A battalion of screaming fans crammed into Leicester Square last night to welcome the return of Tom ‘King of the Red Carpet’ Cruise back to London for the UK premiere of Valkyrie. Once again, Cruise didn’t disappoint, pulling up on the red carpet promptly at 17.30 GMT in a suitably Germanic black Audi with the glamorous Katie Holmes in tow, and spending the next two hours shaking hands, signing autographs and enthusing about his role in the Bryan Singer-helmed film.

With a script by The Usual Suspects’ Christopher McQuarrie, Valkyrie is a wartime thriller in which Cruise plays Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a German officer who was ringleader of a plot to kill Hitler using a briefcase bomb in 1944. Cruise shrugged off the well-publicised problems with the shoot, including the German government’s initial refusal to allow filming at the Bendler Block where the Stauffenberg was executed. “It was great: we were in Berlin in the summer and a little bit of the fall and we had a wonderful time.”

When asked if he’d lost weight to play the eyepatch-wearing Wehrmacht officer, Cruise laughed. “Was I that out of shape before? I play a lot of sports, and it takes a lot of stamina making films, so I’m always training and doing different things.” The A-lister was equally enthusiastic about his largely British co-stars, including Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh and Eddie Izzard. “These were some great actors and there were some great stories between takes.”

And it was a case of ‘right back at you’ from the Brits, with Bill Nighy, who plays the archly Machiavellian General Fromm in the movie, waxing lyrical about the A-lister. "He was wonderful to work with, exemplary. He was a dreamy guy to do business with, he was inspirational and courteous and generous to everyone around him."

Eddie Izzard, whose character General Fellgiebel is persuaded to join the conspiracy by Stauffenberg, described the taut scene in which the two meet in a Berlin nightclub. “It’s a heavy-duty scene and it was the first day of filming and that was tough as well, when you’ve just got the uniform on for the first time. It represents what all the German officers had to go through to decide if they were going to join the resistance or not, because it was potentially a death sentence.”

Comparing the movie to Apollo 13 - “You know what’s going to happen at the end, but you just want to go on that ride” – a conservatively-dressed Izzard was clearly loving the experience. “I’m even on the poster! Just at the edge but if I keep working my way up... By the time I’m 109, I’ll be right in the middle.”

There was also a surprise, last-gasp appearance from Empire favourite Jason Isaacs in slightly less formal attire (“This is me dressed up! I’m wearing my best jumper”). Isaacs doesn’t appear in Valkyrie, so we assume he was warming up his red carpet skills for the premiere of Green Zone later this year. “I spoke to Paul Greengrass today. It’s going to be fantastic – he makes films in a way that nobody else makes them. I got to hang out for most of the year with soldiers of all ages from all different units, as well as Iraqis, Syrians and Lebanese people, which made the times between filming as interesting and stimulating as on camera.”

And with that, he was off inside to join the cast and crew for the screening, with Cruise following swiftly behind after signing the last of several bajillion autographs and phoning everyone in the crowd's mum.

Valkyrie is in cinemas across the UK from Friday 23 January.