‘Making Films Is Not What I Do, It Is Who I Am’

Tom Cruise is now the proud winner of an Academy Award. The Mission Impossible actor accepted an honorary Oscar on Sunday night at the Governors Awards, giving an emotional speech that paid tribute to his history with movies.

The award was presented by Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who is directing Cruise in an upcoming film set for release next October. It marks Cruise’s first Oscar, although he has previously been nominated four times, including for Best Actor for Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire.

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“The cinema, it takes me around the world,” Cruise told the audience (via Variety). “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.”

The actor also reflected on his love for cinema, which “began at a very early age.” He remembered doing whatever he could to get into the theater to see films.

“I was just a little kid in a darkened theater, and I remember that beam of light just cut across the room, and I remember looking up, and it seemed to be just exploded on the screen,” he recalled. “Suddenly, the world was so much larger than the one that I knew. And entire cultures and lives and landscapes all unfolded 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 opened a desire to open the world, and I have been following it ever since.”

He added in conclusion, “I want you to know that I will do everything I can for this art form, to support and champion new voices, to protect what makes cinema powerful. Hopefully without too many more broken bones.”

Earlier this year, Cruise released the supposedly final film in the Mission Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. In May, the actor received the BFI Fellowship from the British Film Institute, the organization’s highest honor. During an event title “Tom Cruise in Conversation,” Cruise admitted there are still things on his cinematic bucket list.

“Definitely musicals,” Cruise said when asked he wants to do next as a performer. “Drama, action, adventures. It’s endless. My goals are endless.”

Along with Cruise, the Academy also presented honorary Oscars to Dolly Parton, Debbie Allen, and Wynn Thomas.

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