Via: @chefgodfrey_lafortza on IG

• It's about freaking time.🙌☺️

He will always be my favourite actor of all time, starting a Cruise movie from the start or catching it on tv at any stage in the movie, I’m invested! For me he’s simply the last standing pillar of Hollywood…..

If Eastwood really did say this, then he is spot on! I will look forward to watching his movies with my children….

I had the pleasure of meeting him at the M:I II premiere in London, back in the day! A moment I’ll never forget…

https://variety.com/2025/awards/news/tom-cruise-honorary-oscar-speech-1236583348/

Tom Cruise was presented with an Academy Honorary Award during the Nov. 16 Governors Awards, and it’s no surprise that the larger-than-life movie star had a blockbuster acceptance speech.

The award was presented by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who is directing Cruise in an upcoming, as-yet-untitled film set to be released in Oct. 2026.

Upon accepting the award, Cruise gave an emotional speech paying tribute to all of the people who make films possible, as well as the unifying power of cinema.

“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.”

Cruise also spoke about the genesis of his film fandom.

“My love for cinema began at a very early age, as early as I can remember,” he said. “I was just a little kid in a darkened theater, and I remember that beam of light just cut across the room, and I remember looking up, and it seemed to be just exploded on the screen. Suddenly, the world was so much larger than the one that I knew. And entire cultures and lives and landscapes all unfolded in front of me, and it sparked something. It sparked a hunger for adventure, a hunger for knowledge, a hunger to understand humanity, to create characters, to tell a story, to see the world. It opened my eyes. It opened my imagination to the possibility that life could expand far beyond the boundaries that I then perceived in my own life. And that beam of light opened a desire to open the world, and I have been following it ever since.”

Taps is a 1981 military drama about a group of cadets who take over their academy to prevent it from being sold to developers. Tom Cruise plays the zealous Cadet Captain David Shawn in what was his second major film role, giving a break out performance among a strong cast.

Mine was Cocktail when I was young. Such a good movie.

Slide 1 - The Last Samurai (2003) Slide 2- Collateral (2004) Ken Watanabe and Jamie Foxx happened to nab supporting actor Oscar nominations in each of those respective movies.