Tom Cruise has finally received his long-awaited honorary Oscar.
On Sunday, November 16, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences hosted its 16th annual Governors Awards at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Ovation Hollywood, celebrating a glittering night honoring the lifetime achievements of the industry’s stars.
At the star-studded ceremony, the Mission: Impossible star was presented with an Academy Honorary Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the entertainment industry.
After accepting the prestigious accolade with a bright smile on his face, the Top Gun actor gave a heartfelt speech, beginning, “The cinema, it takes me around the world. 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,” he continued.
Sweetly opening up about his love for cinema, Cruise noted that he admired it since a very early age.
The actor shared, “I was just a little kid in the park and theater, and then that beam of light just cut across the room and looking up, and it seemed to me to just exploding on the screen. Suddenly the world was so much larger than the one that I knew. And we kind cultures and lives and landscapes all unfolding 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 open the desire to open the world. And I have been up ever since,” the 63-year-old star added.
The esteemed award was presented to Tom Cruise by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the director of his upcoming untitled film.
