Tom Cruise, the star of the Mission: Impossible film series and the official Scientology ambassador in Hollywood, has a way of inspiring fear in people. Not even Thandie Newton could escape this.

The Westworld actress, 47, revealed she had a particularly difficult experience filming one scene with co-star Tom Cruise for the 2000 action movie in a recent interview with Vulture. Given the amount of “pressure” he had taken on for the high-profile sequel, she said Cruise grew obviously “frustrated” as the sequence started to trip the two of them up.

She was asked, “What was your experience on Mission: Impossible 2? Why didn’t you do another one?”

“Oh, I was never asked.”

“I was so scared of Tom,” she confessed to Vulture. “He was a very dominant individual. He tries super hard to be a nice person, but the pressure. He takes on a lot, and I think he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done.”

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The actress recounted a problematic scene in which she and Cruise were on a balcony in Spain.

Regarding filming the sequence, Newton stated, “We’re frustrated with each other.”

After giving some context, she noted that Cruise eventually became extremely, terribly irritated with everything and that the movie’s director, John Woo, wasn’t there at the time.

“And he gets so frustrated with having to try and explain that he goes, ‘Let me just — let’s just go do it. Let’s just rehearse on-camera.’ So we rehearsed and they recorded it, and then he goes, ‘I’ll be you. You be me.’ So we filmed the entire scene with me being him — because, believe me, I knew the lines by then — and him playing me. And it was the most unhelpful … I can’t think of anything less revealing. It just pushed me further into a place of terror and insecurity. It was a real shame. And bless him. And I really do mean bless him, because he was trying his damnedest.”

According to Newton, Cruise grew more stressed over the course of that night, to the point of manifesting a blemish on his face. “I remember at the beginning of the night, seeing this slight red mark on his nose, and by the end of the night, I kid you not—this is how his metabolism is so fierce—he had a big whitehead where that red dot was,” she said. “It would take anyone else 48 hours to manifest a zit. I saw it growing, and it was like the zit was me, just getting bigger and bigger.”

She said that she afterwards phoned director Jonathan Demme and described the set catastrophe as “a nightmare.”

“As I was describing it, it was clear that I thought I was the big fucking problem. And Jonathan was like, ‘Thandie, shame on you for not backing yourself.’ He was really sweet,” Newton continued. “And then Tom called and I thought, Oh, this is it. The apology. No, he was just like, ‘We’re going to reshoot this next week.’ I’m like, ‘Way brilliant.’ And the next time we shot it, I went in there and I just basically manifested all the—because I realized what he wanted. He just wanted this alpha bitch. And I did as best as I could. It’s not the best way to get the best work out of someone.”

Newton stressed that Cruise “wasn’t horrible” and that she had “the most extraordinary time” otherwise.

She said in another section of the interview, “It was just — he was really stressed. He takes on a lot. And I think he has this sense that only he can do everything as best as it can be done.”

Strangely, according to Newton, Nicole Kidman, an Australian actress who was then married to Cruise, secured her the part. Newton recalls, “She was a huge advocate for me.”

The “Crash” actor also spoke about needing to lighten her skin tone for parts at the beginning of her career.

“I mean, I was perceived in so many different ways, and it was always about the individual who was perceiving. It was very much on the spectrum of ‘Is she Black enough or is she too Black?’ … The number of times I would put on a fake tan or take it down or up,” she added.

Regarding Christmas gifts, Cruise would give the actors and crew a Scientology-related item.  “Like a book with the greatest hits of Scientology, a bit like a Bible kind of thing. I was curious, because it’s like, ‘Wow, if it’s going to attract people, powerful, high-profile people, there’s got to be some glue that sticks this shit together.’ Didn’t find any.”