Hollywood A-lister Tom Cruise is renowned as an enthusiastic Anglophile and the star’s influence in the UK is expanding all the more – from mingling with royals and celebrities to charming market town mayors and singing along at big-name gigs.

The Mission: Impossible actor has been an even more familiar figure at events across the country this summer, including last weekend’s Glastonbury Festival and Taylor Swift‘s sold-out Wembley gigs earlier last month.

Cruise, 61, was last week seen boarding a helicopter at a helipad in central London with 29-year-old son Connor before turning up at Glastonbury that weekend.

Earlier this year he reunited with Prince William at a charity event, where the friendly pair joked about the prince’s footwear for Top Gun: Maverick‘s 2022 UK premiere.

Cruise was filmed escorting the Princess of Wales up stairs for that event in June 2022 – and has spoken in the past of his bond with the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Cruise spends a lot of time in the town an hour’s drive from London, due to it being home to the UK base of Scientology, the religious movement to which he belongs.

Hollywood A-lister Tom Cruise, a self-confessed Anglophile, is on friendly terms with Prince William – the pair are seen greeting each other at a charity event at Raffles London in February

Cruise and the Prince of Wales were attending the London Air Ambulance Charity Gala Dinner at the OWO in central London on February 7

Guests at movie launches have included Frazer Visser, mayor of East Grinstead in West Sussex, at the premiere of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One in June last year

Cruise, 61, was among those attending Taylor Swift’s Wembley Stadium concerts last month

Cruise is a frequent visitor to Britain to film scenes for his Mission: Impossible movies – he is pictured here arriving at a central London heliport after a helicopter flight last month

The actor also attended last weekend’s Glastonbury Festival, watching Coldplay on Saturday

He appeared in a video segment for her Platinum Jubilee in 2022 and was later invited to tea with her at Windsor Castle shortly before her death in September.

Cruise said of her that year: ‘She’s a woman I greatly admire. She has tremendous dignity and I admire her devotion. What she has accomplished has been historic.’

He later made a cameo appearance at King Charles’s Coronation Concert in May last year- delivering a video message from his Top Gun fighter jet, saying: ‘Pilot to pilot, Your Majesty. You can be my wingman.’

More recently, the Prince of Wales attended a gala for the London Air Ambulance Charity in February where he and Cruise posed in tuxedos – with a shot later shared on Kate and William’s X/Twitter account with the caption: ‘Fancy seeing you here!’

Other guests Cruise has invited to movie launches in the UK include mayors and other councillors covering the West Sussex market town of East Grinstead.

The actor was born in Syracuse, New York, and spent some of his upbringing in Canada – yet he declared in 2022: ‘I guess I am an Anglophile. I spend a lot of time in Britain and that’s not just for work reasons.

‘It’s a fantastic blend of old and new. I love seeing the sights, the Tower of London, Nelson’s Column, Buckingham Palace and all those fantastic places which are just full of history.

Tom Cruise took the Princess of Wales’s hand as he led her up the stairs at the Top Gun: Maverick premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in central London in May 2022

Also there that night was Prince William, wearing £300 aircraft-decorated slippers

‘Britain is trendy, too, and has a lot that other countries then copy. I also love the British countryside.

‘Seeing cows and sheep in the fields here is just so very British and just like we see in the movies in America.

‘I always wondered whether it is really like that. It’s great to go back to the US and say, “Yes, it really is”.’

He favours UK locations for filming many of the scenes in his stunt-packed Mission Impossible movies – and not just the capital London.

The seventh instalment in the franchise took him to Birmingham in 2021, when the city’s main Grand Central station stood in for Abu Dhabi airport.

While visiting England’s second city, he spent two hours at the Indian restaurant Asha’s, tucked into not one but two chicken korma meals and tipped staff £60.

While Cruise has luxurious homes in locations including Beverly Hills and Florida, he is also believed own properties around the East Grinstead area – including a 14-acre, £3.3million estate.

His daughter Isabella, who he and then-wife Nicole Kidman adopted in 1993 two years before they adopted Connor, lives not far away in Croydon.

