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  EW Role Call: Tom CruiseThe star has matured -- on screen, at leastBy Gary Susman (Entertainment Weekly) -- Tom Cruise, who turns 43 on July 3, has lost none of his boyish energy or enthusiasm, as evidenced by the footprints he left on Oprah Winfrey's sofa cushions. On screen, however, he actually seems to be maturing. Last year, he played a slick, silver-haired hitman in ''Collateral,'' marking a rare shift away from the likable, youthful heroes who've been the cornerstones of his career. Now, in ''War of the Worlds,'' the kid who danced in his undies when his parents left him home alone in ''Risky Business'' has become a middle-aged, divorced dad. The archetypal Tom Cruise character is a smug young man with a specialized skill (flying bombers in ''Top Gun,'' spying in ''Mission: Impossible,'' juggling liquor bottles while serving drinks in ''Cocktail'') -- often struggling to please a distant or absent father figure. ''War of the Worlds'' flips that stock role: This time, he's the absentee father, a guy whose greatest fear (besides bloodsucking alien tripods armed with death rays, of course) is of disappointing his estranged kids (Dakota Fanning, shown, and Justin Chatwin) by failing to protect them and reunite them with their mom (Miranda Otto). In other words, all the apocalyptic alien attacks are the backdrop to an intimate drama of a dysfunctional family. In real life, Cruise is also a divorced dad who shares custody of his daughter and son with his ex-wife, Nicole Kidman. ''Personally, I've always wanted to be a father growing up,'' Cruise said in a ''War of the Worlds'' press conference last week, ''and I couldn't wait to be a father in this movie.'' It's that kind of enthusiasm and energy that marks all of Cruise's work, as the following gallery ''I'm someone who will get excited about living,'' Cruise said. ''I have the privilege of doing something that I love.'' Click here Click Here 
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suggests. (Next thing he can't wait to do, besides marrying Katie Holmes, is reviving the dormant ''Mission: Impossible'' franchise, whose third installment begins shooting in a few weeks.) 
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