'Top Gun: Maverick' Cast Discuss What It Was Like Working With Tom Cruise

captain pete maverick mitchell here we go in three two one having any your talent is next level oh thank you you inhabited goose on a level that you know i mean physically when i look at you you don't really look alike but the it was like haunting in a way so how much did you sort of channel study anthony edwards performance was that a huge aspect of getting into this character i think i i mean i remembered enough of of having seen the film to to understand what you know what anthony did with it and what goose kind of what that feeling was like and kind of the the character you know the role that he played in it and then with rooster you know he he's had a totally different life experience than you know than than goose had and so i was trying to you know kind of understand uh you know and have a lot of buddies in the military and you know their parents that you know we're in the military and the reason why they followed in their their parents footsteps and what it meant for them to kind of you know carry on that legacy so um i mean yeah i'm so glad you you thought that it was kind of you know in the mix i actually went back to the original because i couldn't remember how old you were in that part and he was old enough to remember so the fact that you do come full circle and you do sing that song i know you play you actually play the piano um so you as the character do you say to yourself i remember that i remember my dad that was our defining moment that was my defining moment of my dad and that's why you're carrying it forward i mean i i think with you know probably how it would have went i mean me personally i couldn't even tell you what my first memory so i don't really know but i but i just know how these things go when someone in the military uh pass away um the guys that he works with um really make a point to be a part of that kids you know family for forever and so as he would get older that's when these guys would share you know you know some stories with them and and so i you know and i love that they do that that it means a lot to them when um you know to make sure that they are a part of that that you know that family's life uh i love hearing the story that the first time you got on set with tom you started the maverick chant you're like maverick maverick and i've seen a couple interviews you do with tom and i would be like just so nervous and you seemed so cool with him yeah and that chemistry really comes off on screen can you talk about creating that chemistry with tom because i think initially maybe you sort of weren't sure about taking the role and he kind of convinced you well i was i just i wasn't yeah to be fair yeah i wasn't i wasn't sure i didn't know i had never been a part of something this that i knew was going to be this big and i that's not something that i take lightly i think if you're going to be a part of something you should really think uh think about all aspects of it but you know with as far as tom goes in the camaraderie i think i just he's just so great man he really is uh so disarming and he he really did not to make a pawn but you know he took me under his wing and he told me he said anything you need in your life uh anything anything you ever want to ask he's like just give me a call and that's you know that's been true personally and professionally he's you know he's always been there for me so why did you start the maverick chat just to sort of break the idea yeah dude i would do that all the time um because i would carry a bluetooth speaker and so in scenes that were if i felt like the tension was kind of high in this i literally would play something from the top gun soundtrack just to just to you know loosen it up a little bit the dj you're the dj of the set yeah i'm sure it got old at some point but i i just i try and keep it loose if i can that could have been your call sign but you actually chose rooster i did yeah yeah why specifically just sort of homage uh yeah i mean we we list we looked at hundreds if not thousands of call signs there was an origin there was another call sign that was in the script that i thought i thought you know if i can if i can beat it if i can find something else and you know the fact that it's in bird family i thought that was a nice kind of wink without being too on the nose and so i'm glad i'm glad it fits uh this film has so many great mantras the my favorite and one of my favorite moments in the film and i'm not going to spoil it is don't i don't think just do do you have a mantra that you live by i don't know man i i think it's just there's something that my parents kind of instilled in me at a young age is just you know you're who you are when you know when you put your head on your pillow at night so all this other stuff and you know it's really just who you are as a person i've always tried to carry myself a certain way and be a certain type of person i think there's a certain morality that was probably instilled in me at a young age now i heard that you said you underestimated what it would be like to actually go through all the training you really underestimated it so can you kind of give i know people talk about oh pulling g's and this and that and the underwater can you give me a sense of like at least at one moment the moment you were like oh my gosh like this is i don't know if i can do this kind of thing yeah i mean there was there's a training course that we had to pass in san diego where they essentially blindfold you and strap you to a chair and then submerge you in water and then flip you upside down and that that's i mean just imagine that like that is a pretty that's a pretty unusual situation to be in um and then there were a couple of flying moments where you know we're going into a canyon going 580 knots or 480 knots 100 feet off the ground into a canyon you know and the the walls are like you know maybe less than 100 feet off each wing tip and so that was that was pretty wild um i love that your character doesn't sort of feel like he has to be too tough there's a real vulnerability to it was was that a choice you specifically made was it in the script was it through conversations with tom and and you know producers and that i think i just really i just really felt for the kid and i think that uh when you really kind of start putting all the pieces together of you know what it must be like for him and knowing in the you know in the back of your head knowing how your your father you know passed away and how things can go wrong up there real quick i don't care how confident you are there needs to be that you know there is that element of you know the mortality of it right because it does happen to these these guys and especially i think he i think yeah there's a certain layer of doubt in himself that the character rooster has that some of the other characters don't have um 20 pounds of muscle you put on for this is that oh dude i was i mean yeah i usually walk around i think like 185 i was at one point i was like 210 pounds and i was just yeah so just yeah big and yeah tan you have to eat so much it's like hard like to get like to gain that much well you just have to eat so much but you're like tan yeah tan you got to be tanned i'm kind of jealous of that i spray tan it's top gun you got to be you got to be team oily yeah at times oily is a must for top gun i think how did you feel about that scene watching it back i know you worked your butts off i think i think you're just happy to to you know because that that first scene was so iconic and i think if anything i was just more like i'm glad we're doing this as a film because i think the fans will uh will enjoy that that we did that's one of the first things people have asked me is there a you know is there a volleyball scene and i heard your friends are pissed that you're in this movie they're so jealous that's getting some legs to it i did say that but it is i just think they're they're just hoping that they're able to watch this movie that they want to watch so bad and that not be thrown off that uh you know that their buddy