Adams will be playing convicted fraudster Mary Sue Hubbard the wife of Hoffman’s character, who returns from World War II an emotional wreck and creates a belief system to help himself re-engage with the world. The system becomes popular with other disconnected individuals (sound familiar yet?) including, in a choice bit of casting which seems to trade on his pretend breakdown, Joaquin Phoenix.

The film’s original title, the distinctly Whovian The Master, was scrapped along with much of the script during its long stay in development hell. It’s nice to see Anderson back behind the camera, but he’s going to have to make very sure he doesn’t sail too close to the wind with this project. We’re excited. And Scientology’s bollocks. That’s right, Miscavige, we said it! Don’t kill us please don’t kill us.

brigette bardot

Brigitte Bardot. You may remember her from such films as And God Created Women and Helen of Troy or just as a saucy French minx from the fifties. However, despite her glamour model past, Brigitte was no Jordan. There was a popular claim at the time that Brigitte did more for the French international trade balance then the entire French car industry. Plus, she was the sex kitten who put the ‘b’ in ‘bikini. And she didn’t need to have loads of unnecessary surgery to do it.

But not content with just fading into the background, despite retiring from acting at thirty-nine in order to “get out elegantly”, Brigitte has moved on. To politics. So it was au-revoir to la belle, Fit Brigitte and bonjour to Mard-o Bardot, the angry and frustrated animal rights activist.

And now she’s jumped aboard the President bandwagon. Despite announcing in an interview last week that politics disgusts her, she is now putting herself forward for the next election in 2012, representing France’s Ecology Alliance party. I bet Nicolas Sarkozy is quaking in his boots.

And he should be; this lady is determined and a bit scary. And it’s not as if she can rely on her once smouldering looks to get her places. At seventy-six years old, she is no hot, spring chicken. But she’s no Margaret Thatcher either.

I wouldn’t worry about Brigitte taking over France, though. She is after all, completely unsuitable given that she is a MASSIVE RACIST. And homophobe. And with four convictions and fines over her anti-islam and anti-gay remarks, she’s not exactly pushing for an happy and equal country. Cor, but imagine if she does win! With a racist, homophobic, ex-sexpot animal rights activist on the loose we could have a mutiny on our hands. And not the good kind.

But Brigitte isn’t the only film star to turn her attentions to that of the bigger cause. And because Brigitte has inspired me to believe that you can do anything if you put your mind to it (even if you are unpolitically correct) here’s a list of my favourite “actors-who-do-other-stuff”.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Beefcake Bodybuilder turned Governator

Like Brigitte, Arnie used to be something of a looker. Whilst I’m not massively into bulging, greasy muscles that look like they could pop anytime, I’m sure that back in the day, Arnold Schwarzenegger had so many notches on the bedpost, it gave him splinters. But what do you do when the great “Austrian Oak” goes to seed and they stop churning out Terminators? Well, you join in with the fun of politics, of course. Wahey!

Unfortunately, Arnie doesn’t seem to be as succesful in politics as he was on screen. But at least he’s cutting costs by turning down the $175, 000 governor’s wage on account that he’s made big bucks in his acting career. But even being the Terminator couldn’t stop him from being voted one of eleven “worst governors” in the United States by an ethics watchdog group. Plus, in the run up to the election, there were several sexual misconduct allegations with six women coming forward with stories about how Arnie felt them up at some point or another.

What is it with sleazy politicians? Mayor Quimby in The Simpsons and let’s not forget the scandal with John Major and Edwina Curry. And now Arnie and his large wandering hands have joined in with the fun. He used to be such a hero.

Dolores Hart: Kissing Elvis to Convent Prioress

Chicago born, Hollywood bred, Dolores Hart was destined to be something. But it seems that acting opposite Elvis Presley TWICE and even getting to KISS the quiffed dreamboat, wasn’t enough for her. Dolores wanted more. But instead of pursuing more roles and other snake-hipped devils, she left her acting career behind her and joined a convent.

So did Elvis drive her into the arms of the Lord? Not likely. He could have been the serpent to tempt Eve with his good looks and his provocative thrust. Oh, he gives me the shivers! And did Dolores and Elvis get it on, away from the cameras? Nu-uh, this was no Brangelina story. But rather then wailing “I will never love again” and running into the arms of the abbey when the flames didn’t ignite off-screen, it was apparently her involvement with the Holocaust-themed film Lisa, that led her to become a Prioress.

God may work in mysterious ways, but I’ll take Elvis any day.

