Tom Cruise's Santa failure

Dec 15, 2008, 9:30 GMT

The 46-year-old star dresses up as Santa Claus every year for his children - adopted daughter Isabella, 15, and son Connor, 13, with ex-wife Nicole Kidman and daughter Suri, two, with wife Katie Holmes - and admits he was shocked when Suri saw through his act last year. Tom Cruise JOHANNES EISELE

Tom Cruise's two-year-old daughter is unimpressed by his acting skills.

The 46-year-old star dresses up as Santa Claus every year for his children - adopted daughter Isabella, 15, and son Connor, 13, with ex-wife Nicole Kidman and daughter Suri, two, with wife Katie Holmes - and admits he was shocked when Suri saw through his act last year.

Talking about how his family celebrates the festive season, he said: "I'm always Santa. The teenagers know it's me, but I was surprised at Suri last year. Kate made the Santa outfit and when I came out, I did my best Santa impression. She looked at me and said, 'No, Dada.' This year, I'm going to do a little better. I'm working on it."

Tom can soon be seen in new film 'Valkyrie', in which he plays a German colonel who plots to kill Hitler and bring down the Nazi regime, and has revealed he drew on childhood experiences when playing the part.

He said at a press conference: "I grew up playing with the neighbourhood kids in the yard wanting to kill Nazis, wanting to kill Hitler. As a child you'd think, 'Why didn't someone just shoot him?' This is an important story, because I didn't know it. It's important to know, of course, that it's not everyone, it's not everybody who felt that way and fell into that Nazi ideology. That, to me, was surprising."