is is in it so give us a peek behind the curtain of the wizard of oz when you're got the the sound speaker going and you're pulling pranks and you're doing all this how is tom reacting i feel like he loves you and he loves that you just don't care kind of thing yeah yeah yeah he does i mean tom he's you know he i don't know i mean he's got a lot of extreme hobbies for sure but he just loves making movies you know that's really his number one hobby it's his profession he just he really loves he loves it so i'm able to i don't know i have fun when i'm on set i'm having a great time what do we have here yeah here i thought we were special fellas this here's bag man hang man whatever what the hell kind of mission is this [Music] i saw your instagram can you start us off with a press tour well this is day two of the top gun maverick press tour and we don't get tired that was very good thank you for doing that i'm going to ask you to perform one more time can you guys reenact your best g's face because in the trailer we got to see all your g's faces can you do it right here right now you know i usually don't do this on the second day i'm just thinking i'm like are we doing it at the same time okay yeah we have two at the same time wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait i'm gonna say pulling your jeez okay all right wait wait wait wait wait are you gonna stay here we gotta throttle up all right paul geez what's up oh come on you look at this crap yeah tarzan's okay so between the three of you who has the best call sign i think i do oh can you please look over here easily you're looking at them tell me why yours is the best because i think it is who you are and so i am greg tarzan davis and i play coyote uh and coyote is the best because i mean do i have to explain something like that yeah cause it sounds like you don't remember i play fanboy and my name is just anyone that watches this movie is going to relate to being a fanboy because it's a 10 out of 10 film it is a perfect movie it should be nominated for all the like everything so it's just like sit in my yeah you're just going to visualize yourself in my under my helmet he's got you beat glenn i i feel like guys i mean there have been online polls and hangman has just smoked all of you first off yeah but hangman was the first that was the original word it's a great game um the original wordle guys hangman was the original wordle technically i wanted to start calling you a wordle now oh don't go on call oh no okay i'm gonna stick with you for a second how did you get your family in the film was it the bar scene and where can fans find your family in this film yeah i actually had you guys remember this i probably had about 18 of my friends and my family it was uh the second time we're in the heart right yeah exactly and so we did all the casting i got pretty much all of my friends in flight suits uh into this bar scene but my dad i went to craft services and came back and my dad was on all four monitors and i was like oh no like that's usually a bad sign if you're if your dad's like who's this guy and he uh he found himself right behind miles when miles playing great balls of fire on the piano which is just such a great scene you will see the og we call him the original glenn right behind him and he is just uh and he smoked it his his performance is truly it's gripping he brought so much energy it was authentic too yeah it's just for sure he had a whole arc too back story he did a lot of character research um who got you got a ride home with tom on the last day oh so we did so but so essentially i fin i got wrapped i landed uh from doing my final scene landed in the f-18 we reviewed the footage and then tom was like you two going to la and then we're like yeah and he's like all right get get your bags so then from landing the f-18 then tom piloted us back to la uh to was it lax no no no it's some private van yeah one of the private ones i can't yeah at that point we land our cars are there waiting we're like what the hell was this and then just tom takes off in his motorcycle yeah and we're like that's the most that's the phone that's that was my final day on top we looked at it i did not know that it was f-18 directly to the pj and then he just rides away into the sunset can i just tell you my favorite thing that tom does it's it's the exit his he does the maverick exit every time i'll be talking to him and he's like all right man have a good night throw on the helmet take off into the night and i'm like damn that's cool then the p51 he'll literally all right guys great shooting dane to take off from the p-51 into the sunset we're doing like a slow-mo walk like the first time in full flight gear yeah and then we see that there's a plane in the distance and just as it crosses through the sun so you see it's silhouette like right in front of the sun and you it actually made the photos we took he just he just moves away over the sun just like the guy knows his angle he knew the length of the lens it was unbelievable what did he teach you guys about doing like first of all did he teach you how to nail the one-liner because between like i want the truth you complete me all of that he has so many iconic one-liners i know this is somewhat like a film school for you guys what did he teach you you had you had to work your own cameras about creating a blockbuster you know you taught us about filmmaking all like you said about uh camera angles about lighting about what the audience wants uh storytelling you know so we were able to really convey how this message will impact the audience i think that shows on in the movie yeah i think uh blockbuster or not i think when he brings to any film he does i think it lends itself to what he does lends itself to any type of movie he's making no matter the scale if it's an indie or a blockbuster or grant that doesn't make indies at this point um but i think it just it's i've taken it with me to wendy's and it's just a responsibility of giving your absolute all every single moment you can and he leads by example from the first day we started on this movie speaking of great one-liners like there's a couple of great mantras in this film like don't think what's each of your personal mantra in life do you have one yeah i'll get tired because i can't get tired i knew that i still knew that it is right guys you really do live by that one you're like the only person that actually has a mantra that says it constantly you don't just say it to yourself you know you got to back it up too i don't know if i have a mantra have you seen me say monster to myself in the corner have fun man i don't know yeah keep it keep it light have fun i don't know [Laughter] okay you lot you won the last contest but you did it i did it yeah that was awkward i don't think i have okay let's talk about the oiling up the beach scene then that's a lot easier to talk to talk about let's talk about male grooming so i heard that you guys shot it and then you all engorged on food and then you had to reshoot the scene like two weeks later after that we went and we had tater tots and hot sausage or hot dogs hot hot dog wieners or something like that and and then they tell us there's a rumor that that we have to shoot it again it's like we just put on so much weight in like two hours what yeah the the the problem is the first the first movie nobody knew that scene was gonna be iconic in this one we were like there was a drama they're like all right we knew this thing was coming we knew the day where all everybody's there were guys eating protein paste it was it was bad like you came out with the bands too oh the resistance on the bands on the beach yeah there were what else was there there's some footage out there that's monica to show you the footage of all of us just going crazy she's just like oh my gosh boys oh my gosh this needs to be in an extended cut or something yeah we also have we have some really fun videos uh on the carrier gym too yes yeah we started doing video montages of working out and it was just yeah slow-mo did you hit the slow-mo oh wait slow-mo oh nice i have never worked