George Clooney On Tom Cruise's COVID Rant: He "Didn't Overreact."

Tom Cruise earned headlines earlier this week after a recording leaked of the actor screaming at crew members in London for not following COVID safety protocols while shooting Mission Impossible 7 and 8. The reaction to this has been mixed, as his anger was arguably justified, but the manner in which he yelled at his employees was deemed a bad look. Now, one major member of Hollywood has come to Cruise's defense: George Clooney.

During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Clooney says he believes Cruise "didn't overreact, because it is a problem." Clooney's Stern appearance was to promote his new film The Midnight Sky, though he digressed at length to speak about the threat COVID still continues to pose on productions.

"I have a friend who is an [assistant director] on another TV show who just had almost the exact same thing happen with not quite as far-out a response…" Clooney said (via Entertainment Weekly). "You're in a position of power and it's tricky, right? You do have a responsibility for everybody else, and he's absolutely right about that, and if the production goes down a lot of people lose their jobs. You know, people have to understand that and they have to be responsible. It's just not my style to take everybody to task that way."

Cruise's outburst is fairly different from the infamous Christian Bale "are you professional?" incident during the filming of Terminator Salvation. Cruise was speaking about the importance of aspiring to be the "gold standard" of safety and how it's on everyone's shoulders to ensure "the future of this f***ing industry," though his tact has rubbed many the wrong way.

Mission Impossible 7 and 8 are being filmed back-to-back, and Christopher McQuarrie is writing and directing both--he also wrote and directed Rogue Nation and Fallout. New additions to the cast include Atwell, Pom Klementieff, and Shea Whigham. MI7 is scheduled to come to theatres in November 2021, with its sequel slated for November 2022. Both movies were delayed due to COVID-19.