How SNL Almost Had a Tom Cruise Cameo by Just 'About 8 Seconds'

      Even after four decades in the spotlight, Tom Cruise remains one of the few prominent stars to have never been on Saturday Night Live. However, he came close in December 1999, as shared by former SNL writer Mike Schur during a recent tribute to Cruise's Top Gun co-star, Val Kilmer.

      Kilmer passed away on April 1 at the age of 65 due to pneumonia, having previously fought throat cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2014.

      The Lonely Island & Seth Meyers Podcast dedicated its April 16 episode to Kilmer — known for his roles in films like Tombstone, The Doors, and Top Secret — particularly because he portrayed the villain Dieter von Cunth in MacGruber, a 2010 film directed and co-written by Jorma Taccone of The Lonely Island, who created the MacGruber character for SNL alongside John Solomon and Will Forte.

      During the podcast, Mike Schur, whose extensive post-SNL TV projects include creating Brooklyn Nine-Nine (which starred Andy Samberg from The Lonely Island) and The Good Place, shared a memory from when Kilmer hosted SNL on December 9, 2000.

      He described Kilmer as "very intense, but very nice and sort of down for anything." One of the sketches featured was titled "Iceman: The Later Years," where Kilmer portrayed an older version of his Top Gun character, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, now flying a 727 for a commercial airline, attempting to add excitement to his mundane job by calling everyone dangerous and referring to another flight as a “bogey.”

      To everyone's surprise, Tom Cruise appeared at the live taping at 30 Rockefeller Center, according to Schur. Longtime SNL producer and talent coordinator Marci Klein escorted him in to watch, and Schur observed Cruise enjoying the “Iceman” sketch.

      Schur recounted, “Marci walked him down, and he was standing just eight feet away from me, watching the sketch with great enjoyment.” Marci approached Schur during the sketch, asking if they should get Cruise to make a brief appearance.

      “Of course, I said yes,” he recalled. When she asked what Cruise should do, Schur suggested that at the end of the sketch, he should walk onstage, grab Val Kilmer, and say something like, "Hey Iceman — let’s get you out of here, bud, come on."

      Marci then whispered to Cruise, who Schur noted was nodding in understanding, clearly on board with the idea. Schur thought, “This is going to be amazing.”

      However, just as Tom Cruise was about to step onto the set, the sketch concluded, applause erupted, and Val was quickly whisked away. “We missed it by about eight seconds,” Schur lamented, “a Tom Cruise surprise appearance that would have brought down 30 Rock.”

      “Anyway,” he added, “RIP, Val Kilmer.”

      The full podcast is definitely worth a listen, particularly the part where Forte shares his experience of being roommates with Kilmer after their collaboration on MacGruber.