Top Gun: Maverick was one of the biggest box office hits in years, and that success with fans was matched with more than a few awards. But one conspicuously absent nomination was a Best Actor Oscar nom for Tom Cruise. Many believed Cruise deserved the recognition, including Miles Teller. But Teller has an idea why the actor may have been overlooked.
Speaking with the Associated Press, Teller makes it clear that he firmly believes Cruise should have received an Oscar nomination. The actor, who played Rooster in Top Gun: Maverick, says that awards are often given to actors who show that they have put in a lot of work to achieve a certain skill, and Cruise has absolutely done that. Teller explained…
100 Percent [snubbed]. And I’m not saying whoever got nominated didn’t deserve to get nominated. But when you think about everything that he’s doing in that film. What I’ve said when I’ve been talking about Tom’s performance in this film, we give actors so much credit in movies for performing skills, for playing instruments or singing or gaining weight and losing weight. And the skills that Tom is putting on display in Top Gun and so many of his movies, that’s a product of thousands of hours practice.
There’s certainly a lot of truth to what Miles Teller is saying here. The performances that tend to get awards recognition are those that are able to show that a great deal of effort has gone into the performance. When an actor transforms themselves into a famous person in a biopic, a category that often seen awards recognition, it's easy to see how different they are from their usual selves,
The “problem” that Tom Cruise has, according to Miles Teller, is that he makes it all look easy. It’s not obvious to an outside observer that Tom Cruise has exerted extreme effort, but only because he’s worked so hard, that he makes it all look too easy. Teller continues…
I think we don’t realize how much work and effort goes into that. I think a lot of time we associate performances on screen with effort. We like to applaud effort. Tom does it so seamlessly you don’t realize.
Honestly, Teller may be on to something. Tom Cruise does make it all look easy. Whether he's hanging off a building in Mission: Impossible or flying in fighter jets in Top Gun, he does some incredible things, but certainly doesn’t make it look like he’s working that hard. We know that the rest of the Top Gun: Maverick cast pushed themselves to fly in those jets, and it’s not like Cruise didn’t go through the same thing, he’s just done it so much that it now comes naturally to him.
The times that Tom Cruise has been nominated for Oscars, it’s been for roles that are a bit outside of what we normally see him do, which at least has the result of making the viewer think he’s doing something he’s had less practice with, and must therefore be harder. Maybe if Tom Cruise would like more acting awards, he needs to start acting like everything he does on screen isn’t so easy for him.
