Naturally, Tom Cruise Accepts MTV Movie Award For Best Performance While Flying A Throwback Fighter Plane
Tom Cruise has a few screws loose. Most of us do to some degree...but we're talking about a man who willingly rides a motorcycle off a cliff and parachutes down. Delivering a thank you speech in the cockpit of a vintage fighter plane is actually pretty tame compared to some of Cruise's stunts in movies or even on a press junket. Or even while he's shooting a current project.
Reminds me of the last time he was seen doing a video like this while in production on Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning
The MTV Movie & TV Award for best performance in a movie went to Cruise for his role in Top Gun: Maverick, which eclipsed the beloved original in pretty much every conceivable way. Cruise's chops as a pilot were on full display, and thanks to cutting-edge camerawork from inside those lightning-fast jets, it was such a visceral, thrilling experience at the movie theater.
In addition to doing all of his own stunts (of course), Cruise had a heavy influence in the direction of Maverick's story as a producer and obviously facilitated all the fighter jet action that wowed everyone. Director Joseph Kosinski deserves credit for helming such a mega hit, but Cruise was obviously the driving force that made that thing happen and, according to Steven Spielberg, might've saved the whole industry.
If Spielberg fucks with Tom Cruise, I feel maybe slightly better and a tad less sheepish about parking my ass in a seat on Day 1 for some crazy, groundbreaking action-adventure storytelling. Cruise is quite the "separate-art-from-the-artist" dilemma, ain't he?
Anyway, Cruise ends the vid with a flourish. He promotes the newest Mission: Impossible entry — didn't even need to, everyone's gonna be going out to see that one — wishes everyone a wonderful summer, and promptly leans into a hard turn and drops altitude at a rapid pace. Not quite a full-on nosedive but pretty close. I don't pretend to be an aviation expert and I'm sure there's a name for that type of maneuver. Just don't know it.
You gotta respect the lengths to which Cruise will go to entertain an audience, which he clearly takes a lot of pride in doing. He more or less lets his mortality hang in the balance for the sake of a fictional movie. With Mission coming to an end with a grand two-part finale, perhaps Cruise will have time to get behind another vehicle for Maverick collaborator Kosinski for the Brad Pitt-fueled Formula 1 flick.
Also awaiting on news about that space movie, Tom!
Twitter @MattFitz_gerald/TikTok