out in fasmo also during prep there was he was he was preparing with his trainer and i think it was maybe before we met i'm not sure but it was he had this this instagram post i just said montages are forever you should see glenn busting his tail working out and they just like it brought the severity of this and i think that trickled down to everyone like oh my god yeah montages are for i love that you remember that yeah the caption was sounding funny yeah yeah you reminded me so much of a nice man in this film did you sort of study is that sort of was that the sort of the inspiration in a way or did it just happen and then for you you have bragging rights because you're also in mission impossible so i want to know about the difference between a top gun film and mission impossible you can go first okay yeah um no i i tried to look valkomer is one of my favorite actors you cannot top val he's iconic in his own way so you know i i think you have to honor some of the things from the first one and obviously um you know there are things that the audience wants in certain prototypes the audience wants but i tried to try to make it my own as much as i could you know i wanted hangman and iceman to exist in their own in their own worlds yeah oh mission mission impossible seven uh they're the same but they're different i mean tom he approaches each role in each project with the same intensity and and the same level of stunts and everything and same level of quality but it's it's also different because he always tries to outdo himself and i told him i said when i saw top when i said yo how are you going i'll do top gun and mcewen and tom said that's the goal if we're not trying to strive to do it then what are we doing it for us okay one last one last doing a top gun film you know that when you watch the trailer or a featurette you're gonna be like oh i look so badass in that what was your moment where you're like oh i'm a badass that's my moment those he pulls that um we do not look cool on those i think we look so cool like we look we're going we're working yeah i was like our bodies are absolutely going through this there's no girl in the world that looks at the hick maneuver face and goes that's a cool honestly that's the freaky feature right i sent like a 10 minute voicemail with y'all to be like yo we look badass yeah i love it my mantra if we're going to go with the mantra it's voice voice notes from tarzan are the greatest coffee in the entire world he's about as hyped as anyone about life as i've ever see so he checks out all the interviews and then gives comments on them this guy's like if anybody is watching president yeah he says like glenn interviews he's like oh my god check out this moment yeah i'm like we don't need to revisit this i just love watching i love them when i'm not around them i want to watch them that's all you know what it is you're a real wingman that's what it is you're you're a supporter of everybody everyone here is the best there is who the hell are they going to get to teach us congratulations on the best movie i've ever seen in my entire life i swear i swear it's so good i'm sure everybody's saying this to you um i did this with the other trio i hope you'll indulge me i usually don't ask people to perform but they had a contest who can pull the best pulling g's face like re-enact your pulling g's face right here right now who won over there first uh i feel like glenn glenn might have won it's kind of a it's kind of a loose skin thing can you use your hands yes you're gonna win okay i have a lot of losers on the count of three no that's not fair that's not pulling yourself but you don't know but you don't know my hair is really good you're not like up there you don't have to mess up the hair don't make me it's gonna it's it's okay on the couch one two three this is blackmail this is blackmail you have here yeah what did you do that's a gift that's a future gift in the making [Laughter] the other room we'll say that definitely that week that glenn was maybe the winner he was like i'm going to step up i'm going to do a couple on broadway by the way between each of you who do you think has the best call sign argue why your character has the best call sign name i think bob has the best call sign yeah and he just told us why two seconds ago yeah if you throw me in the ocean on bob you're gonna stick with that you're gonna you're gonna really stick with me i will love it it's actually a part i mean as you know part of the film you know what does it stand for and we don't tell you oh yeah i know it's true yeah there is an unknown the kind of call sign you could like make up a story every no he's sticking with bobbin in the ocean we're throwing him in the ocean that's gonna be part of this press run everyone's gonna watch him bob do you remember in the original script what it actually stands for though cause it's something kind of really cool and and you can't even really but you know what the word i know whatever in the first script the world would never know that what is it nope um that's a new film it changes it changes that's true by the day it changes by the day yes morphing but payback in phoenix are pretty cool too so yeah why are yours the coolest well i think the fun thing about our call signs is that we at first they were sort of given to us which the whole thing about call signs is like you do something embarrassing and then they call you that for the rest of your life um and we had a very different experience with it but then we sort of earned our call signs in these crazy ways um basically what happened is the very first time we were all together um the first the first day that we were all together we all went out we were at an officers club uh in nevada we were you know it was this very cultural trip where we were with the pilots and um you know he took his phone and as you know you can't do this um put it on the bar top and forced him to pay or pay for everyone's drinks in the bar 200 people which lou at that point had not spoken to anybody yet so it was yeah and so literally lewis had spent this trip we flew to nevada together we then drove for an hour and a half and lou had not spoken to anybody not for any reason other than i was just like he's shy it was like five hours i was like bob i was like what would bob do i think bob would what would bob don't say anything i need that so then i made and then i paid him back ultimately ish we were like you have to pay him back and we're like it took a little bit of convincing but we did all our names are all our call signs were already scripted so when we read the script they were already there and joe gave us the opportunity to change them if we wanted to change them everyone was like but we earned everyone wanted to like look at it and try to figure it out and then we just realized that like literally our first night together we all all of us earned our calls even glenn yeah i flooded my bathroom that night because i started the shower and then passed out on top of the bed and then i had to like mop it up at four in the morning there was a leak from the ceiling so it looked like i peed in the trash can which they didn't um and then the next day and nobody knew anything she rose from the ashes wow which one of the three of you or all anybody who plays a pilot in this film do you think is the most like a mini tom that you could see in like 20 years this has been it's gonna like have carried on the mission impossible like franchise and like who sort of like is the mini-me of i feel like everyone has some part of him now um i feel like everyone's taken learned so much from him and taken those lessons on to the next projects they do like we all have such high standards for each other too like i expect the most out of these guys and every time i mean this is ramped up to maybe come out many times and every time we sort of have reunions and also we like hanging out um every time we see each other like we just get so excited about the projects that we're working on and like we just have such a shorthand about the level of specificity that we always want to bring to everything