Who calls the shots, celebrities or the press?

The relationship between the journalists who interview actors and the publicists who guard the stars' images has often been an uneasy balance of symbiosis and antagonism. But a recent effort to get reporters to sign an agreement attaching conditions to interviews with Tom Cruise represents an unusually aggressive attempt at press control, say some people who cover the entertainment industry.

Reporters interviewing Cruise last weekend in Los Angeles for his new movie, "Collateral," were asked to sign an "interview consent agreement" that included a prohibition against using " `bloopers' or other types of errors or misstatements" and a stipulation that "neither Artist nor the Interview will be used or referred to in a derogatory manner." A freelance correspondent for The Boston Globe, who disclosed the agreement in her story on Wednesday, signed the form, as did another reporter contacted by the Globe. Cruise, whose personal life has been the subject of considerable gossip and who has sued to protect his reputation, is considered one of the more image-sensitive Hollywood luminaries.

Mike Vollman, who works in the DreamWorks marketing department, said the agreement is "a standard thing. . . . Tom Cruise is a worldwide superstar, and he's been doing this for years." Asked whether a clause prohibiting any "derogatory" references was normal procedure, Vollman said: "I don't think I read it. They're not my forms." Through a spokeswoman, Cruise's sister and publicist, Lee Anne DeVette, called it "a very standard thing celebrities do."

Press accounts have documented efforts by Cruise's public relations team to force reporters to sign agreements in the past -- a 1999 column by the Chicago Sun-Times film reviewer Roger Ebert described his refusal to sign a document with the "derogatory" clause. But some journalists expressed astonishment at the attempt to attach such conditions to his recent interviews.

"That's very unusual. It's not something I encountered before," said Mark Harris, editor at large for Entertainment Weekly.

Betsy Sharkey, deputy entertainment editor for the Los Angeles Times, said a Times reporter had interviewed "Collateral" stars Cruise and Jamie Foxx and director Michael Mann for a story published in June. "We've never been asked anything like that," she said. "We've never been asked to exclude anything."

In interviews with more than a dozen entertainment writers and editors at major newspapers, the Globe found four reporters who had conducted recent phone interviews with Cruise without having to agree to restrictions. Several others said they had sat down with the actor in the past with no conditions. But however rare or selective the use of the agreement, writers who cover the rich and famous say negotiations for face time can be challenging, particularly if the subject is a major star.

"There is a constant border skirmish between entertainment journalists and the people who represent celebrities," said Harris, whose magazine featured Cruise and Foxx on its Aug. 6 cover. "Anything you can possibly think that a publicist can ask for, there is some publicist out there that will ask for it." Such requests, he added, include the star having control over quotes and photographs and the acceptable range of questions.

Sometimes the restrictions are too much for journalists to accept. "I think we walk away [from interview opportunities] a lot more than we used to," said the Chicago Tribune's entertainment editor, Scott Powers, who is a former Globe arts editor.

A film critic for The Miami Herald, Rene Rodriguez, said he has never been able to land a one-on-one interview with either Brad Pitt or Cruise. Once, however, during a press tour, Rodriguez said he was allowed to ask a question of Cruise -- who was officially unavailable to the media -- but only after getting special access to a press briefing that the star was doing strictly for college journalists.

Donna Freydkin, a reporter for USA Today, wrote a story revealing that her paper had recently rejected an interview request with actress Lindsay Lohan "after being instructed to refrain from asking questions about her father's legal problems."

Todd Spangler, assistant features editor at the Detroit Free Press, recounted how Spike Lee had said he did not want the writer who interviewed him in connection with "She Hate Me" to review the movie. "My inclination was to tell him that Spike Lee does not get to assign who writes a movie review," Spangler said.

Newspaper staff members say some issues, such as whether a publicist sits in the room during an interview with a star, are not deal killers. But editors say their policies do not allow for restrictive conditions or the signing of any agreements.

"Our correspondent did strongly resist [signing the Cruise agreement] and did make a good-faith effort to get an editor's approval before going ahead," said Scott Heller, the Globe's arts editor. Still, he said, "we should not have signed the agreement." He said the paper's policy is that "we don't agree to restrictions or conditions made by celebrities," and he could not recall a Globe writer ever having been asked to sign such a form before.

"People have tried to negotiate things since the beginning of time," said Jonathan Landman, culture editor for The New York Times. "We don't do it."

Powers said flatly: "We never sign anything."

And although Cruise's handlers asked journalists to sign an agreement in Los Angeles, some writers say the realities of the film business have shifted the balance in their favor, making it more important for stars to cooperate with the media, making them less able to control access or content.

"I have never been told what I can or cannot ask," Rodriguez said. But "as recently as five years ago, there was a certain level of star who you couldn't get a one-on-one interview with unless you were a national publication.

"That changed because of the nature of the publicity game," he added. "No one is any longer a box office guarantee the way they used to be. . . . Generally speaking, I think it's actually gotten better, from my perspective."

A writer and critic for the Detroit Free Press, Terry Lawson, said he agrees that stars today need to cultivate reporters to further their careers and to "be heard above the din. It's like everybody is a celebrity. There's not one Britney Spears; there's like 12 Britney Spears."