Tom Cruise's hitchhiking youth

Hollywood star Tom Cruise jokes with reporters during his red carpet arrival for the world premiere of his latest movie "Mission: Impossible III" in Rome April 24, 2006./Reuters

Tom Cruise used to hitchhike with prostitutes.

The now multi-millionaire actor used to hitch rides with the men picking up sex workers outside New York's Holland Tunnel when he was a struggling actor.

Cruise - who celebrated the birth of his first child with fiancee Katie Holmes last week - revealed to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper: "There were prostitutes, who used to be around the tunnel, who knew me. They'd see me and they'd go, 'Look, I'll pick up a john and you jump in'. So I'd ride through the tunnel to New Jersey.

"The driver's a little like, 'What's this guy doing in the back seat?' But he saw I'm just this 18-year-old kid. I didn't look dangerous.

"And they didn't do anything sexual in front of me. I'd get out in New Jersey and say, 'Thank you very much'. Then I'd hitchhike home."