Charlie Sheen: Vietnam Soldier, Chris to Conspiracy Theorist

You know you’re part of the Jeremy Kyle generation when you become fascinated by people slipping down the slippery slope of the well known downward spiral. And when Jeremy, the schoolboy-gelled host presents me with thieving cousins, scrounging fathers and lying sisters, I know I should turn over. I just can’t. In public, it’s the same. Domestics on the streets, arguments on the phone; I am a rubber-necker. But with Charlie Sheen, it’s so much more. What is he doing? The accidental shooting of his wife, the Heidi Fleiss regular? Then he went and accidently overdosed on cocaine in 1998 and now he’s a conspiracy theorist. Wait sorry, I mean “truth activist”.

The 9/11 Truth Movement is a collective which questions the account of the terrorist attack on the 11th September, mainly concerned with thinking the government were responsible. And the Sheenster is part of it, as are actors Ed Asner, Daniel Sunjata and Rosie O’Donnell. Hmm, I smell a potential Come Dine With Me conspiracy theorist special.

But hey, I like conspiracies. Especially the one about the moon being made of cheese.

Tom Cruise: Mission Impossible Ethan Hunt to Scientology Church Militant

Unlike Katie Holmes, I never looked at Tom Cruise and thought “one day I will marry that man.” Rather, I looked at him and felt my cringe gland start spasming. I don’t like to think it’s because he’s small and squinty, instead I think it’s because the first film I saw him in was Austin Powers where he is trying to be the international man of mystery himself. And despite playing a hi-tech spy in Mission Impossible, I doubt he could charm the ladies like Austin.

But this whole Scientology bag is just the weird icing on the creepy cake. I’m no belief fascist; think what you want to (as long as you agree with me) but I’m just not comfortable with the religion/cult/business. I don’t know, maybe it’s something to do with the brainwashing, the condemnation of painkillers in childbirth and the exorbitant fees it charges for its spiritual services. Jesus never charged a leper. And he turned water into wine FOR FREE.

Can’t decide whether Tom Cruise is bland or grand? Check out the for and against case in our J’Accuse.

Jeffrey Jones: Villain In Ferris Bueller to registered sex offender

It’s always a sad case of affairs when you have to share the news that someone has become a bit of a paedo. Not only that, but Jeffrey was charged with being a disorganised paedo when he failed to update his sex offender status. If you’re gonna employ a fourteen year old to pose for photographs for you, you’re going to have to pencil in when you next need to re-register as a nonce.

And you would think that no director or producer would want to have a sex offender gracing their monitors. It would be like having Gary Glitter back on Top of The Pops. And nobody wants that. But since being convicted in 2003, Jeffers has been in a film and two television series. And Deadwood went down a storm.

I guess Jeffrey doesn’t make people feel that sick. Maybe it’s just imagining the orange caterpillar that lies across his face slipping into his mouth, that makes me want to vom.

And there we have it. Whilst Katherine Hepburn said that acting is the perfect idiots profession, you can’t really say that this gang are all foam, no beer. I mean, whoever heard of an idiot running a country?

For the defence:

I am not defending Tom Cruise the scientologist, and I certainly am not excusing Tom Cruise the couch jumping, psychiatry bashing, Katie Holmes ‘loving’ loon. I am however, defending Tom Cruise the actor. You remember him, don’t you? The one that slid across the floor in Risky Business and carried on sliding straight into our hearts. The one that sang You’ve Lost that Loving Feelin’ to Kelly McGillis and made women everywhere realize they’d actually found that loving feelin’. The guy that combined looks, charm and actual talent into a ten million pound smile of movie star.

Of course the Cruiser hasn’t exactly made it easy for himself the past few years, voicing radical, and in any rational person’s opinion, crazy views about religion and the use of anti-depressants. However, if before his recent bouts of outlandish behaviour he hadn’t acted so impeccably, would we really be so angry? Robert Downey Jr. passed out in a stranger’s house; Sean Penn continues to alienate virtually everyone, and yet everyone focuses on Tom Cruise’s recent handful of bad behaviour that is relatively innocent by comparison. He is a star of the classical mode – one that has on the whole shunned discussion of his private life in favour of a genuine love of the craft and the viewing public. And let’s face it, despite his indiscretions, Tom Cruise is still that guy. No other actor spends as long on the red carpet as Cruise. Japan have even gone as far as giving Cruise his own day, acknowledging that no other actor has visited Japan as many times as him. He genuinely loves his public and loves what he does – and we are rarely disappointed. While Cruise’s recent outings in Lions for Lambs, Valkyrie and Knight and Day may have attracted criticism, one cannot deny Cruise’s genuine commitment to entertain people. At 48 he still feels an obligation to his viewing public, which is more than can be said for other Hollywood stars today.

