Why Tom Cruise didnt appear in Val Kilmers Top Gun sketch on SNL last-minute

Tom Cruise was so close to being an “SNL” wingman for Val Kilmer.The actor, 62, was supposed to appear on “Saturday Night Live” alongside his former “Top Gun” co-star in a sketch written by Michael Schur and Robert Carlock in the early aughts.Kilmer, who died at age 65 on April 1, hosted the sketch comedy show in 2000.Now, Seth Meyers is looking back at the iconic episode during his “The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast.”The comedian, 51, read a voice note from Schur, 49, in which he detailed the premise of the scene that could have included Cruise.“It was 25 years after the events of ‘Top Gun’ and Iceman had retired from the Navy and was now flying very boring commercial flights for Delta,” Schur explained.

The sketch featured Chris Parnell, Ana Gasteyer and Will Ferrell, and saw Kilmer fighting for control of the intercom against Parnell, 58.Kilmer shouted out muddled orders and nonsensical movie quotes such as: “Listen to me, you’re out of line! Your ego’s writing checks your body can’t cash and that makes you dangerous!”Turns out, Cruise was in Studio 8H and almost walked onto the stage to join in on the chaos.Schur said the “Mission Impossible” star was “standing eight feet away watching this sketch and just enjoying it a great deal.[Producer] Marci Klein came over to me while the sketch was airing and was like, Tom Cruise is here, should we get him to like walk on? I was like, ‘Yes of course, we should.’ And she was like, ‘What should he do?'”He suggested Cruise could “grab Val Kilmer and just say, ‘Hey Iceman, let’s get you out of here, bud.'”Schurr recalled Klein, 58, going over to the star to fill him in on the plan and he “saw Tom Cruise nodding… like, ‘Yeah, yeah, okay I get it.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is going to be incredible.'”As Cruise was headed to the stage, “the sketch ended and the applause was cued and Val got whisked away to run to change.”“We missed it by...