Top Gun: Maverick’s Glen Powell Explains Why Tom Cruise Deserves An Oscar Nomination

It’s surprisingly rare that a movie that is a massive box office smash is also talked about in awards conversations, but such is the case right now with Top Gun: Maverick. The movie, while now the second highest grossing film of 2022, still made nearly $1.5 billion and it’s been nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama. Many are wondering what Maverick’s Oscar chances could be and co-star Glen Powell, for one, thinks Tom Cruise should be nominated for Best Actor.
Top Gun: Maverick is being talked about as a potential Best Picture nominee, and with 10 movies getting nominated rather than the face of other categories, there’s a good chance it will happen. But you can’t really have a Best Picture nominee without having awards worthy elements elsewhere in your film, which is where some are wondering if Tom Cruise could be nominated for Best Actor. Glen Powell, who plays Hangman in Maverick, has a pretty strong argument to Yahoo as to why he thinks Cruise should get nominated, He explains…
I think Tom deserves a Best Actor nomination for sure. I watched Tom deliver a completely authentic, heartbreaking and layered performance in that movie. And in addition to that, he was producing, coaching all the other actors how to act in planes and sleeping in the editing room! I mean, this guy does it all. If there’s one person that deserves his due on the movie, it’s Tom and I really hope that Academy sees that. The movie is impressive on so many levels, but it all starts and ends with Tom.
So if Glen Powell was putting together the Best Actor list he would certainly include Tom Cruise. He believes the performance is worthy of recognition. The biggest question is if the Academy thinks Cruise’s work is in the top five performances of the year.
(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)
Of course, a lot of what Glen Powell says here about all the hard work Tom Cruise put into Top Gun: Maverick is not traditionally considered when it comes to deciding Best Actor. Nobody is arguing that Tom Cruise isn’t one of the hardest working men in Hollywood, and we know a lot about the extra work he put in to make Maverick great, but a lot of that likely won’t be taken into consideration for the acting award,
Tom Cruise has been nominated for Oscars before, but he has yet to win. Even if he were to receive the nomination, it feels like the win would be a long shot, with performances like Brendan Fraser in The Whale expected to also compete. Still, a strong showing at the Oscars would put the cap on an incredible year for Top Gun: Maverick.