The announcement that Tom Cruise, known as the last Hollywood star, would receive his first Oscar in November hit a lot of people sideways. Didn’t he already have one? Duh, you’d think, but the answer is no he does not, which we will get to in minute.
Dustin Hoffman, a two-time winner and Cruise’s costar in “Rain Man,” once described Oscar this way: “He has no genitalia and he’s holding a sword.” That Oscar looks exactly the same as the one Cruise will tuck under arm in November. But with one crucial difference. Cruise’s Oscar in an honorary one, still gold as far as I know and given annually by the Academy Board of Governors in recognition of “extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement” or some such well-intentioned blah-blah.
Add that to the fact that honorary awards are not televised, and you might think that Cruise is being given the brush off, a consolation prize that might as well be engraved: “Sorry you never won a real one, but take this as our gold watch.” Ouch. But the so-called honorary curse, laid on such unrewarded acting titans as Orson Welles and Charlie Chaplin, can be broken.
Paul Newman, Cruise’s costar in “The Color of Money,” won the big one a year after they handed him the gold watch. So there’s that. I don’t know why it is, but several Oscar nominated actors I’ve talked to insist that’s its more impactful in the gut to compete in a race with four other actors, even if you lose and are forced to wear your fakest sincere smile in front of millions.
I get that, but I also believe in the gut that Cruise is a long way from retiring his jersey. The way I see it Cruise, at 62, is absolutely still in the game. The academy previously had him in the running with three nominations for acting (“Born on the Fourth of July,” “Jerry Maguire” and “Magnolia”) and one for producing his biggest hit, “Top Gun: Maverick.”
But I’d easily link those with “Rain Man,” in which Cruise gave a better, more complex performance than the winning Hoffman. Between his action jaunts in “Top Gun” and “Mission Impossible,” Cruise has an enviable habit of working with top-tier directors—Martin Scorsese in “The Color of Money,” Stanley Kubrick in “Eyes Wide Shut,” Michael Mann in “Collateral,” and Steven Spielberg in the criminally underrated “Minority Report.” And Cruise is not slowing down. Next up is an untitled movie with two-time Oscar winner Alejandro Iñarritu.
Cruise played his most relatable character, the sports agent in Cameron Crowe’s “Jerry Maguire.” And he played the character everyone loves to hate, a sleazy motivational speaker who runs "Seduce and Destroy" seminars for women-hating men in Paul Thomas Anderson’s magnificent “Magnolia.” Those are his twin peaks in my estimation, a startling show of versatility that makes it plain that Cruise is nowhere near ready for rest on his laurels. Name your favorite Cruise movies and we’ll see what else comes up.