The release of a new Tom Cruise film is less about the film than it is about Tom Cruise. Ceaseless junket and red-carpet interviews with supposed journalists who were perhaps invented on the spot to ask him questions, clips of these interviews that quickly go viral, endless rankings of the movies, and between all of it the… acknowledgement, perhaps, that Cruise is connected to (or currently participates in) the horrific doings of Scientology. It doesn’t take much to discern that our collective fascination is fueled by the wonder at who exactly this man is, and if that man is, for lack of a better word, evil.

Thus I asked a cadre of luminaries in the film world to answer two questions.

First: Is Tom Cruise evil?

Second: In what film does Tom Cruise most play himself? 

Listen for answers from our own B-Side and Jordan Raup, Extended Clip, Jokermen, Hesse Deni, Shawn Glinis, Fran Hoepfner, Tommy Prieto, Will Sloan, and Ethan Vestby.