Maverick and Iceman had a bond on screen, and Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer had one off, as Cruise detailed in a new interview in which he praised his late costar.

In a career retrospective for Sight and Sound, Cruise said it was “amazing” that he got to reconnect with Kilmer for the 2022 action drama Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to 1986’s Top Gun. In Maverick, as Cruise once again played Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, Kilmer had a cameo as Maverick’s rival-turned friend, Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. It was Kilmer’s final onscreen role before his death from pneumonia at age 65 this April.

“It was like time had not passed,” Cruise told the magazine as he recalled of filming Maverickscenes with Kilmer (per Deadline). “We were laughing, and it was joyous. And then we started acting, and it’s just, you see it… he became Iceman.”

Kilmer’s role in Maverick was largely silent, since his treatments for throat cancer had damaged the actor’s vocal cords, but Cruise says his late costar embodied Iceman nonetheless. “The power that this guy has, even not saying anything, to become that character,” Cruise said. “He was Iceman. And you saw the dynamic between these friends. It was very special, to say the least, for me personally. … He didn’t even have to speak. That’s what he’s able to do. Beautiful, really beautiful. A gift that he had and that he shared with all of us.”

Cruise also said that Top Gun director Tony Scott had to beg Kilmer to join the cast of the first film, since Kilmer was reluctant to take supporting roles at the time. But Kilmer eventually agreed on to play Iceman, and the rest is cinematic history.

“He had to play [Iceman] so you wanted these guys to be friends in the end. Do you know what I’m saying?” Cruise said. “And I remember those scenes like they were yesterday, acting with him, where he did the bite thing. You know when you’re acting with somebody and you just see they’re just on fire. It’s exhilarating. I love when the scene just goes to a different place. If you look at Top Gun, I think he’s in the movie maybe ten minutes. That’s the impact of an artist like that.”