Over the course of his 40-odd years as a Hollywood star, Tom Cruise has managed to break in and out of some of the world’s most impenetrable-seeming institutions: dastardly villains’ lairs, high-security bank vaults, three marriages of varying success and credibility.

But when it came to inveigling his way into the heart of the British Royal family, a feat hundreds of celebrities have tried but only a few have achieved, Cruise has made it look all too easy.

“Fancy seeing you here, Tom Cruise!” the X/Twitter account run on behalf of the Prince and Princess of Wales wrote last night, with a photograph of the Prince and Cruise, in matching black tie, at a London Air Ambulance fundraiser in London.

Fancy it indeed. It was William’s first public engagement since the illnesses of his wife and father (he took the time to thank people for their well wishes). Flying solo, then, he could likely have done with a little support for the evening.

Someone to provide a boost of glamour without Kate there to light up the room, perhaps. A microdose of charisma to enliven what might have been a lot of conversation about rotor blades and response times. A fraternal buddy, while Prince Harry builds his trove of Avios points. Well, nobody does “a little support” like the world’s highest-profile ambassador for platform shoes.

It feels reasonable to say that, at 61, Cruise is now far and away the Royal family’s favourite divorced American actor of all time. And the feeling is mutual, if Cruise’s commitment to attending various royal events is anything to go by – not least his hosting gig during the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in 2022.

His relationship with William and Kate is certainly established: two years ago, they attended the British premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, where Cruise escorted the Princess up some steps, and William wore velvet shoes by Crockett & Jones, embroidered with two F18s, the planes depicted in the film.

That night, the couple revealed they had been playing the film’s soundtrack at home with their children. The special velvet shoes (the film-going equivalent of wearing a Gryffindor scarf to the Warner Bros Studio Tour), meanwhile, also got a mention last night. Pointing to his feet, the Prince told his friend: “I haven’t got my Top Gun slippers on tonight!”

But Cruise did have his Tom Cruise costume on: megawatt smile, charm you could run a country off, all-action anecdotes, incorrigible Anglophilia. The Royal family have found it irresistible for decades, beginning with the Prince of Wales’s mother, Princess Diana. Cruise met Diana in at least 1992, when he and his then-wife Nicole Kidman greeted her at the London premiere of Far and Away.

Diana was said to be keen. According to one biography, she told a friend Cruise was “extremely fanciable”. Later, after her tragic death in 1997, he infamously called CNN live on air, condemning the actions of the media. It doesn’t even register in the Top 100 oddest things Cruise has done in his time as an A-lister, but it was still bizarre. Days later, he was among a select group of Hollywood talent, including Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, to attend Diana’s funeral at Westminster Abbey.

Cruise has always been a fan of Britain, whether that’s reportedly buying a home with Kidman in Dulwich Village; making the national news whenever he goes for a curry; allegedly living at Saint Hill, the British headquarters of Scientology in East Grinstead during lockdown; or basing production of his never-ending Mission: Impossible series in the UK.

While he spent much of the Noughties in the United States, leaping on sofas and embedding himself further into Scientology, he maintained close contact with the UK. He has a home in Biggin Hill – handy for a frequent flyer but also for getting to Croydon, where Isabella, 31, the artist daughter he adopted with Nicole Kidman, has allegedly lived in recent years.

Showbiz friends of Diana weren’t automatically granted entry to Buckingham Palace, but Cruise managed it. In 2017, he met Prince Philip at a charity dinner at the Palace to mark the 75th anniversary of the Outward Bound Trust. Cruise, a petrolhead who can fly anything, got on with Philip.

“There was a moment, of course, we were talking about pilots, we had to talk about helicopters, and he was telling me the wonderful story of how he got the first helicopter into Buckingham Palace during [The Queen’s] coronation,” Cruise later recalled.

He would continue to pop up at various royal-adjacent events, from England football matches to Wimbledon, but his appointment as a guest presenter during the Platinum Jubilee still came as a surprise. He was one of four hosts at “A Gallop Through History” – an equestrian event held at Windsor Castle. Another was Alan Titchmarsh who, it was agreed, is very much the thinking British woman’s Tom Cruise.

“[The Queen] is just a woman that I greatly admire. I think she is someone who has tremendous dignity and I admire her devotion. What she has accomplished has been historic. I just remember always as a kid seeing photos of her,” Cruise said, explaining his appearance, which really did need explaining.

They didn’t meet that evening, but she had him over for tea another day in 2022, reportedly allowing him to land his helicopter in the Windsor Castle grounds and fire a ceremonial gun. Sources told a newspaper that they “really hit it off” – so much so that she invited him back for lunch. Regrettably for all concerned, she died before that date.

Not that it stopped Cruise’s slow mission to become an honorary member of the Royal family. Nothing would. His latest show of manful support for William shows both sides are as enthusiastic about one another as ever. “I should take this opportunity to thank my – our – fellow pilot Tom Cruise,” Prince William said in his speech last night. Cruise beamed. He’s dangerous, but he can be his wingman anytime, et cetera.

Realistically, this ends one of six ways: with an honorary knighthood for Cruise; a cameo in the next Mission: Impossible for William; an advert for that film being allowed to be projected all over Buckingham Palace for a year; Cruise calling LBC to complain that he found Meghan Markle’s Archetypes podcast “hopelessly derivative”; the King fiddling the paperwork to ensure Cruise is bequeathed Rutland; or all of the above.

With this man, nothing’s impossible. Fancy seeing you here, Tom Cruise? It’d be more surprising if he wasn’t.