we do and you know how how carefully we want to work on the projects and how passionate we feel about them and i think that is something that was really brought out in us especially by tom i mean he picked people who i think had that in them who he felt that from but then also really encouraged that part of us and and taught us how to be on set with that and showed us a little bit of the magic of the magic you know behind what's behind the curtain on his side and how he makes a film and develops character and develops story and shoots a film and you know stunts why a camera moves the certain way it does and you start to realize and again like down to tiny little things like the way a gunslinger stands and like that's what these guys are in the air that's these pilots are in the air they're gun slingers they're old school western like you know albie huckleberry balcomber uh gunslingers you know what i mean and like even down to little things like that and then all of a sudden you realize like oh that's what makes his film so great and you want to take that with you to whatever you do like you can't have that experience and then just show up at another on another set and be like ah whatever you just can't like it's not in you anymore like you would now know that you have to give it your all wow your favorite families in the air force yeah my grandfather's yeah so did that at all aid you in sort of jumping into this or was this a completely like not what you expected you know so it's funny my dad was a mechanic so i grew and he he worked on on on uh jets his his entire military career so i grew up like if for any reason i was out of school because i was always in trouble i spent a lot of time in his hanger while he was like working and so i grew up like staring at jets all day long and always wanting to fly but it was also so common and you know what i mean that it just it just felt like uh this is just a you know it's just a part of the everyday thing for me it was like the little things of like coming onto a base every single day and like you know having to show your id at the gate and then like you go to a certain store to shop and then you go here to watch a movie it was all those little things for me that kind of like really clicked back in and maybe kind of go back to like these childhood experiences right we went to a screening on the on the base of top gun and they had us like introduce the film and he was that was a cool day you like we're telling all of that yeah i was so excited as a kid i love the relationship between both of your characters in this film because it feels very like as much as this is about action it feels very grounded and you're both very unique characters it's not maybe something you would expect to see in a top gun film can you kind of talk about how the two of you created that unique bond between yourselves i mean i feel like there's a lot of reality and truth to it i mean i definitely look up look up and looked up to monica while we were making it and she was always like one of the best pilots along with jay um and and so like it was an honor to be able to like learn alongside her and she was able to give me you know tips and check in on me and it was so there's some reality and truth to to bob and phoenix's relationship they they we flew together the first day we flew was in um a cessna together so like right off the bat i'm like flying him in the back seat and and vice versa he flew me as well i remember being in the back seat and being like he well wait mo monica you have the do you have the plan right now yeah and you're like i think so um so we just got like thrown into it right away um so it was it was easy it's funny originally in the script our characters were supposed to have maybe more contention yeah and they threw that out pretty quickly because it was like no we like we like that they like each other um and it and it works there's still like the hurdle of me not maybe listening to you right away and then and then we start to like defend each other in other scenes and it's fun beach scene you had to reshoot it you thought you your diet was over and then you had to reshoot it how painful was that and come on it was an oil contest who won who used the most oil come on was the slipperiest he was the most glitchy he would have slid off the stage he was injured himself he was going down a slip and slide in like two seconds injured himself that day so slippery yeah we we so we shot the scene we're we've all been working out we're running we're dieting everyone feels great everyone looks good uh originally we shoot that when we get when we go to shoot the scene there's going to be a shirts and skins team everyone loses it everyone's like nah i've been working way too hard like there's no way i can be shirts like that's no he should be shirts yeah absolutely there was only one shirt actually on that day one guy almost cried joe finally folds and he's like fine if you guys all want to be shirts b r b skins b skins whatever so we we shoot the scene we all feel great it's a beautiful san diego day it's like the perfect golden sunset behind us it's absolutely beautiful on the beach miles brings like a pack of beers we all sit around and talk for a little bit that night we decided to go out to a spot here in downtown uh we ordered pizza wings beers everybody's celebrating like we just had such a tater tots yeah everybody's celebrating because this we worked so hard for this scene the next day tommy harper comes to set and he tells us we're gonna have to reshoot that again in like a week or two there was just some stuff that didn't work in there so we're gonna have to redo that and everyone was like i can't do this for another two weeks please don't make me go back to this i don't want to do this it that became a running joke joe would be like oh yeah we have to we have to do some reshoots and he's so serious you're like yeah yeah i know he's good and what are we shooting oh we just we'll let you guys know we'll let you guys know what it is and we shot again post christmas yeah time yeah post tom cruise cake and i ate the whole thing myself wow there's a lot of oil though there was vaseline there was grape seed oil there's coconut oil avocado oil glycerin water chapstick sunflower seed oil this is no joke everyone had everyone had was a lathered in like at least two or three of these things at a time doing push-ups doing push-ups like running in the water just trying to get wet so it looks like sweat was dripping on us it was avocado oil got me it's nice you know it's a high heat oil you know what i mean those are your pilots [Music] you will never forgive yourself for jennifer's request the greatest movie experience i have ever had in a theater it really is what was your reaction to seeing it more important i thought i saw it in a big theater um with my family who were but literally on the edge of their seats the whole time my daughter her knees were bouncing she was so excited now dude so fun did your kids had had they watched the original because they're younger right yeah but i mean obviously my daughter was born in 2011 but you know yeah um uh yeah it was it's it's a spectacle that has so much heart it's so surprisingly emotional and moving and you're so connected to the characters and then those flying sequences i think if you love the flying sequences in the original this is just another level you know what they accomplished it's incredible you should be a movie critic because that was a perfect synopsis for the film it actually is true and it ticks all the boxes and i think uh first of all and i'm sure people are asking about this i remember in the original they're like the admiral's daughter and tom maverick's getting in trouble for and that's his eventually penny benjamin and that's your character um when that film came out if somebody had told you that reference you're gonna play her one day what would you say i never would have thought that that was gonna happen um yeah i thought it was such a smart thing such a smart choice um to make you know to sort of bring in penny benjamin and then you can hit the