Within the past year, there have been a lot more conversations about what it’s like to be a “nepo baby,” especially as the child of actors, as of late. One high-profile nepo baby who has remained out of the debate is Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s daughter, Suri Cruise, who is currently 16 years old and has a notable lack of presence in the spotlight. According to her mother, that’s very much intentional.

Katie Holmes has a past of being a target of the paparazzi, especially during the years she was dating and married to Tom Cruise, whom she filed for divorce from in 2012. These days, it seems she does whatever she can to lead a private life. When the actress and filmmaker was recently asked about what it’s like to now be the mother of teenage daughter, she said this:

“What has been really important for me with my daughter, because she was so visible at a young age, is I really like to protect her. I’m very grateful to be a parent, to be her parent. She’s an incredible person.”

During a cover interview for Glamour, Holmes gushed about the person Suri Cruise has grown up to be, along with getting honest about how “visible” she was at a young age. I’m sure many of us remember all the tabloid pictures of Holmes and her daughter (who is a spitting image of her) at grocery stores when she was just a young girl.

Holmes also reflected on Suri Cruise finding a part in her 2022 movie Alone Together, which Holmes starred in, wrote and directed. Suri Cruise sang in the opening credits of the movie a cover of “Blue Moon,” inspired by Diane Keaton singing the same song in So It Goes. Holmes said this about her daughter collaborating with her:

“I hope she always does something on my films. I always ask her. But both of those experiences came out of the same sense of what I love about our industry, which is, you have these projects and you become a family with people. And it’s this safe, beautiful, creative space. So it comes out of love for me to include someone who I love dearly. That’s how I like to work. I like to have that kind of feeling. It was very meaningful to me to have her there, because she’s my heart.”

It sounds like Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise have a sweet mother-daughter relationship nowadays and prefer to keep a private life even though they are starting to collaborate together on movies. Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise have kept a low profile for their daughter in recent years, keeping the spotlight on their respective careers, most recently with Tom Cruise’s movie Top Gun: Maverick becoming a huge box office draw last year and getting a ton of Oscar nods.

Katie Holmes’ own latest project is another directorial effort called Rare Objects, which she also co-wrote as well. The 2023 new movie release is about a woman (played by Holmes) who seeks to rebuild her life with a new job at an antique store. You can check out Rare Objects this Friday, April 14.