Before I get into the strange National Enquirer story about Tom Cruise, has everybody seen this video (below)? Tom and Robert Pattinson doing a promo for the MTV Movie Awards, and it’s actually really funny! Tom goes back into character as Les Grossman, the Sumner Redstone-ish parody Cruise did for Tropic Thunder. Pattinson plays himself, and he’s asking Les is he (Sparkles) should cut off his hair. I have to admit – Tom is really funny. So funny, it almost looks like Sparkles was having a hard time keeping a straight face:

Very cute. If Tom continues to show that he has a good sense of humor (about himself, especially) and if he continues to sound sober, lucid and sane in interviews, I’d say people will either fall back in love with him, or continue to love him as they always have, without regrets. Now, for the strange stuff. The Enquirer claims that Tom was acting crazy on the set of Knight and Day. Something about salsa.

Tom Cruise — desperate for a blockbuster hit — snapped while filming his latest movie, sources say.

The fading superstar’s bizarre behavior on the “Knight and Day” set rocked his marriage to Katie Holmes, and crew members feared he was cracking up, according to insiders.

“No one has ever seen Tom so close to the edge,” an insider told The ENQUIRER. “One day he was going 200 mph and trying to do 10 things at once. He was barking orders, trying to listen to music and tweak the distribution schedule all at once. We thought he was going to crack right there.”

The 47-year-old actor startled crew members with his weird tics, and insisted on changing the movie’s score just weeks before its June 25 release, said the insider.

“Tom developed this bizarre habit of referring to himself in the third person,” the source said. “He’d say things like, ‘Tom Cruise is an action star — he’d never have salsa music in a film!’ Going through dialogue that was already shot, he’d yell out, ‘We’ve got to redo this. Tom Cruise would never say that line!’ It was like he was talking about another person! It was very strange.”

“Tom is obsessed with making ‘Knight and Day’ a blockbuster,” said the insider.

And with her husband manic on the set, Katie crumbled, said the source.

“At one point, she cried, ‘Tom’s so stressed out that I don’t know him anymore. I just don’t know how much more I can take,'” said the insider. “There definitely was tension at home because Tom would insist that Katie and their daughter Suri fly to Boston on weekends during filming. Katie resented it. After making three movies and scoring a hit on Broadway, she was finally spreading her wings as a performer. Then suddenly, she was pulled back into playing ‘Mrs. Tom Cruise’ again.”

[From The National Enquirer, online and print editions]

Blah, blah, the story goes on to say that Tom and Cameron Diaz were doing reshoots in April, which is bad mojo for a summer film, but worst stuff has happened. I’ll buy that Tom is a perfectionist and he’s probably very demanding of his crew and coworkers, but…I don’t know. Talking about himself in the third person? I guess. Hating salsa music? Eh. And as far as the Katie Holmes stuff, I’m actually getting tired of it, and I love a good Xenu-demands-a-divorce story. I think Katie is sticking around, no matter what. She has to fulfill her contract.

Tom & Katie at the National Movie Awards in London on May 26, 2010. Credit: WENN.