Tales from the receiving end of the Jerry Maguire actor’s repeated acts of kindness.

Once Tom Cruise is your co-worker, he’s a co-worker for life. The father of Suri and accepter of impossible missions has built a reputation on being generous with his friends, but it’d be easy to underestimate who falls in the “friend” category. It seems that not only do the eminently successful actors benefit from his lifelong devotion; the little guys do, too. One specific little guy—Jonathan Lipnicki, the child actor who played Renée Zellweger’s son in Jerry Maguire—told Access Hollywood that he met with Cruise at the film veteran’s house just four years ago to talk shop.

“I went over to his house because I actually—I cold-called his office at United Artists and asked for advice, and he got back to me and I went over,” Lipnicki said. The movie is 20 years old this year, meaning Lipnicki made his house call a decade and a half after they worked together.

“A big part of [Cruise’s] success he attributes to being on time and being polite to people and knowing people’s names. It was incredible to sit down with one of your favorite actors and have an hour-long conversation about acting,” he added.

Lipnicki wasn’t the only kid on that set to be on the receiving end of Cruise’s giving spirit. When he heard that Cruise continued to talk with the child actor who was cut from Jerry Maguire before Lipnicki was brought on, he said, “Tom is so amazing, I’m really not surprised. I heard that, and I was like, That’s Tom.”

Besides offering personalized advice at will, birthdays provide Cruise with a chance to dote on his former co-workers on a yearly basis. Dakota Fanning recently revealed that Cruise’s special way of keeping in touch after War of the Worlds was through presents. “He has sent me a birthday gift every year since I was 11 years old,” Fanning told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live this summer. “Beautiful gifts,” which are “usually shoes.”

Zellweger, Cruise’s co-star in Maguire, echoed Fanning’s experience in an interview with Vanity Fair ahead of the 20th anniversary of the film.

“He never forgets my birthday,” Zellweger said (she declined to mention if he gives her shoes or something else). She “will say that he’s always so thoughtful and generous, and it’s sweet that he always remembers, because I’m sure he has quite a bit on his plate.”

For all those New Year’s resolutions that stipulate “reach out to old friends” or even just “don’t cancel plans always,” Cruise as a friendship lifer might serve as inspiration.