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Tom Cruise’s next movie is set to be something that the Hollywood icon hasn’t done for a while, and that’s a dramatic award season play from an iconic director, as he’ll next be starring in Oscar winner Alejandro Iñárritu’s still-untitled 2026 film.
While plot details about the film are being kept tightly under wraps, initial reports describe the project as seeing Tom Cruise star as “the most powerful man in the world [who] embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he’s unleashed destroys everything.”
During the 2025 Governors Awards over the weekend — a pseudo precursor to the Academy Awards — Cruise was given a (long overdue) Honorary Academy Awards for his numerous iconic Hollywood projects over the decades.
Director Alejandro Iñárritu revealed that Tom Cruise eats “more chile than any Mexican” and pops “serrano peppers like popcorn”
Cruise was presented the award by Iñárritu, who not only provided some insight into what fans can expect from his performance next year, but also that Cruise has a predictably superhuman level of spice tolerance.
“He’s used to performing under extreme pressure where every millimeter can mean life or death, and honestly, that kind of intensity doesn’t stop when the cameras do,” the Birdman and The Revenant director explained.
“One day, we were eating Mexican food and I saw him pull off the most dangerous stunt of all: this man ate more chile than any Mexican alive. He raw green serranos like they were poopcorn. The dangerous chile habaneros as cherries — one after another. I, a proud Mexican, I was crying from just one bite of it. And this guy would look at me and say, “Refreshing! It’s refreshing!”
Tom Cruise insane spice tolerance confirmed + Inarritu’s imitation of Tom saying “it’s refreshing, it’s REFRESHING” is so fucking funny because I can very clearly hear Tom saying that in my head pic.twitter.com/I2ZVRVN5GE
— ethan (@driftershunt) November 17, 2025
You can check out Cruise’s full acceptance speech from the 2025 Governors Awards below.