‘M:I’ cast demurs on TomKat baby

updated 8:50 a.m. ET April 20, 2006

LOS ANGELES - Talk about a Mission Impossible: Promoting a movie the day after Tom Cruise and his soon-to-be bride Katie Holmes had their first child together.

Cast members of “Mission: Impossible III” did what they could Wednesday to talk up the film without the help of Cruise, who canceled media interviews because of the Tuesday birth. But the big news was still the baby.

“Well, I’m thrilled for them, as a couple,” the American-born Hong Kong film star Maggie Q told AP Television News. “That’s an exciting thing for anyone, really. But, I mean, especially for them, because he loves being a father.”

The baby girl, named Suri, weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces and measured 20 inches long. Her name has its origins in Hebrew, meaning “princess,” or in Persian, meaning “red rose,” according to Cruise’s publicist.

A spokesperson from the film’s distributor, Paramount Pictures, said Cruise may reschedule media interviews for Friday. The film opens in U.S. theaters on May 5.

While he married high-profiled actresses Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, Cruise rarely discussed his private matters in public. But once he connected with Holmes, best known for TV’s “Dawson’s Creek,” he openly celebrated the relationship and, infamously, jumped up and down on a sofa on Oprah Winfrey’s top-rated talk show.

Details about the birth weren’t disclosed, but it had been planned to take place as a silent procedure under the tenets of the Church of Scientology, to which both Cruise and Holmes belong.

Scientologists believe words spoken during times of pain are recorded by the “reactive mind” and can cause potential problems for both mother and child.

Some of Cruise’s co-stars didn’t want to talk about the couple’s relationship.

“I don’t talk about my own private life, like I’m gonna talk about his?” asked Laurence Fishburne. “I’m not gonna talk about his private life. His private life is his private life.”

Keri Russell said she at least partially understood the public’s fascination with the actors’ offspring.

“I think it’s natural to feel like you know people that you see,” she said. “It’s just like it’s a fairy tale. You’re watching these archetypes. You’re watching them and you’re trying to find connections with your own life, and those are two very accessible people.”

Others said the paparazzi, who had been camped out in front of the couple’s home waiting for the baby’s arrival, should be regulated.

“There’s gonna be a bill passed sooner or later that’s gonna draw a line,” actor Ving Rhames said. “We have to just think about, ‘What have we become? Why is all of this fuss over another human being?”’

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