tom cruise top gun interview 2022

Screen Rant

Tom cruise interview: top gun maverick.

Top Gun: Maverick star Tom Cruise talks about his emotional reunion with Val Kilmer's Iceman on the set, and why training is so important for actors.

Fans have waited with bated breath for decades to see Tom Cruise soar the skies once more, and   Top Gun: Maverick  has finally delivered beyond everyone's expectations. The sequel to the 1986 classic  Top Gun  has already seen the  highest Thursday gross ever for Paramount , with a lofty $150M opening projection, and received an incredible  97% Rotten Tomatoes rating . After all this time, audiences can once more meet Peter "Maverick" Mitchell (Cruise) - but now he's an older and wiser commander looking after eager recruits instead of being the restless youth ready to prove his worth.

While  Top Gun: Maverick  boasts a large ensemble cast that fleshes out the naval aviators far beyond Maverick's immediate reach, he remains the central axis around which the story revolves. Fans get a peek at the romance in his life, thanks to former flame Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly,  Snowpiercer ), as well as significant connections such as to Goose's son Rooster (Miles Teller,  The Offer ). Furthermore, viewers will be thrilled and moved by the touching reunion between Maverick and  Top Gun 's Iceman (played by Val Kilmer).

Related:  Top Gun Maverick’s Iceman Scene Is A Beautiful Val Kilmer Tribute

Screen Rant  had the chance to catch Cruise on the Top Gun: Maverick  red carpet, where he gushed about the significance of his moment with Iceman as well as defended the supposedly tough training the ensemble cast went through.

Screen Rant:  The movie is so fun, but also so emotional, and I think one of the most emotional components is reuniting you with Val Kilmer. How do you describe that reunion?

Tom Cruise: I think people just have to see it; I don't even want to try. He's such a fine actor, and you see what he brings to this movie; the power that he has. And I think that relationship and the structure of the story, where it works, I don't want to talk about. I just want people to experience it.

Everybody talks about the hard training that the actors went through.

Tom Cruise: It wasn't that hard.

Was there a point where you were like, "I think this is too much? We're pushing them too hard?"

Tom Cruise: No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Listen, the whole point of making films and the beauty of it is that you get to travel the world and see other cultures and be part of communities. To look and walk in someone else's shoes and feel what they are [feeling].

Making movies, you're constantly learning; you have to constantly work to become more and more competent in many different fields. And I want to tell them, that's the beauty of making movies. That's why I've always pushed my films to go international, around the world and in different communities. And to be part of that right from the beginning. It was my dream.

You've got to work. You got to work. It's not a bunch of parties and doing that, and that's what I love. And then they get to enjoy this evening.

More Top Gun: Maverick  Interviews

After more than 30 years of service as one of the Navy's top aviators, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. Training a detachment of graduates for a special assignment, Maverick must confront the ghosts of his past and his deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who choose to fly it.

• Cast & Crew At Global Premiere
• Miles Teller
• Jennifer Connelly
• Charles Parnell & Bashir Salahuddin
• Jay Ellis, Monica Barbaro & Lewis Pullman
• Greg Tarzan Davis, Danny Ramirez & Glen Powell
• Director Joseph Kosinski

Next:  Top Gun Maverick Ending Explained

Top Gun: Maverick   is currently out in theaters.

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Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski: ‘Of all Tom Cruise’s characters, Maverick might be closest to his real personality’

The belated sequel to Top Gun is easily the highest-grossing film of 2022 – as well as Tom Cruise’s most successful movie ever. Its director explains how hard it was to make the film and why its star never, ever gives up

In 1990, Tom Cruise told Playboy he wouldn’t make Top Gun 2, for fear it might glorify or gamify war. What changed? It’s a film about competition and friendship and sacrifice. It was never a film about war. We wanted to give people insight into a world and to experience what it’s like to ride in one of these machines. But the desire was to tell an emotive story about a guy in his 50s. The push was: what’s the audience feeling about that? We were pretty ruthless in making sure that we were always pushing that story, even in an action scene.

Does it feel strange to still be discussing something you shot in 2018? It is a little weird. The pandemic is a strange, two-year gap we all have. I’m just relieved the movie worked out and was released in the way we wanted. There was a lot of pressure on Tom [Cruise] and Jerry [Bruckheimer, the producer] to put it out on streaming. I’m glad we waited because we made it for the big screen and I think it was the movie that a lot of people came back to cinemas to see.

