The gold men.
Photo: Variety via Getty Images
Tom Cruise, potentially the greatest action star of all time, received his first Oscar at the Governors Awards on November 16. Cruise was joined by his fellow 2025 honorary Oscar recipients: Dolly Parton (9 to 5, Steel Magnolias), production designer Wynn Thomas (Do the Right Thing), and Debbie Allen, who choreographed the Oscar ceremony ten times. Cruise used his acceptance speech to praise the industry and the people who keep it alive. “The cinema, it takes me around the world,” Cruise said. “It helps me to appreciate and respect differences. It shows me also our shared humanity, how alike we are in so, so many ways. And no matter where we come from, in that theater, we laugh together, we feel together, we hope together, and that is the power of this art form. And that is why it matters, that is why it matters to me. So making films is not what I do, it is who I am.” Does he sound a little like his ex-wife Nicole Kidman in her AMC ad? Maybe. She’s single again, Tommy Boy.
Cruise also had everybody in the audience who had worked on one of his movies stand up — including Steven Spielberg and his agent at CAA, Kevin Huvane — and clapped for them. “I want you to know, please know, that I carry you with me each of you, and you are a part of every frame of every film that I have ever made or ever will make,” Cruise told those standing. “And I want you to know that I will always do everything I can for this art form to support and champion new voices and to protect what makes cinema powerful, hopefully without too many more broken bones.”
Cruise has been nominated for three competitive acting Oscars, along with Best Picture as a producer for Top Gun: Maverick, though he has not won a competitive award. His three acting nominations all came within about a decade, when he scored nods for 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July, 1996’s Jerry Maguire, and 1999’s Magnolia. Since then, Cruise and the Oscars have had an uneasy relationship. The actor skipped the 2023 ceremony at which he was nominated for Maverick because he was filming a Mission: Impossible film, and David Letterman called him out for it, asking “Where was Tom Cruise?” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Maybe now that he has the honorary Oscar, Cruise will show up this year to support his favorite movie of the year, Sinners.
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