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Jennifer Connelly says Tom Cruise deserves an Oscar nomination for ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Mon 23 January 2023 12:53, UK

Jennifer Connelly, the supporting actor in the 2022 sequel Top Gun: Maverick, has told reporters that her co-star Tom Cruise deserves an Academy Award for her “extraordinary” performance.

Playing the bar owner Penelope Benjamin, who is romantically involved with Cruise’s Maverick, Connelly hopes to boost the chances that the lead star receives an Oscar nomination for Best Leading Actor. Though he’s not currently a frontrunner for the award at the 95th Academy Awards, Cruise is considered a potential dark horse to take the award, especially after considering that Top Gun: Maverick was the second highest-grossing movie of 2022.

“He’s extraordinary,” she told Variety, explaining: “He does an amazing job in the movie. He’s extraordinary as a person and fantastic as an actor, and I think that he is just perfect. He embodies that character so beautifully, and I think he absolutely deserves it”.

Continuing, she adds: “I think that the film is a really well made film and it’s really hard to make a film like that…Also, thinking about Tom’s work, think of the things that he did for that role. Besides all the stuff on the ground and how wonderful he is in those scenes and creating those relationships…I think the relationship he has with Miles’ character is so beautiful and moving. But the work that he did to accomplish those flying sequences, it’s something else”.

Top Gun: Maverick is only the third film since the start of the pandemic to earn $1 billion worldwide, joined only by the Marvel movie Spider-Man: No Way Home and the James Cameron Disney flick Avatar: The Way of Water. Cameron’s film recently surpassed $2 billion at the box office, making it just the sixth film to pass this significant milestone and the third film he’s directed to earn this financial accolade.

Take a look at the trailer for Top Gun: Maverick below.