Tom Cruise, one of Hollywood’s brightest stars, was awarded the Academy’s highest honours. He joined the Governors Awards on November 16, 2025 and accepted the Academy Honorary Award. This is surely a significant moment in Cruise’s career, which spanned four decades in Hollywood.
While Tom Cruise’s winning speech is grabbing the attention, another clip recently surfaced on social media, where he, along with Debbie Allen, was seen celebrating ahead of the big moment. For the unversed, along with Tom Cruise and Debbie Allen, Dolly Parton and Wynn Thomas were also awarded the Academy Honorary Award on November 16, 2025.
Tom Cruise dances with Debbie Allen before being awarded the Academy Honorary Award
In a video that surfaced, Tom Cruise was seen dancing with Debbie Allen on November 15, 2025. The event was in Los Angeles and was hosted by Debbie Allen Dance Academy. In the clip, Cruise (63) and Allen (75) danced with each other to the hits like Candy and Before I Let You Go. While Tom Cruise was awarded with an Honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards, choreographer Allen bagged the same for Lifetime achievement, and along with them, production designer Wyn Thomas was awarded with an Honorary Oscar, while Dolly Parton bagged the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Dolly Patron was unable to attend the awards in person due to health concerns and sent a pre-recorded message. Tom Cruise, on the other hand, gave a striking speech after his win. For those who don’t know, Cruise has been nominated four times before he bagged the honorary Oscar. He was nominated for the ‘Best Actor’ category in the movies, Born on the Fourth of July and Jerry Maguire. Along with this, he was also nominated for the ‘Best supporting actor’ category for Magnolia and the best producer category in Top Gun: Maverick.
Tom Cruise talked about winning an Honorary Oscar
After the achievement, Tom Cruise gave an emotional speech. After he received the award from Alejandro G. Iñárritu, he said that cinema is not something that he does, but it’s something that he is. In the speech, he added that cinema is the only thing that takes him around the world, and no matter where a person comes from, they all laugh together, feel and hope together in the theatres, and that’s what art is about.
Tom also mentioned that his love of cinema began at an early age, when he, in a dark theatre, saw the art, which sparked something within him, a hunger for exploration, adventure and knowledge. He also shared that he has followed the light ever since, which opened his imagination to the possibility that life could expand far beyond the boundaries. In Tom’s words:
“It sparked a hunger for adventure, a hunger for knowledge, a hunger to understand humanity, to create characters, to tell a story, to see the world. It opened my eyes. It opened my imagination to the possibility that life could expand far beyond the boundaries that I then perceived in my own life. And that beam of light opened a desire to open the world, and I have been following it ever since.”
What do you think about Allen and Cruise’s celebratory moment ahead of their big win?
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