Maverick is a mortal person, if quite an unusual and resilient one. Do you think there’s waning interest in superheroes? I do feel like the movie probably hits differently post-Covid. We are all in a different headspace. Every sequence in this movie was flown by real navy pilots: real people doing extraordinary things. People tell me that they’re gripping on to the edge of their seat in the third act. That’s exactly what we hoped for.

It’s also quite an earnest film. There’s not a lot of sarcasm. It wears its heart on its sleeve. It’s OK to show some genuine emotion. Men crying in the movie is a good thing. We approached it in a very honest, straightforward way. What Tom does dramatically in a film that also requires such incredible action skills – you just can’t take that for granted. I can’t think of anyone else who would be able to do both things and produce the film.

You’ve spoken about how Cruise mentored the younger stars on the film. Yet his charisma is so singular it’s hard to see how they could ape him. Of all the characters he’s played, I think Maverick might be kind of the closest to his real personality. He’s always pushing the envelope. The young actors were so curious to just pick his brain. Here’s a guy who has the career that they all dream about and he’s willing to talk about how he got there.

Glen [Powell] read for the part of Rooster and didn’t get it; Miles Teller did. He didn’t want the part of Hangman; he wanted the lead. Then Tom explained to him that as a young actor, you have to choose great movies, not great roles. It totally changed Glen’s approach.

What do people fail to appreciate about Cruise? Everyone knows he gives 110% every day. But the amount of work it takes to make movies like this requires a level of commitment that’s pretty astonishing. He just never gives up.

What do you think he sees in you? What’s the kinship? He knows I’ll work as hard as I can on every frame. I’m always willing to have the conversation and be open to the best idea. We like fast cars, fast planes, you know, all that kind of kinetic movement. Two of the five films I’ve made have been with him.

Is there still snobbery around mainstream action hits? No, the critics embraced it, the audience embraced it, the industry embraced it. I got emails from the heads of every studio congratulating us on the film. Everyone’s rooting for us. And it played overseas bigger than it played domestically. The themes are very universal. We’re not pointing at a specific enemy. We’re not making a political statement. We’re just trying to tell this very honest story about a guy struggling with some things in his life set against the backdrop of this incredibly demanding, exciting job.

How delicate a dance was that depoliticisation? I actually enjoyed the creative challenge of saying: how can I make this enemy so unidentifiable that no matter how hard someone tries, they’ll never be able to pick them out?

Did the Pentagon involvement ever feel compromising? I know on the first film Jerry had to work hard to persuade them to participate. This time that wasn’t the case, because so many of the decision-makers joined the navy because of the first film. We lived on an aircraft carrier for a couple of weeks. That’s tough: 5,000 people on a ship operating 24/7. You get in your bunk exhausted at the end of a 15-hour day and there’s aircraft taking off 5ft above your head all night long. A constant din of activity: very loud and very busy. It’s intense.

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Is flying safe with sleep deprivation? I hear that if you live on the ship for a while, you have trouble sleeping when you come back home and there’s no sound.

Will it be hard to top this success? Yes. But this is Top Gun. It’s like such a special thing: 35 years of love and pent-up excitement. I don’t know if there are many other films out there so beloved and untouched. For me, box-office success is not how I gauge the films I work on. Your films are like your kids: you love them each the same.

Is culture today more nostalgic than 10 years ago? There’s this sense of pining for the way things were. The 80s seem like a simpler time. A nice naivety to life pre-internet. We weren’t bombarded with as much information. The film intentionally has a throwback sensibility. There’s very little in it that ties it to 2022. Maverick has a BlackBerry, but that’s about the only real piece of modern technology in the film. All the real emotional drama occurs in face-to-face conversations. It is a little bit of a fantasy world. Maverick can ride around without a helmet and the sun’s always setting.

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• Top Gun: Maverick

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‘Top Gun: Maverick’ World Premiere Interviews With Tom Cruise And More

We interview the stars of the 'Top Gun' sequel on the red carpet of the world premiere on the USS Midway in San Diego.

