Tom Cruise pays a visit to the BFI National Archive
The Hollywood star and BFI Fellow, who won an honorary Oscar on Sunday, was shown a selection of the BFI’s archival treasures and shared his passion for the craft of filmmaking with our archivists.
Hollywood icon Tom Cruise paid a visit to the BFI National Archive last week, immersing himself in the history and artistry of filmmaking with infectious enthusiasm. Ahead of receiving an honorary Oscar on Sunday, Cruise – who was awarded the BFI Fellowship in May – spent hours exploring rare materials and engaging in animated conversations with archivists.
Known for his meticulous approach to craft, Cruise showed deep admiration for the nuts and bolts of film and television making and the technical evolution of the moving image, from those working in-camera and experimenting with lenses, film stock and lighting to those rethinking performance itself. During his visit, the actor was shown a selection of treasures preserved at the BFI National Archive Conservation Centre, including a newly struck 35mm print of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999) in which Cruise’s turn as motivational speaker Frank T.J. Mackey earned him an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor.
Cruise took time to greet and acknowledge everyone in each room he visited, getting into involved conversations, and bursting into spontaneous applause to thank our film conservation team. “Interested, engaging and extremely knowledgeable, Tom Cruise was our perfect guest,” says Arike Oke, BFI Executive Director of Knowledge, Learning and Collections. “Generous with his time and insights to all our teams, he was taken through the hands on restoration and preservation work of our film conservation team, our vaults and our extensive and unique Screencraft collections of posters, designs and scripts.”