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Tom Cruise led a moment of silence today for his friend and co-star Val Kilmer during a CinemaCon presentation.
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 forTop 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 onscreen 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.”