Top Gun : Maverick stars including Tom Cruise , Miles Teller , Jon Hamm , Jennifer Connelly , Charles Parnell, Glen Powell and Greg Tarzan Davis, plus filmmakers Joseph Kosinski and Christopher McQuarrie , and musician Kenny Loggins chat about the long-awaited Top Gun sequel at the red carpet for the world premiere of the film on the USS Midway in San Diego.

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Top Gun: Maverick’s director explains how he convinced Tom Cruise to come back

“I had 30 minutes to pitch this film. When I got there, I found Tom really didn’t want to make another Top Gun .”

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Nearly 40 years ago, Top Gun made moviegoers feel a small fraction of the thrill that comes with being a fighter pilot — in part thanks to Kenny Loggins’ anthem “Danger Zone,” but also largely due to the talents of the cast and crew, under the direction of the late Tony Scott. Arriving in theaters decades later, Top Gun: Maverick has to do right not just by the fans, but by the first film’s creators. How do you make audiences accustomed to the casual magic of CGI feel like they’re in the cockpit with these pilots in 2022 the way Top Gun did in 1986? For director Joe Kosinski, the answer was: You do it for real.

As his previous films Tron: Legacy and Oblivion prove, Kosinski is accomplished at both making unlikely sequels to decades-old films and delivering blockbuster action starring Tom Cruise. Top Gun: Maverick shows the director combining these talents for a throwback summer blockbuster that feels real in a way big-budget movies haven’t in some time.

In a call with Polygon, Kosinski dove into the way Top Gun: Maverick makes viewers feel like they’re in those jets, how he convinced Tom Cruise to star, and how the right villain for a Top Gun movie might just be no one.

Polygon: Let’s start with your connection to Top Gun . What was your experience like with the first movie?

Joseph Kosinski: I saw the movie for the first time as a 12-year-old kid, and for me, it was the prototype for the ultimate summer movie. It made Tom Cruise a superstar, and [producer Jerry] Bruckheimer and [producer Don] Simpson had done Beverly Hills Cop and Flashdance at that point. When you saw that dual lightning strike at the beginning of a movie, it meant you were gonna have a good time.

But otherwise, it was not necessarily a movie that I had revisited a lot, until Jerry sent over an early version of a script in 2017 that he wanted me to take a look at. I’d made [ Oblivion ] with Tom at that point, and obviously had an incredible experience doing that.

Was everyone on board for Maverick from the start?

So I read the script, I had some ideas, and Jerry liked those ideas. He said, “You know what, you gotta go pitch this to Tom directly.” So we flew to Paris, where Tom was shooting Mission: Impossible , we got about a half hour of his time between setups. And I basically had 30 minutes to pitch this film, which I didn’t realize when we were flying over. But when I got there, I found that Tom really didn’t want to make another Top Gun .

It’s one of those moments as a director, you have one on every film, where you’re on the spot to make a case for why this movie should be made. I had 30 minutes to do it. And at the end of the pitch, he picked up the phone, he called the head of Paramount Pictures and said, “We’re making another Top Gun .” It’s pretty impressive to see the power of a real movie star in that moment.

How did you pitch it to Tom Cruise? Did he tell you what convinced him?

Well, I worked with Tom, and I knew to start with character and emotion. I just pitched this idea of Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller) growing up to become a naval aviator, and him and Maverick having this fractured relationship that had never been repaired. With Maverick getting called back to train this group of students to go on a mission that he knows is very, very dangerous.

The conflict [is about] the difference between being an aviator who goes in and risks his own life, and someone who’s in a more senior position that has to send others in to risk their lives. I talked to some Navy admirals who talked about that difference. It’s a different sort of pressure, it’s almost harder to send others in rather than go yourself. And to me, it felt like that leveraged the emotion of the past film and those relationships that we all love, but took it in a new direction. So that’s where I started.

I think that was honestly the element that really grabbed Tom, because it gave him an emotional reason to return to this character. The second thing was, what’s Maverick been doing? You know, where do we find him? And this is kind of my own passion, you know, coming through and pitching the Darkstar sequence [in the beginning], just being someone who has always loved airplanes and aerospace and studied aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering and loved The Right Stuff . So the idea of finding him as a test pilot on the bleeding edge of what’s possible seemed to me like the perfect way to find him, and Tom loved that.