ground running with the two of them you know which is great for characters of their age you know at that point in their life they have this history together we know that they have had this history together um i think it's a you know it's a great place to start uh their journey in this film so then because i felt that history when i watched those scenes how do you create that what kind of conversations did you and tom have in crafting that history and what sort of a backstory did you create for her aside from the reference there's a lot of time that you had to fill in for yourself yeah we talked about you know the fact that they had sort of cycled through each other's lives at various points and um i thought a lot about you know why they were good for each other why they kept doing that you know and i think that you can feel that in the way she handles that unresolved business when he walks into the bar you know she has so much humor and playfulness but you can feel her affection for him for him and her kindness and um you know she's an independent woman she adores him but she's going to set her own boundaries and she has her own adventures that she's going on you know she's every every bit the adventurer that he is um yeah so they're they're a good match for one another i think did you sort of create something for yourself because watching it i'm like when you said a few things so like you weren't letting him in fully in the first scene as a female i was like oh yeah there's been moments where he's really really hurt her and it is kind of referenced in the film but yeah you create those little scenarios for yourself yeah create those it's always fun to do that and create you know the writers did an amazing job i think with the script um but it's always you know as an actor make it's one of the things that i love you know sort of filling in the moments between and creating that back story and um making it as detailed as possible makes everything more specific it does you know well that came across in the fact that you are this bar owner the bar scenes are so iconic in this film and it continues to be iconic and or in the last film and in this film it is just as iconic i really felt your ownership of that bar i felt that you had lived in that space that you would spend some time there this was your bar but on the day what does that look like like was it a set was it an actual bar they built that bar for the film uh they built it on the beach they did an incredible job with it um and people loved it so much i think people in the local community were petitioning to have it stay at the end of the film i don't know where that landed i'm pretty sure it's not there anymore but um yeah they did an incredible job what did you do for yourself to make it feel like that was yours did i spend a lot of time practicing that tap you know pouring that beer spent a lot of time practicing pouring that beer yep and yeah and i think that's a big giveaway you know first first beer i tried to pour from the tap it was like it was not pretty that was not that was not film worthy it really pays off i think when you when you and and i know that's the way tom works i want to talk about again as a female the romantic scenes what i love about it is that he in the scenes that i've seen he doesn't do a lot of love scenes or romantic scenes he seems like an old school romantic nothing salacious it was really connected how were those scenes for you in in filming like what sort of um atmosphere did you create within you know as a couple yeah i felt like i i it's not exploitative it's not like graphic it's just more about their connection and you know that sort of um you know the emotion behind their coming together i think uh more than anything so uh i i love the way they did it i was great you know it was a very different scene in the original i don't know if you remember that blue the blue scene the backlit blue scene we talked about the fact that we were not going there this is going to be a different kind of a different kind of moment um more about their you know their emotional connection and i love it i love that you have the scene of them afterwards lito sort of laying in bed and talking and talking about their lives and you understand their friendship and um and again you know their history their long history together so i know that tom took you open a plane you have a fear of flying and i'm wondering i didn't admit that to him i did not reveal that to him he said he talked about the scene and i just said that sounds great tom as you know as you do because he's just so cool and you know you try to be like a little bit cool and i mean who's cool next to tom cruise i don't know so when you face your fear does it lessen the fear like are you going up again are you like no no no well i always i never stopped flying i did go through a period where i it definitely challenged me um i found it quite stressful but i worked on it and i had actually conveniently decided like i was gonna take it on before this movie came up so this was more like the ultimate test of my work confronting that fear i did okay after a couple hours i was ready to land but i did okay but i honestly i think that if it weren't tom flying the plane i'm not sure how it would have been you know i just have so much faith in him he's so capable at just about everything that i've seen him do and from like not planes trains and automobiles but you also have your own boat in this and then he takes you on a motorcycle so and i have a really cool car and you have a really cool and he has a really cool car so how did you sort of craft the boating scenes did you sort of know i took i took lessons i took a lot of lessons um to try and make it look like i knew what i was doing i mean that was a lot of boat to sail um so i definitely had some help uh and there was a lot of wind and waves and we shot it up in san francisco so i had assistance for sure um but i did take a lot of lessons i was taking i live in new york city so uh in brooklyn actually and and um so i was sailing out of the marina there in new york harbor which is its own kind of treacherous i know because i used to live in new york yeah yeah um and last question um i don't know how old i know you're a working actress when the original came out what was your connection and probably people are asking this what was your connection to the originality did you have to sort of have you seen it a million times did you sort of have it i've seen it many times yeah did you revisit it before sort of diving i did yeah i revisited it and um washed it with the kids and watched it again recently and um yeah i had seen it i had seen it several times and how has it changed for you now that you've that you've been in this film when you go back to it now wow it's really fun it's really fun going back to it and kind of trying to let it sink in that i'm part of the sequel because i i think when you don't think about it in that way when i was doing it i approached it as you know you think about the work and the character and you know um so i don't think of it in the in that larger sense of context you know i was so involved in what we were doing and what we were trying to accomplish that i wasn't sort of looking at it from that perspective so it's kind of fun and you're like yeah you were here at the request of admiral kazansky aka iceman he seems to think that you have something left to offer the navy what that is i can't imagine just want to manage expectations first of all the reactions to this film have been so off the charts i haven't heard a single like bad note what is your reaction to the reaction to the film um i mean it's obviously it's a it's a wonderful uh experience to be involved with something that that is that is well liked i've had it a few times in my career and it's certainly better than the the the opposite reaction um but we were very proud of the film you know we i'd seen the movie for the first time in 2020 uh in deep pandemic we saw just the cast and i and and we were sat you know 15 feet apart with mass on and it was a very different experience than i think