Tom Cruise is welcomed as a hero during his visit to the CAA (to five minutes of applause)
The ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ star and producer had quite the week after receiving praise from Steven Spielberg at the Oscar nominees luncheon.
Tom Cruise had a very eventful week.
He made his first stop on the awards season circuit at the Oscar nominees luncheon, where THR’s Scott Feinberg wrote that the Top Gun: Maverick star and producer “was swarmed by virtually everyone.”
One of them was Steven Spielberg, who exclaimed, “You saved Hollywood’s ass, and you might have saved theatrical distribution,” after hearing about the success of Top Gun. When the pandemic hit, Cruise took a tough stance by pressing Paramount to hold Top Gun: Maverick for a theatrical release rather than a streaming premiere, a trend that had become popular (and contentious) at the time. Cruise appeared humbled by the exchange from his collaborator on movies like Minority Report and War of the Worlds.
After the nominees luncheon, Cruise drove to Century City to meet with his CAA agents, among them Kevin Huvane, Joel Lubin, and Maha Dakhil. The latter shared a photo of the meeting with the caption, “Office visit from the man who brought us back to the theatres,” on Instagram.
THR discovered that CAA staff members gave Cruise a surprise greeting that included five minutes of applause by leaving their offices and congregating in the lobby and along the stairwells on each floor. According to Puck, it was Dakhil who sent an email to the entire staff on Monday at 2:33 p.m. asking them to leave their offices and wave to Tom Cruise from the stairwell.