Scientology’s most famous followers, having described the religion as “beautiful”. He has followed Scientology since being introduced to the organisation by his first wife Mimi Rogers in 1986.

The Independent has contacted Cruise’s representatives for comment.

Rogen is appearing in the new Hulu series Pam & Tommy, which is set to tell the story of Pamela Anderson’s marriage to musician Tommy Lee when their sex tape was stolen and publicly leaked.

Rogen, whose memoir Yearbook is out now, has been cast in the show alongside Lily James and Sebastian Stan, whose respective transformations into the former married couple have left people in awe. Rogen is playing Rand Gauthier, the man who stole the tape.

It turns out that all Rogen had to do to make himself equally as unrecognisable was to shave off his beard and grow a mullet.