Tom Cruise calls Taylor Swift a football 'genius' after watching NFL game - USA Today

If Tom Cruise ever needs a buddy to watch Sunday night football, he can definitely call up Taylor Swift.

The Oscar-nominated actor, who was recently spotted with the pop superstar at an NFL game, opened up about the experience during an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" Thursday, Sept. 17.

Cruise, 64, and Swift, 36, attended the Kansas City Chiefs' match against the Denver Broncos on Monday, Sept. 14, at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Photos from the game showed the pair sitting together, alongside Swift's mother-in-law, Donna Kelce, in what appeared to be a private suite.

"She was schooling me on football, for real," Cruise told host Jimmy Fallon. "She knows her stuff."

Cruise was one of several A-list stars who attended Swift's wedding to Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden in July. "Everybody there [at the game], all their friends – they're a beautiful couple and magical in their own right," the "Mission: Impossible" star said.

Aside from Swift's football knowledge, the "Digger" actor praised the Grammy-winning singer for her artistic talents, calling her a "brilliant musician and director."

"She's a genius. I've been following her since she was a kid," said Cruise, adding that Swift has "got such a great sense of humor."

Cruise also raved about his hangout with Swift during an appearance on Kelce's podcast "New Heights," released Friday, Sept. 18.

"She was telling me about y'all's first date, where you were talking about football," Cruise told Kelce and his cohost, brother Jason Kelce. "But also, she [asked about] you two playing against, like, hitting each other?"

Kelce poked fun at his wife's lack of sports expertise at the time. "[She said] that we were basically out there boxing each other on the field. Like, sweetie, what the heck?"

But the Kansas City Chiefs tight end gave Swift her props for learning the ins and outs of football during the course of their relationship.

"Now, she knows everything," Kelce said. "She sees the flags coming in, like, 'Oh, that might be a defensive hold.' Like, 'What'd you say, sweetie?' She's like, 'That's encroachment.' I'm like, 'You know what that is?' She's on it now. She got fully engulfed in it."

Kelce said Swift's intense commitment reminded him of Cruise's concentration at work. "You want to know the knowledge. You want to know the tiny, minute details, and you just want the knowledge to be able to understand," he told Cruise.

"Once you understand the full gambit of everything that is part of a show, part of a team or part of a sport, it makes it that much more fun to watch because you're seeing it from a smaller lens and you're so appreciative of the bigger outcome," Kelce said. "That's why she loves doing the directing [of] her music videos. From the story to the rhythm to the visual that you're getting, she just gets engulfed in it, and she loves it. And you can tell she loves it just by the outcome."