Tom Cruise is really glad he chased Val Kilmer down for Top Gun

“I felt so grateful that he decided to make the film. We did a lot to get him in the movie,” Cruise says in a forthcoming interview with Sight And Sound, obtained by Deadline. “Originally, he just didn’t want to make the movie, ‘I don’t want to be a supporting, I want to star in films.’ I was calling his agent, and Tony Scott was hunting him down and meeting in an elevator with Val, and he was like, ‘Please, Val, please.’” 

Now, Cruise has nothing but praise for his late co-star. “You just see what a great actor, charismatic guy he was. And in that scene, what I love about what he did and how he played it, he just knew that tone to hit. He had to play it so you wanted these guys to be friends in the end,” he remembers. “You know when you’re acting with somebody and you just see they’re just on fire. It’s exhilarating. I love when the scene just goes to a different place. If you look at Top Gun, I think he’s in the movie maybe ten minutes. That’s the impact of an artist like that.” 

Across the interview, Cruise apparently has only nice things to say about his contemporaries, including for Nicole Kidman, whom he called “a great actress,” and Jack Nicholson, whom he dubbed “a wordsmith.” You can check out the full excerpt over here.