If there’s one major celebrity you might be surprised to learn never hosted SNL, it’s Tom Cruise. Not only that, but he hasn’t even made a cameo in Studio 8H. But it wasn’t for a lack of trying, as Cruise was once almost pulled into a sketch featuring his old Top Gun buddy Val Kilmer, until time outran Cruise.
As former SNL writer Michael Schur remembered, Kilmer was serving as host of one season 26 episode, playing a version of his Top Gun character, “Iceman”, now working for Delta. Learning that Tom Cruise was on hand, the SNL team came up with a plan to finally recruit him for a cameo while he watched the sketch unfold. The idea was for Cruise to enter the scene and bring Kilmer out of his scenario while paying homage to Top Gun.
But in a very non-Tom Cruise move, the short window had passed, and the mega star would miss his chance to be on SNL. “The sketch ended and the applause was cued and Val got whisked away to run to change. We missed it by like eight seconds. We missed a Tom Cruise walk-on into the sketch, which would have just, 30 Rock would have crumbled to the ground.”
No doubt a cameo from Tom Cruise would have been just what that episode of SNL needed — not that there was anything wrong with Val Kilmer playing Burt Bacharach…Really, outside of some “Weekend Update” jabs, Cruise would only be represented on the show by Ben Stiller, whose impersonation is one of the best out there.
But even being off-camera at SNL is still a stand-up move from Tom Cruise, who is known to be one of the most loyal guys in Hollywood. That it involved Val Kilmer is doubly cool, as Cruise has remained close with over the years, even securing him a much-deserved cameo of his own in Top Gun: Maverick, a movie he said he wouldn’t have made unless he could bring back Kilmer.
If Tom Cruise were to have ever hosted SNL, what would be some dream sketches to see him in? Could he still host it now?
