Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman at Cannes Fest 1992
‘Far and Away’ was the first and only film Tom Cruise presented on the Croisette. Thirty years later, the actor returns to showcase ‘Top Gun: Maverick’
In 1992, Cruise and his then-wife of less than two years, Nicole Kidman, premiered their film Far and Away — a Ron Howard Western about a pair of Irish immigrants who make their way to Oklahoma in the late 19th century — as part of the fest’s closing night on May 18.
The Universal release drew mixed to negative reviews.
The Washington Post calling it “cliché clogged.”
Cruise, then 29, already was a major Hollywood star, having toplined a string of blockbusters through the 1980s that included Risky Business (1983), Top Gun (1986) and Rain Man (1988).
Cruise also presented the Palme d’Or that evening to The Best Intentions, a Swedish film written by Ingmar Bergman that beat out Robert Altman’s The Player and Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct.
Earlier that day, Cruise had refused to answer a reporter’s query about his favorite brand of toothpaste at a news conference.
He had more to say on the topic of the L.A. riots, which had unfolded just two weeks prior. “It sickened me,” Cruise said of the Rodney King verdict, which he compared to the plot of his upcoming film, A Few Good Men, to be released in December 1992.
“It was the whole issue of the police’s job to be highly responsible but taking that too far.”