The religious movement Scientology, of which Cruise is a member, has its UK headquarters here in East Grinstead, a market town in West Sussex

Tom Cruise is seen here taking part in the ‘A Gallop Through History’ celebration for the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee at Windsor Castle in May 2022

She came to England not long after the break-up of Cruise’s second marriage to actress Katie Holmes in 2012 and completed two years of an art degree before dropping out to try a 12-month hairdressing diploma with Vidal Sassoon.

She then signed up at the Delmar Academy of Make up and Hair at Ealing Studios.

While Cruise seemingly still has close relationships with Isabella and Connor, the actor notably has a strained relationship with daughter, Suri, 18 – whom he welcomed with Katie Holmes.

It was revealed that Suri dropped the surname Cruise, graduating from high school last month going by name of Suri Noelle – her mother Katie’s middle name.

Yet Cruise has been all smiles on his British travels lately – including having a blast at Glastonbury last Saturday.

He was joined by his Mission Impossible co-star Simon Pegg, as well as X-Files actress Gillian Anderson, as they watched Coldplay’s set – having been filmed singing along pre-performance to Oasis’s chart-topper Don’t Look Back In Anger.

The previous weekend he attended Swift’s second concert at London’s Wembley Stadium in a VIP area where he mingled with her NFL player boyfriend Travis Kelce.

Other celebrities there that night were Hugh Grant, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.

Tom Cruise was spotted in a VIP box, along with Taylor Swift’s NFL footballer boyfriend Travis Kelce, at the second of her Wembley Stadium concerts last month

Cruise was seen sharing a laugh with others that were also inside the helicopter as they landed in central London last Friday, after a journey taken with son Connor

Connor, 31, is known to be close to his father, with them often attending sports events together

Also last month Cruise carried out Mission: Impossible 8 work – including a day trip in Oxford before flying his helicopter to a helipad in Battersea, south London.

Filming of UK scenes for the eighth instalment of the franchise initially took place between March and December 2022 just roads from Downing Street, with Cruise as character Ethan Hunt seen kneeling in apparent surrender.

He has also been spotted filming a chase scene outside the Houses of Parliament – sprinting full pelt across Westminster Bridge, with the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben serving as a dramatic backdrop.

Meanwhile, there was an awkward moment at the London Heliport in Battersea last month when Cruise almost got into Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s car by mistake.

The Top Gun actor could be seen waving to adoring fans as he strode out on to the car park before attempting to yank open the door of the black Audi – only to realise it was the wrong vehicle.

Cruise has also been working on his latest movie at Longcross film studios in Surrey and was also filming in Derbyshire alongside co-stars Pegg and Hayley Attwell.

And he has shot scenes in London’s Trafalgar Square, where he reportedly hired hawks to keep pigeons away from the set while working.

The action shots came after he was among the guests at Victoria Beckham’s 50th birthday party where he posed with the former Spice Girl and her husband David – where Cruise is said to have stolen the show with his eye-catching breakdancing.

Cruise was among the guests at Oswald’s restaurant in Mayfair, central London, for Victoria Beckham’s 50th birthday party in April this year

Victoria Beckham posted photos on her Instagram following the celebrations, including this shot of her alongside Cruise and her ex-footballer husband David Beckham

The Top Gun star cut a smart figure in a black open collar shirt while Simon Pegg wore a white T-shirt with a navy jacket and a baseball cap for last Saturday’s Coldplay gig at Glastonbury

Tom Cruise was last month seen accidentally attempting to get into Rishi Sunak’s Audi – the Hollywood legend almost ended up in the PM’s car after a mix-up at London Heliport

The movie star, pictured in London in April, has been spending plenty of time in the capital filming the latest instalment of the Mission: Impossible series

Tom Cruise displayed his action star credentials in March as he filmed a chase scene for Mission: Impossible’s eighth instalment outside the House of Parliament

Parliament Square was blocked off with barricades, with the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben serving as the backdrop to the dramatic scene for the upcoming film

Tom was all smiles in London, as so often, as he bundled up by putting on a padded black coat over his costume to stay warm in between takes in the centre of the capital on March 25

The actor has known the couple for 20 years and ex-England football captain David reportedly ‘idolises’ him.

His lengthy spells in the UK have also taken him to major sporting events including tennis at Wimbledon and the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 2021.

The latest Mission: Impossible film is scheduled to come out May 23 next year, after Dead Reckoning Part One was released in July last year.

The movie franchise began in 1996 and is based on the 1966 television series of the same name.