He also must’ve loved how you planned to shoot this.

I showed him some videos of Navy pilots who put GoPros in their cockpits, and I said, “You know, this is out on the internet for free. If we can’t beat this, there’s no point in making this.” And he agreed. And then finally, I just had the title, you know, which I think kind of summed it all up. “We aren’t going to call it Top Gun 2 , we’re going to call it Top Gun: Maverick .” It’s a character-driven story, a drama with this giant action film around it. And that to me was what a Top Gun movie is.

Let’s talk a little bit about that Darkstar sequence. Jerry Bruckheimer says you were heavily involved in its conception.

Yeah, I mean, it was my dream. Skunk Works is this division of Lockheed that makes these planes that are top secret. They fly at night, no one knows they exist. We find out about them 20, 30 years after they fly.

I had just done a movie that was financed by Fred Smith, who is the founder of FedEx. And he told me he had a contact at Lockheed. He had just done a tour there — it helps to have friends in high places. He set up a meeting between Jerry, I, and Skunk Works, and we drove out into the middle of Palmdale and met with their senior staff. And I just said, “Listen, I want to put an airplane in this film that does this , this , and this . I know you guys have some experience in that area. We’re gonna give people a glimpse of something they’ve never seen before.”

And they said yes. I think the real reason they helped us was so we could make it as real as possible, but not too real, you know? We changed a couple of details so we’re not giving any secrets away, but it has a lot of features and details for people who really are into this world. I think they’ll get a kick out of it.

How do you get people excited about these pilots and the planes? Like other people I’ve talked to about it, I had an experience watching this, like, “Apparently I really like planes. Have I always been this way?”

Our approach is a classic movie approach. The only thing they could do in the ’80s was capture this stuff, at least the exterior shots, for real. You just can’t fake what it feels like to be in one of these jets, the forces, the way the light changes, the vibration, the sense of speed, all of that. There’s just no replacement for that.

I’ve noticed that people see this movie, and they just keep saying the same thing over and over: “It just feels so real.” And it’s funny, because maybe we’ve lost track of that a little bit with fantasy films or superhero films, where they’re creating images that you can’t capture for real. So you rely on CGI. But there’s just something different about capturing it for real. And for this film, we found a way to do it. And it just feels different.

In the original Top Gun , the villains aren’t really named. In Maverick , the pilots are training for a mission against a vague “shadow state.” What went into that decision?

It was specifically designed to be a faceless, nameless enemy, just like the first film. You know, this is a movie about friendship and sacrifice and teamwork and competition, just like the first film. It’s not a movie about geopolitics. We didn’t want it to be. So we designed it that way — the jets are fictional, they’re faceless enemies. The mission itself is about keeping the world safe.

And that was all by design, just because we wanted the focus to be on on the Maverick story, and his relationship with these characters. We made the movie in 2018. We started filming in 2018. And, you know, the world changes constantly. It’s really hard to make something that feels relevant, because the world is always changing.

‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Review: Tom Cruise Takes to the Skies, Literally, in Barrier-Breaking Sequel

Reteaming with 'Oblivion' director Joseph Kosinski, the perfectionist producer-star insists on flying his own planes in this stunning follow-up.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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The world is not the same place it was in 1986, when “Top Gun” ruled the box office. In Ronald Reagan, America had a movie star for a president, and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson as its honorary ministers of propaganda. The same year that “Platoon” challenged the United States’ militaristic track record, “Top Gun” sold a thrilling if narrow-minded fantasy of American exceptionalism — of boys and their toys, of macho-man bromance and what it means to be the best. Three years after Tom Cruise flipped the bird to a Russian MiG fighter plane, the Berlin Wall fell. Two years later, the Soviet Union collapsed.

One could argue that our new, post-Cold War world didn’t need a “Top Gun” sequel. (Tom Cruise himself once insisted as much.) But one would be wrong to do so. Building on the three-parts-steel-to-one-part-corn equation that director Tony Scott so effectively set 36 years earlier, the new film more than merits its existence, mirroring Cruise’s character, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, in pushing the limits of what the machine could do — the machine in this case being cinema, which takes to the skies as no blockbuster has before.