people are going to have going to the theaters now which is uh very different but we knew we had something special and we knew we knew it when we were making it i mean this is a continuation of a story that's 30 years in the making and and there aren't many things like that and there aren't many things like that with a movie star like this there's there's very few guys that get to go above the title and he's he's at the top of the list he's like gazing into his eyes right now i'm mesmerizing even so it's easy to do it's easy to get lost well let's talk about those scenes that you have because what i loved about it uh your character is not he could have easily been this like over the top one note bad guy and he's not and the two of you had such an intense great dynamic but there was levity there were moments of humor i want to know just because i want to peek behind the curtain of the wizard of oz does he work differently than other actors when you're doing that kind of a dramatic scene i know he's very in control no tom is you know thomas is a very giving very receptive human being yeah and and as an actor he's the same way and he's his enthusiasm is absolutely infectious and he obviously cares so deeply about this story and this character and this world and it was a tremendous honor to be invited into that world for sure um but also it was it was fun you know part of the how you described the levity of it was that it was i think my character understood that yes he has to enforce the rules and yes he is responsible for the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars of equipment and misses and mats but but also lives but also he does understand that what maverick brings to the table is undefinable in some ways and so he has to kind of lean into that as well and uh these are like real life lessons sometimes you got to put your chips on the guy that you're not 100 sure about but you just have a gut about and that's that's the story of maverick for sure i want to know more about cyclone i feel like you sort of opened pandora's box i want to know if how much backstory did you create for your character because i feel like he has secrets he has a life that on paper you think it would be one thing but actually it's something totally different well stay tuned for 2024's top gun cycle uh i you know i i had a lot you know part of it was was playing a guy that is in charge of a lot of very um expensive and and and important things not only just from a monetary monetary standpoint but uh part of it was was when people's lives are in danger and meeting guys that that either are captains of aircraft carriers or run air bases that are basically tasked with putting people's lives at stake um that's a that's a real you know that'll keep you up at night for sure and so i think cyclone is dealing with a lot of those things as well and uh you know obviously it's also it's you know looking sharp and looking tan but is he blown off steam i feel like he's also there's got to be a balance right like for sure you know we just didn't get to see those things i feel like he's in the bar scene somewhere in the back way back he waits for he waits for everybody so obviously you saw the original i'm sure you had a you were a teenager when the movie came out um when you go now that you've done this film how does it change the way you look at the original it's funny you know the original is is very much of the 80s um and tony scott an amazing director rest in peace he's a he did such a he made they made such a great movie jerry bruckheimer don simpson and everybody involved with that production it was it was and deserves to be held in the esteem that it that it is and for many people it was like that meant hollywood for the longest time and it inspired a generation of naval aviators people joined the navy because of that movie um and so yes it does live in this kind of uh place in our hearts for sure and like i said i think the movie strikes such a great balance of um nostalgia for the original and then the continuation of the story is is just a real um is a real pleasure on on a couple different levels did you have aviation envy were you at all jealous that you didn't pull g's and get no you were totally fine with that the simple answer is no i you know there was a little bit sure it would have been a fun experience to do that but i was so glad i did not have to do you know the months and months and months of training that those guys had to do um and i'm so pleased for for for all of them actually because because the the proof is in the pudding and you and you really do see on screen broadcast at 50 feet high how their dedication to that craft it was amazing so you have the rare privilege of you've met mom cruise not tom cruise mom cruz how did that meeting go and was that the first time you met tom um i i guess that might have been the first time that i met tom that was years and years ago it was at jimmy kimmel's house he had a bunch of people over to watch football on a sunday and someone said you know tom cruise is coming over and we're like yeah right that's not going to happen and those are grown men like we're all you know sitting around watching football you know and eating food and and uh knock on the door and who walks in but tom cruise with his mom and we literally were all just like gobsmacked like this is how is this happening and hey guys you watching football yeah what's up tom cruise how you doing uh so yeah that was years and years ago but uh i had since met tom on a few other occasions and uh he is a very friendly and approachable guy it's uh it's it's a rare thing for a movie star that has been a movie star for going on four decades to be that regular and approachable and how's mom and his mom's lovely she's just chill and just like this um i mean you're talking i mean it's amazing that you're talking about tomlin because you've had such an incredible you are having an incredible career with so many memorable like you said memorable roles great roles where does sort of this fit into the pantheon in terms of your experience as an actor i mean it's right up there i it's i i've i'll say i've truly never been involved with something like this at this level i've done my favorite movies and i've been on television shows and i've had my fair share of accolades and and whatnot but this is a very different experience even just even just the like kind of uh experience of doing the press for it i knew that this was going to be you know from san diego we have the premiere here then we go to mexico city then we go back to la then we go to london and can and london and new york and and that's just me the rest of the team goes around the world and it's it's a very different level and it's a very exciting level um and i'm just thrilled to be a part of it i'm trying to keep my eyes and ears open and really take it all in i feel like a lot of the roles and none of the roles you've chosen have been similar but they always have an edge like whether it's bridesmaids he had an edge we'll just say that whether it's mad men whether it's this are these roles attracted to you are you attracted to these types of roles because when i used to do a little bit of acting and i got so ti i was cast for things that are opposite to who i am do you feel that way uh sometimes i think i i'm i'm tremendously uh fortunate in my career and i i will be the first one to say it but i'm also uh excited to do the things that i get to do and uh yeah you know the finding the the layers of the character is is the is the most fun uh part of the of the process so i'm glad i get to keep doing it good morning aviators this is your captain speaking and we're off um both of you really ground the film literally you're both on the ground but also you sort of have the dramatic some of the most more dramatic scenes but also like a tinge of humor um first of all you kind of open the film in a sense like that was the scene where i was like okay i don't know how this movie's gonna be and that set the tone did you kind of where in the filming process did you shoot that scene was it towards the beginning because