LOS ANGELES — After clinging to the side of a plane, riding a motorcycle off a cliff and climbing up the side of a skyscraper, it was a few stair steps that took Tom Cruise’s career to new heights.
On Sunday, the actor finally collected an Academy Award.
“I want you to know that I will always do everything I can to help this art form,” said Cruise, 63, upon receiving an honorary Oscar at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Governors Awards. “Hopefully without too many more broken bones.”
The Governors Awards, which are selected by the academy’s board based on an artist’s career, are distinct from the competitive Academy Awards given out during the Oscars telecast, which the group’s more than 10,000 members vote on to reward specific films.
In addition to honoring recipients, the glamorous event has also been considered a key campaign stop for Oscar contenders, many who show up largely in order to rub elbows with academy voters. The event, which is not televised, is a kind of dual purpose celebration, or “a Russian doll awards show,” as “Is This Thing On?” star Will Arnett said onstage.
Before the show got underway, A-listers mingled at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Ovation Hollywood, where the event took place. Ariana Grande made a beeline to say hello to Cruise, who asked how her “Wicked: For Good” press tour was going. Gwyneth Paltrow, on hand to promote her role in “Marty Supreme,” caught up with her godfather, Steven Spielberg, who was seated at Cruise’s table. Alejandro Iñárritu, who would later deliver Cruise his Oscar, huddled with “Frankenstein” director Guillermo del Toro.
Other Oscar contenders who attended the party included Leonardo DiCaprio, Sydney Sweeney, Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Coogler, Jennifer Lawrence, Cynthia Erivo, Emma Stone, Jeremy Allen White, Amanda Seyfried, Kristen Stewart and Chloé Zhao.
The evening arrived as Hollywood is managing multiple crises, from a looming deal that could leave the town with one less movie studio to the emergence of artificial intelligence to a theatrical business that never quite bounced back from the pandemic. In a nod to the AI threat, academy President Lynette Howell Taylor spoke in her opening remarks about Hollywood as a “community that protects human authorship and artistic freedoms.”
Cruise’s advocacy to revive moviegoing after the Covid-19 pandemic closed theaters has endeared him to many of his film industry colleagues in recent years, including Spielberg, who told Cruise that he had “saved Hollywood’s a–” at a 2023 academy luncheon.
In his speech about Cruise, Iñárritu, who is directing the star in an as-yet-untitled black comedy for Warner Bros., remarked that “Tom Cruise doesn’t just make movies, he is movies.”
Cruise has been nominated for a competitive Oscar four times, for best actor for “Born on the Fourth of July” and “Jerry Maguire,” best supporting actor for “Magnolia” and best picture for producing “Top Gun: Maverick,” but has never won.
Cynthia Erivo at the 16th Governors Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.Gilbert Flores / Variety via Getty Images
The academy also gave honorary Oscars to choreographer and actor Debbie Allen and production designer Wynn Thomas, and conferred its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award upon Dolly Parton.
Parton, 79, accepted her award via a pre-recorded speech from her home in Nashville, Tennessee, due to a previously announced medical procedure. In Parton’s absence, Andra Day performed the country singer’s signature 1973 song “Jolene” for the audience.
Parton has received two competitive Oscar nominations, for the original songs “9 to 5” for the 1981 movie “9 to 5,” and “Travelin’ Thru,” for 2006’s “Transamerica.” The academy honored her for her philanthropic work, including as an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ community and a funder of medical research that led to the development of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine.
Allen, 75, rose to prominence for playing a dance teacher in the 1980 film “Fame” and subsequent 1980s TV adaptation, which she also choreographed. She also acted in the TV show “Grey’s Anatomy,” produced “Amistad” and choreographed “The Six Triple Eight.”
In her speech, Allen spoke about “wanting to replace Shirley Temple” as a child and praised her fellow honorees, bringing up an early Cruise film, “Risky Business.”
“Honey, we loved you when you slid out there in those tighty-whities and we love you still,” she said.
Thomas, 73, the first Black production designer to join the art director’s guild, is best known for his collaboration with writer-director Spike Lee, with whom he has worked on 11 films, including “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X.”
