Hollywood action star Tom Cruise has some clever advice for people who suffer from social anxiety.

His Mission: Impossible costar Hayley Atwell shared the words of wisdom last week.

The British beauty said that the 62-year-old A-list actor told her exactly what to do when getting nervous as she appeared on the show Reign With Josh Smith Podcast.

The tip Cruise gave her was surprisingly simple.

‘If you walk into a room and you feel the anxieties coming, and it makes me want to retreat into myself, and I start to overthink and I start to go, “Do I look weird? Do I seem awkward? I’m not speaking, I’m just muffling my words or I need something to do to numb me from this,” we go into ourselves,’ Atwell said.

‘And he said, “Try doing the opposite.”‘

Hollywood action star Tom Cruise has advice for people who suffer from social anxiety. And it is only four words long. Seen in 2023

His Mission: Impossible costar Hayley Atwell said Cruise told her: ‘If you walk into a room and you feel the anxieties coming, and it makes me want to retreat into myself’ do the opposite

And she added, ‘Try to look out, look around the room and go “Where is it? Where is the thing that I have attached on to my insecurity,”‘ Atwell recalled of Cruise’s advice.

‘”Is it that person over there that reminds me of my school bully? Is it that person over there that didn’t give me a job once? 

‘”That person over there that I think was mean to me once? Where does it live outside of me and where do I feel like the source of it might be coming from?”‘ she added.

Atwell was in Tom’s 2023 film ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One. And she will also pop up in 2025’s The Final Reckoning. 

‘It can also be more contained instead of a free-floating one where I’m just in a total struggle internally with my own anxiety,’ Atwell said.

‘And I try and do that now more… If I’m scared of something, if I keep looking at it long enough, it tends to not sort of be the monster under the bed anymore.’

Haley also said that if she understands her anxieties then she ‘has an opportunity to do something about it.’

She can then look at what insecurities she has. 

‘Try to look out, look around the room and go “Where is it? Where is the thing that I have attached on to my insecurity,”‘ Atwell recalled of Cruise’s advice. Tom in 2012

Britain’s Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (R) talks with Cruise (L) at the UK premiere of the film Top Gun: Maverick in London in 2022; Kate is in the background

Hayley and Tom at the UK Premiere of Mission: Impossible – ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning Part One at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in 2023 in London

Atwell, Lily James and Keeley Hawes attend the ERDEM show during London Fashion Week February 2025 in February in London

‘Like, if I maybe go up to that person and go, Hi. Or I go up to that person and go, “I’m really jealous of how amazing you are.” It tends to just dissipate,’ Atwell said. 

‘Being able to call it, to name the demon out loud and leave it on the floor, means that it’s not living in me.’

‘… [Cruise] was just like, “If you’re scared of something, keep looking at it. Try not to close your eyes or turn away, just keep looking at it,'” she said of Cruise’s message. ‘It will often give you information about what to do to overcome it.’

The Final Reckoning will premiere in theaters on May 23, 2025.

The movie also stars Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Shea Whigham, Pom Klementieff and Henry Czerny.