Previously cast as a naval pilot or military lawyer, Tom Cruise dons a very different uniform in Valkyrie, the movie he presented in New York on Monday.
In the WWII thriller he wears the tunic and cap of the German wehrmacht to play Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a Roman Catholic aristocrat who was one of the leading officers of the failed 1944 plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Joining Tom and Katie Holmes at the film's screening were others members of the cast, many of whom are British. Among them were Kenneth Branagh, who stars as Major General Henning von Tresckow, another officer who helped organise German resistance against the Fuhrer, and Eddie Izzard, the Yemen-born actor and comedian who plays a resistance fighter.
The screening was just a short hop for Tom and Katie, as although their main home is in California the Tinseltown duo are also based in the Big Apple while Katie appears in All My Sons on Broadway. And it seems that while Tom was keen to celebrate the festive season at the couple's Beverly Hills mansion, the family will be in New York for Christmas after Katie - reportedly tired of the coast-to-coast travel - persuaded her man.