Hardly anything in “ Top Gun: Maverick ” will surprise you, except how well it does nearly all the things audiences want and expect it to do. Orchestrated by Joseph Kosinski — the dynamo who collaborated with Cruise on “Oblivion” and first worked with Miles Teller on 2017’s terrific, underseen firefighter drama “Only the Brave” — to appeal to veterans and neophytes alike, this high-performance follow-up sends Maverick back to the Topgun program, where he won the heart of Charlie (Kelly McGillis) and lost best friend Goose (Anthony Edwards).

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Flashbacks notwithstanding, neither of those actors is in this movie, though the screenplay — a tag-team effort between Christopher McQuarrie (Cruise’s guy), Eric Warren Singer (Kosinski’s guy) and Ehren Kruger (yikes) — just about resurrects Goose via his now-adult son, Bradley Bradshaw (Teller), call sign “Rooster.” (“Phoenix” would be more apt, but that tag goes to Monica Barbaro, playing the lone woman in this testosterone pool.) The resemblance between Rooster and his late dad is uncanny, courtesy of a goofy moustache, some hair gel and a scene in which the young pilot pounds out “Great Balls of Fire” on the Hard Deck piano, the way Goose once did.

The Hard Deck is now operated by a character from Maverick’s past, Penny Benjamin ( Jennifer Connelly ), although she was only referenced in passing before: In “Top Gun,” Maverick is chewed out by his superior officer for having “a history of high-speed passes over five air control towers — and one admiral’s daughter!” Penny is that daughter: strong, independent and responsible for a daughter of her own (not Maverick’s, and too young to be his love interest). Cruise’s character has matured on the womanizing front, and the movie provides a shallow yet satisfying romantic subplot between him and Penny, which gives him something to come home for, since his daredevil tendencies otherwise give off strong kamikaze vibes.

In theory, Maverick should have graduated Topgun and gone back to teach what he’d learned to other Navy pilots. But after losing his flying partner, the character wound up being more of a loner — or so we learn, catching up with him all these years later, working as a test pilot and stuck at the rank of captain. Following a nostalgia-baiting aircraft carrier landing montage, wherein “Top Gun” theme “Danger Zone” blazes once again, Kosinski tracks Maverick to the Mojave Desert, still living up to his nickname when he takes a multimillion-dollar piece of government equipment — a supersonic, SR-71 Blackbird-style (fictional) Darkstar jet — out for a speed test.

Showing up as none-too-amused Navy brass, Ed Harris arrives just in time to eat a face full of sand as Maverick takes off at rocket speed, gently pushing the plane to Mach 10. (As a point of reference, the F-14s seen in “Top Gun” top out around Mach 2.) It’s a glorious scene, and one that melds everything Maverick once represented with Cruise’s own off-screen personality — which also explains all the self-driven motorcycle rides. The stunt nearly gets Maverick kicked out of the Navy. His only option: Go back to the training academy, where Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer) is now filling Tom Skerritt/Viper’s shoes.

The script incorporates Kilmer’s throat cancer, such that Iceman has just one scene, communicating mostly by keyboard — but it’s a smart one, paying off the way the dynamic between these two ex-rivals has evolved. Considering the importance Goose and Rooster play in this next mission, which involves a near-impossible airstrike on a uranium plant, it would’ve been nice to see Meg Ryan return as the widow/mom, but the rules are cruel when it comes to aging female actors. Meanwhile, we can talk about all the cosmetic ways Cruise and Kilmer’s faces have evolved, although there’s only one change that matters: Cruise has perfected that little jaw-clenching trick that signifies “This is a really tough call.”

He won’t get an Oscar for pantomiming such swallow-your-pride stoicism, though Cruise deserves one for everything else the role demanded of him: If the flying scenes here blow your mind, it’s because a great many of them are the real deal, putting audiences right there in the cockpit alongside a cast who learned to pilot for their parts. The idea here is that Maverick has been grounded, relegated to coaching a dozen top-of-their-class hotshots, though he takes to the skies right away, trumping all of these aces in a series of adrenaline-fueled drills. Not a one of these students is convincing as a Navy pilot, though their personalities win us over all the same (even Glen Powell’s alpha-male “Hangman,” who serves as this movie’s Iceman equivalent), and once can imagine future spinoffs involving any of these characters.