But what of his acting ability? Granted, Cruise has a very definite persona, but what a persona! Who didn’t love the cocky upstart that he was in Risky Business, The Colour of Money and the Mission: Impossible series? He knows when he’s on to a good thing, and so does the viewing public. On top of this, he is also willing to subvert his star persona. His performance in Magnolia shows the darker side of the machismo he previously perpetuated, while his performances in Interview with the Vampire and Born on the Fourth of July show a willingness to strip away this persona altogether. How many other Hollywood stars are willing to take the same risks as Tom Cruise does with their choices of roles? How many actions stars have also played cripples and flamboyant undead raconteurs? Throughout Cruise’s career, he has made remarkably bold choices for someone who is labeled as a mainstream star, and this alone should be applauded.

But if this alone isn’t enough to convince you to forgive Tom Cruise for his social indiscretions, surely his generosity as a performer will. While he has held his own against stars such as Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman, he never monopolizes the screen, allowing his co-stars to shine in their roles whilst also shining in his own right. There is a reason that he has worked with directors such as Stanley Kubrick, Oliver Stone and Steven Spielberg, and it isn’t because he is the giant douchebag that he is continually perceived to be. It’s because he delivers. He performs on screen and off, bursting with a passion and energy that leaves actors half his age shaking with envy. And so they should.

By Laura Kerrigan

For the prosecution:

I think trying to excoriate Tom Cruise the man would be a redundant exercise. He’s clearly a certifiable twonk, managing as he does to consistently ruin his public appearances with bouts of Boris Karloff-style mad laughter, vicious and unfounded arguments against pharmacology and occasionally some impromptu sofa stomping. So in the interests of fairness, I’m going to ignore his affiliation to a murderous, unethical cult which should be as ruthlessly suppressed as are its detractors (gosh, did that slip out?) and concentrate on just what a dreadful actor he is.

The truth of the matter is, Mr Cruise is very good at what he does. Unfortunately, what he does is play every role he’s given in as bland a manner as is humanly possible. This is not to say that he’s never been a worthwhile actor – he was perfectly adequate for perhaps the first ten years of his career, with solid if unmemorable performances in both Rain Man and Interview With The Vampire despite being effortlessly outshone by his co-stars Dustin Hoffman and Brad Pitt.

The real change came with 1996′s Mission: Impossible, notable both for being the first film made by Cruise’s production company Cruise/Wagner and for marking the point at which he stopped making any effort whatsoever with his work. It must have become obvious to Cruise that if the viewing public would applaud him as a one-dimensional macho twat in M:I as well as Top Gun, they might just carry on doing it for another twenty years (or if Sly Stallone is any example, another fifty). Much more of the same followed, interspersed with insipid pseudo-dramas to keep the girls happy – I only sat through Jerry Maguire for the sake of seeing Cuba Gooding Jr., and Eyes Wide Shut was a grotesquely overblown wet dream with no more than a passing nod to an actual storyline. The less said about Mission: Impossible II, the better.

Tom Cruise is bad enough when he’s arsing around with a pistol (and running – WHY does he always have to run everywhere?), but for my money his most painful performances are when he’s trying to be meaningful. This applies to more or less everything he’s made since the millennium – the hackneyed philosophy of Minority Report was much less memorable than those stupid gloves, War of the Worlds‘ anti-war message nearly made me choke on my tongue and Valkyrie was nothing short of an insult to the hero Cruise mocked with his shoddy performance. The Last Samurai was just – just – rescued by Ken Watanabe, but it was a very close call. Plus, of course, we’ve had yet another M:I film (with a fourth to follow!), the laboured testosterone-heavy dross of Collateral and now Knight and Day. This attempt to assert Cruise’s credentials as a comic actor as well as a featureless plank of wood with a gun and an odd religion has basically fallen on its arse, with the lowest US opening weekend for a Tom Cruise action film in the last twenty years.

I think a howler like Knight and Day is exactly what Tom needed. Maybe now he’ll have to acknowledge that after a career based around one character and one character only, explosions and machine guns aren’t going to keep pulling in the punters forever. Mind you, knowing him it’ll probably be Xenu‘s fault. Nutter.

Bis Nichts Mehr Bleibt, or Until Nothing Remains, tells the (apparently) true story of a German family torn apart by its associations with Scientology. A young married couple joins the organisation but as the wife gets sucked ever more deeply into the group, her husband, who has donated much of his money to it, decides to leave. In the process he loses contact with his young daughter who, like his wife, is being educated by Scientology instructors.

Scientology leaders have protested against the film, and have demanded access to it before it’s release. The cult leaders have stated that the film is “false and intolerant”. At a preview screening in Hamburg members distributed flyers in which the filmmakers were accused of seeking to “create a mood of intolerance and discrimination against a religious community”. Religious? It’s a cult. Let’s be honest here.

The directors of the German film are adamant that they are not hate-mongering, rather simply trying to expose a truthful account of life ruled by Scientology. As far as we’re concerned, the sooner this film comes out the better.

What’s your angle on the Scientology phenomenon? Let us know below…