Tom Cruise Reveals Why He Skipped The Oscars And It’s Michael Caine’s Fault
Tom Cruise missed the Oscars to attend Michael Caine's birthday celebrations.
Tom Cruise missed the 95th Academy Awards, even though his movie Top Gun: Maverick was up for the most prestigious award of Best Movie. So, of course, the internet began spiraling with rumors of why Tom Cruise, the “Prince of Hollywood,” had missed the Oscars. As it turns out, Cruise’s no-show was because the Jerry McGuire star was hanging out with Michael Caine.
Though many stars appeared on the Academy Awards red carpet on March 12, Tom Cruise was not among them, despite being one of the most anticipated guests. Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the 95th Oscars ceremony, even wrote a three-minute monologue to honor the actor before having to change it at the last moment when informed that Cruise would not be in attendance. Kimmel and David Letterman discussed the many possibilities for Cruise’s absence on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, none of which involved Michael Caine.
Some of the possibilities that the two late night hosts and the rest of the internet entertained were that Tom Cruise had production issues on Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part Two, which is currently in production, or that he wanted to avoid his ex-wife, Nicole Kidman, who would be in attendance, or simply that he didn’t think he’d win (he didn’t, Maverick lost to Everything, Everywhere, All At Once). But, as it turns out, Cruise decided to spend that Sunday evening celebrating the 90th birthday of his good friend Michael Caine, which we think is a perfectly reasonable reason to miss the Oscars.
According to the New Daily, Tom Cruise and Michael Caine were pictured together at The River Cafe in Hammersmith, West London, for Caine’s birthday celebrations. Cruise and Caine have been friends for decades, so it makes sense that Cruise would be there for his friend’s milestone birthday.
The two appeared together in the 2002 comedy Austin Powers in Goldmember. In the movie, Michael Caine plays Nigel Powers, and Tom Cruise plays a parodied version of himself acting in a parody of Austin Powers that takes place inside the film. Although both actors were in the movie, they had been friends for decades before the Austin Powers sequel started production, going back at least as far as 1983 when the pair attended the screening of Educating Rita together with their dates.
Despite ditching the Oscars to hang with Michael Caine, Tom Cruise has been largely credited with saving the movie industry with Top Gun: Maverick because of the major ticket sales the film accrued. Maverick was released in April 2022 and has grossed the incredible amount of nearly $1.5 billion worldwide. Maverick’s success has earned Cruise a ton of praise from fellow filmmakers, including Kimmel, who called him the “the Prince of Hollywood.”
While Tom Cruise has received praise from some fellow filmmakers (including Michael Caine, we assume), there will always be the haters. David Letterman called Cruise a “Big Shot” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! (although that was before he knew why Cruise was an Oscars no-show) and Jamie Lee Curtis has spoken out against the claims that Cruise saved Hollywood with Maverick. According to Curtis, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once should receive more recognition for its part in reviving the industry.
While Everything, Everywhere was a big success (it grossed $112.7 million on a $25 million budget), it failed to bank as much change as Maverick did. However, Everything, Everywhere did bring home the most Oscars, having won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, whereas Maverick only won one for Best Sound.