i could feel the tension you know uh and this is not even trying to sound facetious uh i don't remember it's all the blurry it was so much fun i just know i woke i woke up every day ready for a new adventure but i will say um every day and i'm sure you would agree every day we go to set it feels like your first day because there's so much excitement and anticipation you know luckily we have tom who really you know works hard to make us feel um as appreciated as and and he's very thoughtful you know about saying hey we're really all in this together we all need to shine we all need to do well but that scene was uh particularly exciting to shoot i got to work with ed harris come on uh you know and it just allowed us to really you know we knew it was early in the movie and we were really eager to set an exciting tone for the film and i think we did it really did because that tension and you're kind of like does maverick still have it all these years later and you really and you really felt it your character um it's sort of on the other side of the team you're you're you know you're both on different sides of the team you work more for john hamm's character with john john hamm's character can you talk about building that dynamic with both john and with tom on set i want to know all the magic like we hear how magical tom is but i want i want details well i had to kind of dance a fight in line between cyclone john hamm and maverick and i kind of helped maverick along his path while still keeping my duties in order and i am an admiral so there's certain a certain path i have to follow but i try to help him as much as i can so i feel like i'm maverick's behavior interpreter so he does wild and crazy stuff and i bring it down and put it in english so that cyclone can understand it and i'm trying to bring them together so that maverick can complete the mission that i know he's capable of completing but cyclone is having his issues with it well that's what i like about the film too if there's nobody that's purely bad and nobody like it's not cliche yeah in any way i feel like this was a perfect script like 36 years in the making and worth it or 34 however many it was but for you as actors you're both been acting a long time can you talk about as a viewer this sets itself apart from anything i've seen but as an actor how does it set itself apart from anything you've acted in there's only going to be one sequel to top gun for the rest of time now there may you know who knows what the future will hold but in terms of that original i mean what i mean specifically is in terms of the movie that follows that original there could only be one and so to get the chance to be a part of that i had to pinch myself i thought when i got the phone call somebody was pranking me i said you know what you need to hang up this phone right now this is not a nice thing to do to somebody to hang out and you know oh no this is real okay good all right i was just testing you i'm kidding guys come on just just joshing um but you know i think we were aware uh of the weight that the movie had i mean the original top gun is so interwoven in the fabric of american life i mean it's like up there with baseball and apple pie and i think the fact that it took many decades for the sequel to come is a testament to the filmmakers and tom's insistence that they do something special and they do something that it's in itself in itself original you know we're not just remaking the original movie this is a whole new movie and i think audiences are gonna be floored yeah um for you and then you're the only room that i'm going to ask to sing because you'll probably get it asked a lot and both are old enough to remember the original i loved the original i have such a deep connection with it what was your connection with the original film did you have to sort of go back or you like i've seen this a million times i don't need to see this again i know where we're at it was a little bit of both because i have seen it a million times and it's one of those things you stop on whenever you're passing it on tv but i still have to take like a concentrated look at it and then try to think of the things that are going to connect that movie with our movie so um and then watching it you get more and more excited because the more i'm watching the original top gun i keep thinking i'm going to be in the next one [Laughter] i used to sit in the theater and just chew popcorn and think man i'd love to be in a movie like that it's like i'm gonna be in a movie like that you know uh so that feeling overwhelms you for a while and then you get to work and you meet tom and he's all energy he's right there looking you in the eye and he greets everybody every morning with good morning good morning he's happy to be there every day so you get caught up in the energy and the enthusiasm of the film and then you forget about feeling like pressure or anything like that because now you're right and i don't know when you saw it but my theater exploded and called for the film to be played again after it ended everybody's like again again we'll sit through it again and i'm sure you've seen the reaction what is your reaction to the reactions that are out there and what was your reaction watching the film for the first time you know i feel like you know tom cruise uh he knows how to make a good movie um and i think part of that is is even you know working with him you know he's constantly talking about audience he's aware that people work hard and they spend their harder money to come watch us on screen how do we reward that how do we make sure that when people show up that we give them what they deserve and that's really important to him i almost sometimes my brain think of it as like designing the perfect roller coaster right got to have the right dips and turns at the right place and so to see the audience reaction to see that borne out to see the passion that the filmmakers had to make this movie i was so happy there's a couple of amazing mantras in this film one of them is like don't think just do do either of you have a mantra in life as an actor my mantra would be tell the truth and all will be well as an actor my mantra is read the script before you go to set make sure you got your lines done one of those days before you show up to shoot just find the time take a read look at what happens look at the words you're working on you finish mission impossible uh seven yes yes i've finished my work on seven what is the difference like how is the difference working on that film versus top gun tom being the common thread but what is sort of a different how is it the vibe different well the way that uh mission impossible is being made is a little more um free-flowing from day to day and decisions are being made kind of with uh moving parts kind of all going and you kind of make decisions based on what's in front of you whereas i feel like top gun had more of a plan and things have to be separated like the flying and the training for the flying and then the ground crew so um i guess top gun's a little more structured right now then okay than my experience of mission impossible seven both uh totally energetic both aimed to please and exhilarate the audience though that's the common thread now did i read that tom was a fan of south south side let me tell you about tom cruise brief with this because people don't understand you know there's a certain thing called hollywood speak and then hollywood speaks somebody goes like hey i love you and that just means nothing it doesn't mean anything uh you know you hear it all the time you hear people read scripts so we're on set tom and i talked a lot about chicago he shot movies there and i mentioned that i was doing a show he said oh i want to see it i want to see it i was like okay he's so busy he doesn't want to actually see it no no he emailed me he's like yo what's up he said you were going to send me the show i was like oh yeah yeah dude tom cruise let me send it to you send it to him and a couple months later we were in the writer room i get a phone call from tom he has watched the whole season he is