Without Dad's last name: Tom Cruise's daughter cast in a new role
The name "Suri Noelle" might not mean much to you, but you have known Suri Cruise since she was born: the daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, who has already dropped her father's famous surname — with whom she is not in contact — is taking her first steps in the acting world and has been cast in a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
When your father is Tom Cruise, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and your mother is Katie Holmes, forever Joey Potter from Dawson's Creek, it is no wonder that you too are trying your luck in the acting world (and not a word about nepo-babies). Now Suri Noelle, the 20-year-old daughter of the two, is taking a significant step toward her own acting career.
Noelle, who stopped using the surname Cruise in 2024, is expected to participate in "Midsummer!", a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The production, which features Noelle and other students from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, will first be performed twice in the USA, and will later move to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2026.
The 90-minute production is described as a modern adaptation in rhyme of Shakespeare's classic play, combining Appalachian folk, house music, queer liberation, and the industrial aesthetic of Pittsburgh.
Noelle, who recently finished her second year at Carnegie Mellon University, is studying musical theater at the institution's School of Drama. Although it was previously reported that she considered studying fashion, it seems that for now she is focused on an acting career. Last March, she participated in the staged reading of "Cosmic Microwave Background" at the New Hazlett Theater in Pittsburgh.
This is not the first time Noelle has taken to the stage: during her time at LaGuardia High School in New York, she played Morticia Addams in The Addams Family musical. According to a report in Page Six, in the play's program she thanked her teachers, her team members, and the actors, but did not mention her famous parents.
Noelle finished high school in June 2024, and in the same year adopted the surname Noelle — her mother's middle name — instead of Cruise. According to reports, she and her father have been estranged for years. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes married in 2006, a few months after their daughter's birth, and divorced in 2012.
