Tom Cruise nearly played a squirrel in film made by Welsh teenagers

BBC News

13-02-2025

Have you ever dreamed of writing and making your own movie that's shown in the cinema ? Now, thanks to a new project called Supporting Shorts, it's hoped that will become a reality for lots of young filmmakers.The project is all about helping young people who have additional learning needs create their own short films. It's designed for people who might find the usual movie-making rules tricky.Now a group of teenagers from a school in north Wales are the first to see a short film they made, called Race to the Start Line, make it all the way to movie screens.
Shown before the feature-length animation Dog Man, Race to the Start Line is a comedy about a boy rushing to get to a mountain bike race. The group even contacted Hollywood actor Tom Cruise for a small guest role as the voice of a stop-motion squirrel, also called Tom. In the end it was a scheduling issue that meant Tom couldn't clear his diary to join the cast of the film."Yeah, we had a bit of him back and forth, but it was. No," said Nancy, one of the actors in the film. "It was very close," adds Nancy's co-star Gareth. "He was probably busy jumping off a building or something."
Steve Swindon worked with the young people on their film, he's from an organisation called TAPE that tries to make it easier for people to get involved in filmmaking.He explained that throughout the process, it was important to take "people's ideas seriously, whatever they might be." "The Tom cruise thing, was a genuine idea. And we very nearly got him as well."It was a scheduling change that stopped it from happening in the end."But, if we hadn't asked we wouldn't be here - the confidence in the room with the young people when their question to Tom Cruise was heard and taken seriously and they got a response, the next day, changed people's self belief."
When it came to writing their film, the students at the school were first to use a new version of computer software called Final Draft, which is used by filmmakers in Hollywood. Specially adapted to make storytelling easier - it's now hoped more young people will have the opportunity to make movies, screened before feature-films in cinemas around the UK.Josh who directed Race to the Start says there hasn't always been opportunities for disabled people like him in the movie industry, but says that through the project, "we're trying to change that". He told Newsround that the process has made him feel more confident and that filmmaking is the job he would like when he's older. As this group is the first to have a film shown in cinemas, he adds that "the pressure's on" for it to be successful. Meanwhile Nancy, one of the film's stars is taking her new found fame in her stride. Asked how she feels about being on the big screen and watched by hundreds of people, she says she's waiting "for the line [of people] to queue up to ask for my autograph."