Leah Remini lauds Thandie Newton for speaking up on nightmare shoot with Tom Cruise

Thandie Newton has collected praise from former Scientologist Leah Remini for talking about her nightmare experience of working with Tom Cruise  in Mission Impossible II back in 2000.

"That takes huge balls to do what she did, and if more people speak out in that way, and be brave enough to do so, I think we might get somewhere," Leah said in a recent podcast, Scientology: Fair Game, The Daily Beast reported.

Leah added that she was once punished for questioning why the 58-year-old Top Gun movie star was 'the poster child' of the religion, saying that while he is 'considered a messiah in Scientology,' Tom is not 'this super-nice guy' in real-life, the actress claimed.

Talking about feeling scared and intimidated while working with Tom, Thandie had earlier told Vulture, "I was so scared of Tom. He was a very dominant individual. He tries super hard to be a nice person. But the pressure. He takes on a lot."

The actress detailed how they struggled with filming a scene in Spain, in which they battled to get the perfect take of the - as she described - poorly-written scene.

 She explained: "So this scene was happening, and Tom was not happy with what I was doing because I had the s**ttiest lines, and he gets so frustrated."

"It just pushed me further into a place of terror and insecurity. It was a real shame. And bless him. And I really do mean bless him, because he was trying his damnedest... He wasn't horrible. It was just — he was really stressed," she added.