Once you’re on Tom Cruise’s famous Christmas cake list, you know you’ve made it in Hollywood.
His “Top Gun: Maverick” co-star Jay Ellis opened up about the honor of receiving the special treat on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” Friday.
“The cake is coveted in this town,” Ellis explained. “It’s literally like getting a trophy. We get the cake every year. It’s always a surprise when you get it, because you’re so excited to get it — and you wanna make sure you’re still on the gift list.”
This year, Ellis almost missed his chance to enjoy the dessert, but came up with a clever plan with his mom.
Tom Cruise and Jay Ellis attend the Korea Red Carpet for “Top Gun: Maverick” at Lotte World on June 19, 2022, in Seoul, South Korea. (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
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“My family, we all met in Mexico to spend Christmas together,” Ellis recalled. “And I was away filming a movie, and I was like, ‘Mom, can you freeze the cake and take it to Mexico?’ My whole family was like, ‘Yes, freeze the cake.'”
“Whatever it is — dry ice, ice cubes, whatever it is — we froze the cake,” he continued. “We took it Mexico, thawed it out, and we had it on Christmas Day.”
Cruise is known for sending a coconut cake from a bakery in Woodland Hills, California to famous friends, including Tom Hanks and Rosie O’Donnell.
O’Donnell shared a photo of the gift on her Instagram around Christmas, with the caption, “My Tommy sent me a coconut cake!! I love that guy.”
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In the interview, Hudson asked Ellis how the “Top Gun: Maverick” cast maintained their fighter pilot physiques with Cruise sending out all that cake.
“Oh, we worked hard!” the actor quipped.
“Top Gun: Maverick” featured the actor and his co-stars, including Miles Teller and Glen Powell, going shirtless on the beach for a volleyball game, similar to a scene in the first movie.
Ellis revealed that he and Powell had gone to the theater to see audience reactions for the movie, and realized the scene was going to be a big moment.
Glen Powell, Tom Cruise, Jay Ellis and Greg Tarzan Davis attend the screening of “Top Gun: Maverick” during the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 18, 2022. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Image)
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“We would just watch the audience watching the movie, and when I tell you the sweat that was on people’s faces watching that scene, they were sweatier than us! They were like ‘Oh my god, them abs!’”
But as Ellis said, “None of us expected that this was going to go viral the way that it went viral.”
