The Hollywood star – who had been nominated for multiple Oscars but never previously won – was honoured at the Academy’s annual Governors awards, along with Dolly Parton, Wynn Thomas and Debbie Allen
T
om Cruise finally received an Oscar on Sunday night in Los Angeles – though not for a specific acting role. The star of Top Gun, Jerry Maguire and the Mission: Impossible series was given an honorary Academy Award at the annual Governors awards, which are designed to reward lifetime achievement.
In a statement before the event, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) president Janet Yang cited “Cruise’s incredible commitment to our film-making community, to the theatrical experience, and to the stunts community has inspired us all”. Recalling his efforts to shoot the seventh Mission: Impossible in 2020, Yang added that Cruise “helped to usher the industry through a challenging time during the Covid-19 pandemic”.
Cruise, who was previously nominated for best actor Oscars for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire, and best supporting actor for Magnolia, described first falling in love with the medium, saying: “I remember that beam of light just cut across the room. I remember looking up and seeing the image just exploding on the screen, and suddenly the world was so much larger than the one that I knew. Entire cultures, lives, landscapes. It sparked a hunger, a hunger for adventure, a hunger for knowledge, a hunger to understand humanity, to create characters, to tell a story.”
