Tom Cruise made a surprise appearance at Paramount’s CinemaCon panel this morning to promote Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
While there, he paid tribute to his former Top Gun co-star Val Kilmer, who tragically died at 65 on Tuesday.
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According to Deadline, Cruise asked the CinemaCon audience to “take a moment” before placing his hand on his heart.
“I’d like to honor a dear friend of mine, Val Kilmer. I really can’t tell you how much I admire his work, how much I thought of him as a human being, how honored I was when he joined Top Gun and came back for Top Gun: Maverick. I think it would be great if we could all just take a moment and think about all the wonderful times we had with him. Would you all mind doing that? Let’s just take a moment,” Cruise said, as the auditorium went silent. “We wish you well on your next journey.”
Kilmer’s breakout role was in Top Gun, where he played Cruise’s rival LT Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. He later reprised the role in the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick.
The actor was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015, and the subsequent surgery damaged his vocal cords. In Top Gun: Maverick, most of his dialogue is typed by him on a computer screen, save for one sentence when he tells Tom Cruise’s character that “the world needs Maverick.”
He ultimately died from complications with pneumonia, according to his daughter.