“Top Gun” has always been “The Tom Cruise Show,” and no one believes for a second that Maverick won’t maneuver his way into flying the climactic mission. But he can’t do it alone: The operation calls for perfectly coordinated teamwork among six pilots, recalling the group air battle that bonded Iceman and Maverick in the original movie.

These days, videogame-styled blockbusters rely so heavily on CGI that it’s thrilling to see the impact of gravity on actual human beings, pancaked to their chairs by multiple G-forces. Sophisticated movie magic makes their performances seamless with the exterior airborne shots, while the commitment to filming practically everything practically feels like the cutting-edge equivalent of Howard Hughes’ history-making “Hell’s Angels.” The result is the most immersive flight simulator audiences will have ever experienced, right down to the great Dolby roar of engines vibrating through their seats (while the score teases cues for Lady Gaga’s end-credits anthem “Hold My Hand”).

Early on, Ed Harris’ character warns Maverick and his team that “one day, they won’t need pilots at all,” by which he means, drone technology is not far from allowing the Navy to do all of its flying by remote control. Cinema seems to be moving in that same direction, replacing actors with digital puppets and real locations with greenscreen plates — but not if Tom Cruise has anything to do with it. Engineered to hit so many of the same pleasure points as the original, “Top Gun: Maverick” fulfills our desire to go really fast, really far above ground — what the earlier film unforgettably referred to as “the need for speed.”

Still, this buckle-up follow-up also demonstrates why we feel the need for movie stars. It goes well beyond Cruise’s rah-rah involvement in what amounts to a glorified U.S. military recruitment commercial (the 1986 film might have been as perfectly calibrated as a Swiss watch, but it wasn’t subtle about its GI Joe agenda). It’s the way we identify with the guy when he’s doing what most of us thought impossible. Turns out we need Maverick now more than ever.

Reviewed at AMC Century City 15 (Imax), May 10, 2022. In Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition). MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 130 MIN.

• Production: A Paramount Pictures release of a Paramount Pictures, Skydance, Jerry Bruckheimer Films presentation of a Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production. Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison. Executive producers: Tommy Harper, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Chad Oman, Mike Stenson.
• Crew: Director: Joseph Kosinski. Screenplay: Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie; story: Peter Craig, Justin Marks, based on characters created by Jim Cash & Jack Epps Jr. Camera: Claudio Miranda. Editor: Eddie Hamilton. Music: Lorne Balfe, Harold Faltermeyer, Hans Zimmer.
• With: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer.

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Critic’s Notebook

What Becomes a Star Most? For Tom Cruise, It’s Control.

Sheer force of will is now part of his potent mix of athleticism and charisma. That combination goes a long way to explain why “Top Gun: Maverick” is a hit.

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By Calum Marsh

“In order to do my job,” Ben Stiller, as Tom Cruise’s stunt double Tom Crooze, muses in a video made for the 2000 MTV Movie Awards, “I have to ask myself: Who is Tom Cruise? What is Tom Cruise? Why is Tom … Cruise?”

This is a tricky line of questioning.

Onscreen, Cruise is unmistakably our biggest movie star, as the New York Times reporter Nicole Sperling recently explained — the last true exponent of a century-old studio system that has been steadily eroded by the rising forces of franchise filmmaking and streaming. His powerful charisma and daredevil stunt work have combined, yet again, in his latest hit, “Top Gun: Maverick,” bringing it past the $1 billion mark.

Offscreen, Cruise is elusive. He is the frequent public mouthpiece for a cryptic, controversial religion that seems harder to understand the more he talks about it . He is intensely secretive about the details of his private life. Even when he makes the occasional effort to seem like an ordinary, relatable guy, he winds up sounding like an A.I. approximation of one. Asked by Moviebill magazine to describe his most memorable filmgoing experience, Cruise couldn’t name one . (“I love movies,” he said, very normally.) When asked which team he was rooting for at a Giants-Dodgers game he attended last fall , he replied, “I’m a fan of baseball.”

It can be hard to reconcile these disparate sides. So it is worth considering the question: Who is Tom Cruise?

