Tom Cruise honored Val Kilmer in a beautiful way at CinemaCon
Top Gun brought Iceman (Val Kilmer) and Maverick (Tom Cruise) together in an enemies to best friends kind of relationship. It led to one of the best moments of Top Gun: Maverick and at CinemaCon, Tom Cruise honored his friend.
Kilmer passed away earlier this week at the age of 65. When Cruise took the stage to present Christopher McQuarrie with the Director of the Year award at CinemaCon, he started the presentation by honoring Kilmer.
“I can’t tell you how much I admire his work, how grateful and honored I was when he joined Top Gun and came back later for Top Gun: Maverick,” Cruise said when he walked out on the stage. “I think it would be really nice if we could just have a moment together, because he loved movies and he gave a lot to all of us. Just kind of think about all the wonderful times that we had with him.”
He then asked for a moment of silence to remember sharing those cinematic moments with Kilmer that we know and love. Whether it be Willow or Top Gun, The Doors and beyond, we all had that moment with Kilmer and his work. The audience sat in silence and waited and remembered Kilmer as we know and love him.
Cruise ended it by saying that Kilmer would have loved that moment and it was incredibly emotional. I was left crying, thinking about the impact that Kilmer’s work had on me as I was growing up and how so many of us in this room shared those experiences with him. It is part of the joy of cinema and particularly with actors like Kilmer and, by extension, Cruise.
I was grateful he gave us that moment. So many of us at CinemaCon love Cruise and have not had a moment to really reflect on Kilmer’s passing in the busy nature of the convention and so to have that moment of silence truly was beautiful.
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