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"I am a lucky boy. I've had a kind of a cool life." Hollywood director-producer-choreographer Adam Shankman has a point. He once gave Marlon Brando dance steps; he won the blessing of director John Waters to adapt the musical "Hairspray" into a movie; and now he has Tom Cruise doing his rock-and-roll bidding.

As director of "Rock of Ages," Shankman convinced a cast that includes Cruise, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand that they were in good hands.

"I actually did know that they could all sing," the director told the Weekly recently. "Luckily, they were familiar with the songs. So that wasn't scary to them. They also knew that I was going to take care of them; I wouldn't expose them as sounding bad if they sounded bad. ... Tom was the wild card, and then of course he ended up becoming, like, the best singer. It was so crazy!"

Though "Rock of Ages" focuses on resuscitating the '80s rock-club scene on the Sunset Strip, it takes place (in one scene, literally) under the shadow of the Hollywood sign. And comparisons to the movie biz aren't lost on Shankman, who said:

"Listen: I'm going to be honest with you. There is nothing less natural than fame. Fame is freaky and creepy and weird. And it is an opportunity to make money. And with reality TV right now, I just literally cannot believe why people crave this thing that is actually ... soul-sucking, and a little nauseating.

"And so making a movie just about people who want to be famous was icky to me. That, to me, I couldn't do that. ... But I do know what it is to be alone in a crowded room. Where you're surrounded by people, but you feel very, very lonely. Because everybody's biting at you 'cause it's just all about work."

In the film, Cruise's fading rock god sings "Wanted Dead or Alive" as an expression of his celebrity angst.

"That song is so important because it gives you a glimpse into who this guy thinks he is," Shankman said. "He's literally the most famous rock star on the planet; he is never alone; he is only surrounded by women and liquor and his baboon and his managers and his bodyguards. And yet somehow, in his deluded, man-child drunken mind, he sees himself as this lonely caballero trudging through the desert, alone."

It gets weirder, like the scene in which Cruise's character seduces a Rolling Stone reporter played by Malin Akerman. "Yeah, I think singing 'I Want to Know What Love Is' while you're having sex on an air-hockey table 'cause that's the only manifestation of love that you understand was -- I like irony, y'know? ... That was an incredibly weird day of shooting, though."

Indeed it is a lucky boy who can go to work and say, "Let's line up a two-shot of Tom singing into Malin's butt."

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