Hmmm, maybe that guy you saw sipping a latte at the Starbucks downtown really was Tom Cruise.

Movie stars like coffee, too, you know.

Or maybe the whole thing’s just a big joke.

Someone spent much of last weekend calling downtown businesses, claiming to represent a production company that was in the area making a movie starring not just Cruise but also Robert Downey Jr., Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan and — Shhhh! You can’t tell anybody! — Nicole Kidman.

“It was pretty weird,” said Jennifer Moore, manager at the downtown Starbucks, 647 Mass. “The caller, a woman, said they wanted to come in Sunday morning to shoot some scenes with Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr. having breakfast.

“She wanted to know if they could set up some cameras and if we’d be willing to close. She said she was calling us because the Bourgeois Pig had turned them down.”

At the Bourgeois Pig, 6 E. Ninth St., Nicole Cruise — yes, that’s her real name and, no, there’s no relation — said someone had called Saturday with vague questions about the shop being available for making a movie and whether there was security.

“That was pretty much it,” Cruise said. “I think it’s a prank. If it was real, they wouldn’t have gone about it in the fashion they did.”

The mysterious name dropper called Free State Brewing Co., 636 Mass., too.

The Bourgeois Pig, 6 E. Ninth St., and other Lawrence businesses have been inundated with prank phone calls this week from a woman purporting to be a security guard for stars such as Tom Cruise and asking about the availability of private dining facilities for the movie idols. Enjoying the weather and some beer Friday outside the Bourgeois Pig were, from left, Erik Fredrickson, Marion Cramer, Dominic Cason and Nicole Cruise, Lawrence, and an employee at the Pig.

“She said they (the movie stars) were in the area, and they were mad because it was a basketball weekend and they couldn’t get a room,” said manager Debbie Fey. “But she said they’d heard about Free State and they wanted to come here and eat. She said they’d be here at 3:30 — Billy Crystal, Robert Downey Jr. and Meg Ryan.

“She said there was a fourth, but she couldn’t say who it was. And then, later, she said it was Nicole Kidman.”

Fey said she didn’t know what to make of the call because the woman asked a lot questions about security and whether the restaurant could protect the celebrities’ privacy.

“It didn’t make a lot of sense,” Fey said. “If you’re concerned about privacy and security, why would you go to one of the busiest restaurants in town?”

She wasn’t surprised when the glitterati didn’t show.

“It gave us our chuckle for the day,” she said.

The caller also called downtown restaurants PepperJax Grill, 947 N.H., and Milton’s Coffee & Wine, 920 Mass., and, oddly enough, Britches Clothing Co., 843 Mass.

“It was definitely an adult female,” said Britches’ owner Jeremy Furse. “She said they wanted me to supply clothing for a production that was going on in the area. She said they had scouted the store and knew we had the correct clothing. She set up a meeting for 3 p.m. and said Nicole Kidman would be here.”

No one showed. Furse said he called the Kansas Film Commission to find out if Kidman was, in fact, in Kansas.

“No one is shooting a movie that I know of — and certainly not with Nicole Kidman,” said Sally Lunsford, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Commerce and Housing, which oversees the state film commission.

Tom Cruise’s publicist’s office on Friday assured the Journal-World that Cruise was not in or near Kansas.

“I not sure where he is, but he’s not there,” said an assistant who declined to identify herself.