pitching me the jokes he liked he's talking about the characters he loved he said the writing is so crisp and i said tom you know i'm in the writing room right now he's like can i talk to the writers so then of course i have the great pleasure in my life of being able to go hey guys you guys tom cruise wants to talk to you putting him on speakerphone no way just gushing their faces they were over the moon but it's so nice you know in a world where folks kind of just say things to say them to actually have someone who's genuine and who really means it and tom is that guy well last question for both of you your real life call sign if you had a call sign in life what would it be miami miami oh i feel you on that you got a little miami vice happening right mine would [Laughter] mine would be uh wheat berry wheat berry why i like that what's that about say bake i'm a sourdough bread baker you said that like an admiral or a general i bake unseen no turning back now come on [Music] having any fun yet i'm sure you've seen some of the reactions some people have seen it already what is your reaction to reading the response the overwhelmingly positive response to this film well you know i i was at cinemacon last week so i got to sit with 3 000 people uh and experience it for the first time with an audience finished and uh it was just i was relieved you know i was nervous um i was just happy to see you know a lot of the humor landed because that's the kind of stuff that you kind of forget as you're watching the movie and working on it over and over but to see all those beats land to see you know people really respond to what tom did in this movie and the performance he brings to it um you know he really gets a chance to act in this film which is really exciting and uh so i'm just i'm just so proud of the whole cast and everyone that worked on it well that's what's so amazing about it is it hits drama comedy action there's so much woven into one i don't know if you i was at cinemacon if you heard us in the balcony calling for it to be played again after it ended no but that was the reaction people wanted to see it again oh good right the way i hope people do yeah i think they will i think there's going to be a lot of repeat viewings um i heard you say that you wanted to make a film when you're approaching something as huge as top gun that has such a legacy that really it came down to making something for yourself that you love and that you would want to see can you sort of talk about that a little bit is that sort of what grounded you even in a film about aviation and grounded you as a director and tackling this thing no i think as a director you have to you have to make it for yourself because if you try to please everyone else you'll get pulled in a thousand different directions so for me you know it was going back to the feeling i had as a 12 year old kid seeing it in you know may 1986 on the big screen and capturing that feeling uh again obviously having tom and jerry bruckheimer next to me while making it was incredible because they were you know part of the original and so yeah you have to make it for yourself and then hope that it connects you know when it comes out it definitely connects um you work with tom and oblivion what is it like approaching material that's new versus sacred ground well this is you know this is one of the jewels if not the biggest jewel in his crown right i mean this is top gun and uh from the very beginning tom said to me he's like this is hitting a bullet with a bullet like this is going to be this is going to be tough this is going to be hard two miracles two hands gonna take two miracles yeah uh and uh so every day you know we just pushed ourselves to make sure that we were telling the best version we possibly could and um you know uh it was it was it was an adventure every day i'm sure for you as a director too when you're working with tom who knows his material so well he knows what he wants he's a visionary himself can you give me a little just a little taste of behind the scenes what that partnership and that collaboration is like as he as inspiring as it seems he would be yeah he you know wakes up thinking about the film you know and goes to sleep probably dreams about it like he's just in it and it's inspiring to me it's inspiring to everyone on the crew um you know it was it's a partnership when you're working with him i mean look at the film look at what he's doing you know he's he's not only interested in what his character is doing but he's interested in all facets of the filmmaking process um he's made movies for 35 years you know and worked with all of my heroes in terms of directors so um i just i just learned a tremendous amount for him i hate to ask but what is what was one thing he taught you that you didn't know oh my gosh i mean it's so many things uh you know what tom talks about is communicating with the audience and sometimes the thing that you want a scene to communicate even though you see it sometimes the audience doesn't get it so it's really important i think what he really taught me was in those test previews really listening to what the audience is saying and make sure they're seeing the same thing you are in a scene and and learning how to use those previews to to hone the movie i think was a really good lesson so as a director i want to talk about the rialto camera is that what it was called yeah the shooting in 6k having six cameras in and around the planes um and these cameras are were created specifically for this film this is the first time they were used they're made by sony it's called the sony venice and the rialto is the version that splits into two pieces so it makes it kind of half size and that's the camera that allowed us to get six in the cockpit so it took us about 15 months working with the navy to figure out how to do it and to get clearance to do it because they you know if the pilot needs to eject or there's an emergency the cameras can't interfere with any of the systems um so it was a huge engineering exercise but um you know when you see what we were able to capture you just can't fake that so 16 12 to 16 hour days for 30 to 45 seconds of footage what thing one thing i found was astounding was how you connected story to action i can't imagine how difficult that was to have all that footage are you going to do anything with that any of that extra footage will we see extended cuts of any scenes or additional scenes you might see some additional scenes um there would there isn't a lot on the cutting room floor in terms of scenes definitely the behind the scenes videos that we've created to tell how we made the film are pretty epic i think there's six or seven like half hour pieces we've put together that'll be available um so there'll be plenty of material for people to see how we made it any chance of a trilogy have you thought oh my god is it possible i know i know you just put this to bed but you know we have to ask because we want more now i know would you be open to it 35 years to make this one you know let's see in 35 years i'll be in my you know 80s uh you know we'll see i don't think we can wait that long but would you be open to it you know if we could find the right story i mean again it's like it took five years just to get this one out it's hard to imagine diving in right away but you know it's all about the story um were you there i heard ridley scott rather of the late tony scott watch the film um were you there with him no jerry jerry you know jerry and tony were very very close made a lot of movies together so jerry and ridley uh have history they watched it together uh and jerry called me right after and said really loved it and that just that meant a lot and i'm gonna end with a bang any of the explosions practical or were they cg there are there are some practical explosions in the movie absolutely wow yeah

Channel: Fandango

Views: 453,659

Keywords: jennifer connelly, jon hamm, joseph kosinski, maverick, miles teller, tom cruise, top gun, top gun maverick

Id: rKmUkSbHmLw

Length: 64min 12sec (3852 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2022