Tom Cruise at the "Rendez-vous with Tom Cruise" May 18 at the 75th Festival de Cannes

As day two of the Cannes Film Festival rolled by, Tom Cruise sat down in front of an enthusiastic audience in the Claude Debussy theatre for a masterclass, “Rendez-vous with Tom Cruise.” The Oscar nominee spoke about his history in cinema in addition to his career just a few hours before the international début of his new film, Top Gun: Maverick.

The masterclass began with a 10-minute video playing homage to the star’s extensive acting career. The montage displayed the manifold of human emotion and the beauty of cinema by featuring clips from some of Cruise’s most iconic movie roles and scenes. Amusingly, he expressed “It was trippy” watching the 10-minute montage of himself. 

The Hollywood star shared that in his career he always aimed to familiarize himself with the crew and different departments on film sets. Throughout the interview, he emphasized “celebrating the talent I’m working with” and learning about their work. As a young actor, he said that this method of educating himself was how he was able to learn about cinema and advance his knowledge on the industry. 

“One of the things I was doing is I was studying movies…the names of the credits. But to try to understand who did what. Not just their job but I wanted to know why did this film work in this way versus this film.”

To make the best films and give audiences the best experience possible, Cruise said that studying the departments and educating himself on the roles they played was vital.

The actor also talked about the significance of investing the audience in the story by putting himself in their shoes.

“As that four-year-old kid, I think of that. I’m the audience in that movie theatre. It gave me the movies that I saw it and it gave me a sense of adventure. It opened my view; I wanted to know about people, I was interested in people, and cultures and adventure in life. And it helped me to dream about things and for me I thought it’s possible. Even if others said it’s impossible, it can’t happen.”

36 years after the release of the first film, Top Gun: Maverick continues the story of Navy aviator, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. The film will come out in theatres May 25 in France and May 27 in the United States.