Sydney almost came to a standstill on Monday night for one of the biggest stars in the world, as Tom Cruise walked the black carpet of the Australian premiere of his new movie The Mummy, alongside his co-star Russell Crowe.

Cruise stopped for selfies and signed autographs outside the State Theatre, proud to be promoting a movie that brought him back to his childhood watching classic movies such as Dracula and the original The Mummy from the 1930s starring Boris Karloff.

“I love these monster movies. For me as a kid, I remember on Friday night I was a little kid and I had three sisters and I was like ‘I wanna see this movie.’ And all the girls would sleep in one room and I was a boy so I had my own room, and they were like ‘OK you can see this but you’ve got to sleep in your own room tonight’,” Cruise told AAP on the black carpet.

“I remember being utterly terrified. I was six years old and banging on the door and then going in and sleeping on the floor of their room.

“And they’re beautiful films too, you look at the sets and the design of them and to have the opportunity to be a part of that vision of what this world is going to be is a lot of fun.”

The film is a darker, scarier reboot of The Mummy movies in which Cruise plays soldier of fortune Nick Morton, and the Mummy is female for the first time – a far cry from the Brendan Fraser series from the early noughties.

“You’re dealing with epic themes of darkness and light, and good and evil, in an enormously entertaining way … Because my character is a thief, he releases the Mummy thinking he’s going to get something out of it and he gets something but not quite what he expects,” he said.

There are certain demands when making a movie with Cruise.

The other actors on set are expected to perform their own stunts just as Cruise does, including Crowe who has a fight scene with the star in the film.

Crowe and Cruise pose on the red carpet.

“He’s (Cruise) absolutely an energiser bunny that fella, Mr 100 per cent,” Crowe told AAP at the premiere.

“When somebody flies through the air, that’s somebody flying through the air, and that back slam onto the desk, that’s full on, 100 per cent full speed.”

Cruise also performs an impressive stunt in zero-gravity for a plane crash sequence with his co-star, British actress Annabelle Wallis, who plays Egyptologist Jenny Halsey.

“You know, I’ve wanted to put that in a movie, that stunt, and I’ve been looking at it, kind of working on it and studying it and I was happy when I had the opportunity in this film to put that in there.

“And also my hat really goes off to Annabelle because that was not easy for her and she’s never done stunts before,” Cruise said.

This desire to throw himself into the action, again, harks back to his childhood.

“Since I was a little kid I did that, I used to write skits to entertain my family and physically, for me, I was the kind of kid that would climb the tallest trees at four-years-old,” he said.

Wallis was also at the Sydney premiere as was The Mummy herself, Sofia Boutella, who signed on to the movie before Cruise was onboard.

“I think it was about time to make the monster female. I think it’s fun, slightly unusual. It should be more normal,” Boutella said.

* The Mummy opens in Australian cinemas on June 8