Among the cast of Midsummer!, a student production running at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for two weeks from this Thursday, is a striking young woman whose stellar parental ancestry can be clearly seen in her features, if not in her name.
‘Suri Noelle’, 20, is a beautiful mixture of her willowy mother, the actress Katie Holmes, and takes her hazel eyes and defined cheekbones from her A-lister daddy, Tom Cruise.
But while her proud mother, star of Dawson’s Creek and Batman Begins, is expected to slip into the audience to watch her, her father is not.
Cruise, a devout and leading member of the Church of Scientology, would surely feel uncomfortable watching this modern translation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Performed by Suri and eight other students from Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the show is described as ‘bursting with queer transformative joy’ and Cruise’s chosen religion is profoundly homophobic.
But more than this, Suri and Tom have no father-daughter relationship at all.
Indeed, Cruise is thought not to have seen his girl since she was six years old, although this week his publicists yet again declined to comment on the record or offer guidance off it.
Yet the schism is so complete and long-standing that Suri has now changed her name to remove Cruise.
Katie Holmes is said to have respected her daughter Suri’s decision to change her surname from Cruise to Noelle – her mother’s middle name
Tom Cruise, pictured holding his daughter in 2008, is said to have not seen Suri since she was six years old
It was revealed this week that Suri is legally Suri Noelle, taking her mother’s middle name as her new family name.
It seems likely that she quietly made this change while living in New York with Ms Holmes, at some point soon after reaching her 18th birthday.
Name changes are routinely filed ‘under seal’ by New York courts, meaning that they are kept private.
A source told Page Six that Suri was fully supported in her decision to do this by her mother.
‘Katie wasn’t surprised by Suri’s decision to legally drop ‘Cruise’ from her last name because that’s just who Suri is,’ said the source.
‘This also wasn’t something that happened overnight. It was a decision that evolved over time, and Katie respected Suri’s process every step of the way.’
Certainly, when she graduated from LaGuardia High School in June 2024, she was already using the name Suri Noelle.
There was another clue in October 2024, during her freshman year at Carnegie Mellon University, when electoral records showed that she registered to vote using that name – residents are required to do so using their legal name.
Ms Holmes and Cruise, pictured with Suri in 2011, were married for six years from 2006 to 2012
After divorcing the actor in 2012, Ms Holmes is reported to have won custody of their daughter
At the time, sources close to her explained that she wanted to ‘start fresh at college’ and establish her own identity by dropping the Cruise.
How ironic then that Suri’s chosen path is the very profession which Cruise sits atop: acting.
Initially, it was briefed that she was ‘leaning towards’ a college degree in fashion but in fact she is studying musical theatre.
She took the lead role of Morticia in LaGuardia school’s production of The Addams Family: A New Musical in her senior year in 2023, and was said to be ‘amazing’ by an audience member.
Being part of the small troupe which is travelling to Edinburgh tells its own story of how she is blossoming as a performer.
A source tells me that she is an ‘excellent actress’ already.
The source adds: ‘She is a nice girl and goes by a different name to protect her privacy.
‘The thing is that she is studying her ass off and actually putting in the work to be a trained actor, not just a nepo baby like Apple Martin [Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter with Coldplay star Chris Martin].
‘She really wants to learn the craft and art of acting. Also she is insanely talented.’
Her father, arguably the last great movie star, will cast quite a shadow over her professional life if she does continue to tread the boards.
But Suri Noelle is clearly determined to forge her own path.
Born in April 2006, Suri was first introduced to the world at five months old in a stunning photo shoot with Vanity Fair.
In the accompanying interview, Cruise – who had previously adopted children Connor and Bella along with second wife Nicole Kidman – positively overflowed with paternal love declaring ‘I always wanted to be a father’.
He said: ‘I always said to myself that my children would be able to depend on me and I would always be there for them and love them.
‘I’m not one of those people who believe you can spoil a child with too much love. You can never give a child too much love. There’s just no way.’
Then living on a 400-acre ranch in Telluride, Colorado, the writer painted an idyllic picture of the Cruise family living a wholesome, outdoorsy life, with Ms Holmes gushing: ‘It’s really special to see them [Bella and Connor] holding their little sister. To hear them talk about all of the fun things they are going to do together.’
For a time, Bella even seemed to act as an unofficial nanny for Suri, and the whole family travelled together as Cruise made films between 2006 and 2012.
Suri was, naturally, the star of the show at the Cruise-Holmes wedding in Italy in November 2006, and later was pictured incessantly, almost always being held by her father.
And then, as soon as her parents split was announced in 2012, all of that ended.
Within five weeks of Ms Holmes ‘blindsiding’ Cruise by filing for divorce, his lawyer Bert Fields had secured a divorce deal, and Suri pretty much dropped from view.
It was reported that her mother had custody, her father would get visits – and would pay $400,000 a year until Suri’s 18th birthday to meet her living expenses.
Ms Holmes moved to New York and took pains to keep her child largely out of the public eye, and her feet on the ground.
Suri – previously home-schooled – was enrolled at the Avenues School and Ms Holmes took a hiatus from her acting career to steady the ship, even helping out as a ‘reader’, akin to a teaching assistant, at Suri’s school.
The question of Suri’s relationship with her father post-divorce became explosively public in September 2012, when Cruise took legal action against two celebrity magazines which said he had ‘abandoned’ his daughter. The lawsuit was settled out of court.
During a deposition, Cruise admitted he had not seen the then-six-year-old for 110 days over the previous summer, immediately following the breakdown of the marriage.
He agreed that over a five-month period, he saw Suri for ten days in total, six of which were during a father-daughter bonding break at Disney World.
Over this period, he flew from Pittsburgh to London and back again for an annual Scientology event. He also spent a few days in the Croatian resort of Hvar with friends.
Cruise explained Suri and he had instead kept in touch over the phone, as his life was busy with filming: ‘I tell wonderful stories and they like hearing it. I’ve gotten pretty good at communicating.’
He said: ‘Things change. Certainly what doesn’t change is the love I have for my daughter, the fact that I didn’t abandon her emotionally, physically, or otherwise.
‘And in terms of how I feel about her in terms of the responsibility that I feel towards my child is not – is not [sic] waned in any way.’
A source close to the actor continues to deny that they are estranged.
But others doubt this, citing Scientology, the controversial religion followed by Cruise and founded by writer L. Ron Hubbard, as the cause of the seeming estrangement.
When they were together, Ms Holmes received instruction in Scientology and the young Suri was raised a Scientologist.
However, after the split, Ms Holmes returned to her childhood Catholic faith and was said to be keen to get Suri away from Scientology.
The organisation is infamous for discouraging its believers from having family relationships with those outside the religion.
So could this be the real reason Cruise appears to keep his distance?
Brendan Tighe, who worked in Cruise’s security detail and was a Scientologist, certainly believes so.
He told me: ‘So long as Suri sides with her mom, which she clearly does, there will be no contact with her dad.
‘This is particularly sad considering how much of an over-the-top affectionate family they were in the early years.’
Mike Rinder, once Scientology’s number three, who knew Cruise and his family first-hand for years, also concurs. He told me he is also convinced that the religion is the reason for the apparent breakdown between Cruise and Suri.
‘As Katie gained custody of Suri, Tom cannot communicate with her as she is connected to her mother. Any good Scientologist chooses Scientology over their personal wishes or even wellbeing,’ he said.
Whatever the truth, Suri is clearly determined to make her own way, free of the shackles of her father’s name and religion.
And as she takes her first steps as an actress, it will be her mother proudly watching from the wings, not her famous father.
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