Tom Cruise Leads Moment of Silence for Val Kilmer at CinemaCon: ‘I Wish You Well on Your Next Journey’
“I can’t tell you how much I admired his work and him as a human being,” actor says of his Top Gun co-star and friend
Tom Cruise led a moment of silence for his friend and co-star Val Kilmer during a CinemaCon presentation on Thursday.
Cruise was on hand in Las Vegas to preview footage of his Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning to exhibitors, but before launching into any action sequences, he acknowledged the death of the actor who portrayed “Iceman” alongside Cruise’s “Maverick” in a pair of Top Gun films.
“I’d like to take a moment before we get started today to honor a dear friend of mine, Val Kilmer,” Cruise said (via People). “I can’t tell you how much I admired his work and him as a human being, how grateful and honored I was that he joined Top Gun and came back for Top Gun: Maverick. I think it would be really nice if we could just have a moment all together and just take a moment because he loved movies and he gave a lot to all of us with his performances with his films. If we could just all take a moment and just think about all the wonderful times that we had with him.”
Cruise closed out the tribute by saying, “Thank you, Val. I wish you well on your next journey. Thank you all for doing that. I know he appreciates it.”
After appearing together in 1986’s Top Gun, Cruise and Kilmer remained friends, with the pair reuniting on-screen 36 years later to reprise their roles in Top Gun: Maverick in a poignant scene that now doubles as Kilmer’s last big-screen appearance.
Following the death of Kilmer earlier this week, there has been an outpouring of tributes from his peers, including his Tombstone co-star Kurt Russell, who told Rolling Stone, “I thought his performance was one of his best. We were always in cahoots. We were always thinking the same thing. That was a big part of why I had such a great time working with him. It was a collaboration in a lot of ways that is a wonderful thing to have.”
