Tom Cruise is confirming what Hollywood has apparently been whispering about for years: he’s intense—and he knows it. In a new GQ interview, Cruise said he works extremely hard, expects a lot from the people around him, and makes those expectations clear before they start working together. Cruise says he’s been called intense since he was a kid, but he embraces it. When he gets interested in something, he wants to learn everything about it and “blast through the confusion” until he understands it. He also says he prefers talking face-to-face rather than getting long emails, telling collaborators, essentially, skip the novel and come talk to him. Cruise also remains a big believer in the theatrical movie experience because of the communal feeling of audiences watching a film together.