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Tom Cruise says he faces a dilemma over whether or not to discuss Scientology.

"If I don't talk about my religion, if I say I'm not discussing it or different humanitarian things I'm working on, they're like, 'He's avoiding it.'  If I do talk about it, it becomes, 'Oh, he's proselytizing,'" Cruise says in an interview to appear in the June issue of Playboy, available on newsstands and online May 18.

Cruise expresses remorse for his comments during the notorious interview with Matt Lauer in which he criticized Brooke Shields, psychiatry and antidepressants.

"When I go back and look at it, I find myself thinking, 'I don't feel that way,'" he says.  I get how it came across, but I don't feel that way, and I never have.  Telling people how to live their lives? I saw how that came across and how pieces were edited."

Speaking of editing, Cruise, who's approaching 50, was asked if he'd had cosmetic surgery to maintain his preternaturally youthful good looks.

"I haven't, and I never would," he says.

So how does he do it?

"I honestly have no idea," he says with a laugh. "I go without sleep, I just go hard," he adds.

Cruise has two movies coming out soon: "Rock of Ages," which comes out this summer, and "One Shot."

In "Rock of Ages," Cruise plays a hard rocker with a soft side, as one comedic scene reflects.

"We had this sweet love song, 'I Want to Know What Love Is,' and I'm falling in love with this girl," he says. "But it's a sex scene. … Since it's rock and roll, he's singing most of it to her backside."

Cruise discusses how he deals with the hot glare of attention.

"If I have to, I will sue," he says. "You start with a letter saying, 'Okay, you know it's not true.  Apologize.'  But with certain ones you have to go, "Okay, you crossed a line, and now you have the attention of my lawyers.  … When it involves your kids, you have to go, 'Here's the line, and anytime you cross it…'"

Cruise says he wanted to be an actor since he was four. He has had paying jobs since he was eight, he says.

"When I was 5 years old, I'd climb the tallest tree possible, get to the top so when the wind was blowing I'd hang on as the branch swayed back and forth," he says. "Then [I'd wonder]: Can I go from this tree and get to that tree?"