Cruise vexed by 'Valkyrie' eye patch

NEW YORK, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Hollywood actor Tom Cruise admits the eye patch he wore in his new movie "Valkyrie" caused him some unexpected balance problems on the film set.

In the movie, Cruise plays a German military officer who takes part in an unsuccessful plot to kill dictator Adolf Hitler. Cruise's character loses his eye in World War II and wears an eye patch for much of the film.

"I was surprised, for a few hours and a few days, when we started working on it, yeah, it did (cause me some balance problems). Especially when it was dark, I lost depth-perception and balance," Cruise told reporters in New York recently. "And, also, from visual cinematic story-telling, it was a challenge I think for (director Bryan Singer). I really respect Bryan's staging, and his composition, and his storytelling. ... And with the eye patch, he also understood it's a different story depending on where that camera is on my face. ... It was a challenge always going into a room."

"If you're staging a scene on a set and you really want to shoot out the set and make it look pretty, and position the actors in relation to one another, but if this side's one thing and this side's the other thing, he can't see the other actor," Singer added. "So, then, that reverses where they are, that could end up reversing where the camera is in the room, which could end up reversing what part of the room we're shooting in. So, in the morning, you'd have to work these things out."