Tom Cruise was terrified by Boris Karloff's Mummy

6 June 2017

Tom Cruise was left terrified by the original 1931 'Mummy' movie which starred horror legend Boris Karloff.

Tom Cruise

The 54-year-old actor stars as Navy Seal Tyler Colt in the new 'Mummy' reboot, the first film in Universal Studios' Dark Universe movie series.

Cruise knew he wanted the role as soon as it was offered to him because he has such vivid memories of watching the original film as a child and being so scared of Karloff's performance he had to sleep in the same room as his sisters Lee Anne, Marian and Cass.

In an interview with 'This Morning', he shared: "I loved the old 30s one with Boris Karloff. My three sisters shared a room, I was a guy so I had my own room, but after watching that I had to sneak into their room because I was so terrified."

In the new 'Mummy' movie the supernatural villain is Princess Ahmanet, played by Sofia Boutella.

Cruise believes that the move to make the antagonist a woman gives the story a "fresh and modern take" different to all of Universal's previous 'Mummy' films.

The action star said: "I thought it really made for a fresh and modern take on it that really leads us in to this new universe. Sofia is beautiful, powerful, terrifying, but very alluring; you want to be with her but then you're scared of her."

Cruise, as always, performs many of his own stunts in the film and he admits he makes sure that he spaces out the sequences during the shoot now so he doesn't put too much strain on his body.

He said: "You get a little banged up but I train for it but I section off these stunts so we're not doing fight scenes one after the other. I prepare for them."

Cruise also stars in 'The Mummy' with Annabelle Wallis, Russell Crowe, Jake Johnson and Courtney B. Vance and it hits all cinemas worldwide this week.