Director J.J. Abrams, Running With the Shows

The root, if you ask Abrams, is a tour of Universal Studios he took at age 8. This was its pre-amusement-park days, when the highlight was a visit to Lucille Ball's dressing room and leftover special effects from "Airport." It blew Abrams's mind. He knew then, this is what I want to do.

By a fortunate coincidence, Abrams's father had just left his job selling commercial time for CBS to try his hand at made-for-TV film production.

"It was like deciding to be an astronaut right when your dad joins NASA," Abrams says. Gerry Abrams would eventually produce about 60 movies for television, and for a while his office was on the Paramount lot. After school, his son had the run of the place, as shows including "Mork & Mindy" and "Laverne & Shirley" were being filmed.

By age 9 he was dreaming up his own scripts, and casting grade-school buddy Greg Grunberg as the star in Super-8 short films. One of the first, "The Attic," finds Grunberg waking up, walking to the sink and getting stabbed in the back -- by Abrams, of course, who began his life of multitasking by filming and stabbing at the same time.

"There was this other one," says Grunberg, on the phone from Los Angeles, "where this doll levitates and floats across the room and starts biting my neck. Even now, I ask him, 'How did you do that?' He was always just super-creative. It was always fun to be around him. I loved going to his house."

Grunberg is still a close friend and still one of Abrams's favorite actors. He's had parts on "Felicity" (as the entrepreneurial student), in "Alias" and "Lost" and a speaking-part cameo in "Mission: Impossible III."

By the time Abrams was 13, he was entering film festivals for kids and wound up sharing a top prize in one, which led to a newspaper article. Soon after that he heard from a young director who was looking for someone to edit a film he'd made as a student. It was Steven Spielberg, already famous for "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

"I think he paid J.J. $100 to do it," Gerry Abrams recalls. "I remember my wife came home and she saw all these bits of film on the floor and she just had a cow: 'Steven Spielberg is going to sue us for all we're worth!' "

Abrams attended Sarah Lawrence, where he wrote nine screenplays, none of which he says was very good. But writing is the one part of show business that doesn't require anyone's permission. So he didn't stop. Soon after graduating, he wrote "Regarding Henry," released in 1991 with Harrison Ford in the lead.

"It was shocking at first, when he told me about it," says Grunberg, who shared a Hollywood apartment with Abrams at the time. "I mean, Harrison Ford was the biggest movie star in the world at the time. But a moment later, I was thinking, 'Of course! He would be an idiot not to be in J.J.'s movie.' "

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Abrams says that throughout the filming of "Mission: Impossible III" he never got past the idea that he was in charge. But he brought the movie in under budget and two days before the end of its 100-day shooting schedule.

In his annoyingly modest way, Abrams deflects lots of credit to Cruise, who he says could have easily slowed the process or poisoned the on-set atmosphere had he demonstrated any this-is-my-show attitude. It's a little hard to square the public image of Cruise -- the fist-pumping, strenuously smiling loon-doggie -- with the utterly decent, charming character that Abrams swears he is.

"Success in Hollywood just magnifies whoever you were at the beginning," he says, "and everyone who's known Tom for years will tell you that he's always been unbelievably passionate about whatever he's doing. He's got enough energy for an army. Some people go, 'Whoa, that's way too much.' But if passion is his big crime, I'll take that any day over the alternative, which is being mean, manipulative, destructive, and which is far more common."

Next up for Abrams is a "Star Trek" movie, now in pre-production, which will unleash his inner geek as never before. He'll also be working on "Lost," trying to ensure the show doesn't splinter into so many directions that it chokes on itself or stops moving. There's not a lot of talk from him about downtime. Asked if he has any plans for his money, he seems confused.

"What money?"

You know, the money you get paid for all this incredibly lucrative work.

He thinks for a moment, then tilts his head and points to his locks.

"Hair care," he says.