After almost 45 years of career and four nominations, Tom Cruise received his first Oscar award on Sunday night. The actor was honored in an honorary capacity at the ceremony of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood.
“How do you summarize Tom Cruise’s 45-year career in a four-minute speech? Mission impossible,” said director Alejandro Iñárritu at the time of the award ceremony. “It’s not how far he runs or how high he jumps,” added the filmmaker who has directed the performer in a film that is expected to be released in 2026, “it’s how precisely he decides to move, those tiny calibrations.”
Cruise, 63, receives this tribute for a career marked by titles such as Top Gunthe saga Mission Impossible, Jerry Maguire y Eyes Wide Shutamong others. When accepting his award, the actor recalled the impact that going to the movies as a child had on him. “Suddenly, the world was much bigger than the one I knew,” he said in a room where Steven Spielberg, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ariana Grande, among other major Hollywood celebrities, were present. Cruise recalled that he worked as hard as he could to earn enough money to pay for movie tickets. “I will always do everything I can to support this art form and to promote new voices, to protect what makes cinema powerful, hopefully without many more broken bones,” he said with a laugh. “Making movies is not what I do. It’s who I am,” Cruise added.
The actor had touched the statuette on four occasions, three of them as an actor and the last as a producer, for best film for Top Gun: Mavericka couple of editions ago, when he won Everything at once everywhere. As a performer, he had it close in 1990 with Born on the fourth of July(won by Daniel Day-Lewis formy left foot); in 1997 thanks to the charismatic Jerry Maguire (when he had it closer, but Geoffrey Rush took it from him by Shine); and in 2000 as a supporting actor for Magnolia (although Michael Caine won, Cider House Rules).
At the same gala, artist Dolly Parton received the Jean Hersholt Award for her humanitarian work, which, among other initiatives, includes founding a library that has provided more than 300 million books to children. The singer and songwriter accepted her award for video. This award is given “to a person in the motion picture arts and sciences whose humanitarian efforts have honored the industry by promoting human well-being and contributing to rectifying inequalities.” The singer of country She is a great philanthropist. Another of his best-known actions is that, in 2020, he financed the development of the Covid-19 vaccine from Moderna laboratories, donating one million dollars through Vanderbilt University in Nashville, in his native Tennessee.
Parton was nominated in 1981 for the song Nine To Five as best song for How to eliminate your bossbut there it swept Fama. In 2006, he tried again for Transamericawith the song Travelin’ Thru.
Along with them, two other winners: production designer Wynn Thomas (a frequent collaborator of filmmaker Spike Lee and who has worked on films such as Malcolm X, a wonderful mind, Cinderella Many Hidden Figures) and the choreographer, producer and actress Debbie Allen, creator of the choreographies for many films and also seven Oscar ceremonies. Neither had received a previous nomination.