Associated Press
[Source: AP]
Tom Cruise, at 63 still the biggest movie star in a room full of them, finally got to hold his own Oscar on a Hollywood stage on Sunday night.
“Making movies is not what I do, it’s who I am,” said Cruise.
He was composed as always, but at moments seemed near tears as he spoke, grasping the gold honorary statuette that celebrated his more than 40 years at the apex of the industry at the film academy’s annual Governors Awards.
“In that theater we laugh together, we feel together, we hope together,” he said after a two-minute ovation.
Production designer Wynn Thomas and choreographer and actor Debbie Allen were also selected by the academy’s board of governors to be honored for their storied careers, and an absent Dolly Parton was honored for a lifetime of philanthropy at the ceremony at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles.
A competitive Oscar has eluded Cruise, who’s been nominated four times: as an actor for 1989’s “Born on the Fourth of July,” 1996’s “Jerry Maguire” and 1999’s “Magnolia,” and as a producer for 2022’s “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Before he took the stage, the audience saw a long montage of clips from those and his other films — loaded with death-defying stunts he often did himself — from 1981’s “Taps” through this year’s “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.”
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