Much of his early success as an actor, through the ’80s and ’90s, was predicated on a certain down-to-earth charm. The sexed-up, troublemaking young Cruise of “Risky Business”; the guileless, endearingly naïve Cruise of “Cocktail”; and the tenacious, morally principled Cruise of “Jerry Maguire” each relied on his ability to convincingly embody the American Everyman, the sympathetic heartthrob the audience could desire or root for. Around the turn of the century, he complicated that image by appearing in more challenging, less accessible films, like “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Magnolia.” Auteurs like Stanley Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson helped showcase Cruise as a serious actor, capable of delivering subtle, nuanced performances.

He has moved away from romance, drama and the independent art house. Over the last decade-plus, he has become more firmly entrenched in the action-adventure genre, perfecting the summer tentpole blockbuster. His performances tend to emphasize his easy charisma and powerful athleticism, but Cruise still brings to these roles a touch of the same delicate charm and actorly nuance of his dramatic fare. You see it in the breezy, naturalistic chemistry he shares with Jennifer Connelly in “Maverick,” and in the jaded, world-weary intensity he has carried through the last couple of “Mission: Impossible” sequels. My favorite recent Cruise performance was from the underrated “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014), in which he plays a cowardly, sniveling politician forced to relive the same deadly battle over and over again — a playful sci-fi take on “Groundhog Day” that found the actor playing against type to delightful effect.

But that’s just part of the story. One of the defining features of the last decade of his career is a level of quality control for which he himself is chiefly responsible. It’s not that he is incapable of making a bad movie: “The Mummy” (2017), Universal’s failed attempt to kick off an entire “Dark Universe” of big-budget creature features, made that clear. But recent Cruise films have in common a degree of ambition and enthusiasm that is rare in today’s blockbuster landscape, and when everything works, that effort pays off enormously. You will not see Cruise phoning in a performance. You get the sense that he treats every movie he does these days as if it were the most important one he has ever done.

The results of this commitment have a way of feeling almost miraculous. How could anyone have expected “Top Gun: Maverick,” a sequel to a 35-year-old action movie with a rather cool critical reputation, to be not only far superior to the original film, but also one of the finest action films in many years? But then you read about Cruise’s dogged insistence on keeping everything as real as possible — demanding a minimum of computer-generated effects, forcing himself through arduous flight training, encouraging his co-stars to bear G-force speeds until they literally threw up. Some of Cruise’s co-stars over the years have characterized his obsessiveness as extreme to the point of what sounds like cinematic despotism, and it’s true that it would probably be easier, and cheaper, to do much of this in front of a green screen. But that’s not Cruise. When it comes to this stuff, he cares too much.

“Mission: Impossible” was a slick espionage film, directed by Brian De Palma, based on a TV series from the 1960s. How is it possible that it yielded five sequels, and how is it conceivable that the sequels keep getting better, culminating in “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” (2018), which is pretty much an unqualified masterpiece? (The final two installments, “Dead Reckoning Part One” and “Dead Reckoning Part Two,” are due in 2023 and 2024.) Again, the credit should go mainly to Cruise, who, for the sake of our entertainment, will happily climb the world’s tallest building , hold his breath for six and a half minutes , or jump out of an airplane with the cameraman .

But Cruise’s devotion to the movies runs deeper, if that’s possible. It’s a devotion to the Movies with a capital M. As A-list talent flocks to deep-pocketed streamers with blockbuster ambitions, Cruise has remained adamant that he will not make a movie for the likes of Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, refusing to negotiate on the possibility of a V.O.D. premiere for “Maverick” earlier in the pandemic. (“I make movies for the big screen,” he explained.) His interest in preserving that traditional cinematic experience shines through in the colossal scale of the productions themselves, so that when Cruise is looming over you in immense, Imax dimensions, he feels every bit as big as the image. It’s a reminder that so much of what we watch is tailored to the streaming era — a mass of “content” designed to play as well on a phone as on the big screen. For those of us who still care deeply about the cinema and fear for its future, Cruise’s efforts feel invaluable.

It’s also a reminder of why we go to the theater to see Tom Cruise movies — to see Tom Cruise himself. We can still be tempted to the cinema by the names on the marquee, but as franchises have become the dominant force in the business, the persuasive power of those names has declined. The supremacy of proven, bankable intellectual property today over the traditional star system has meant that we are more likely to seek out Spider-Man, Thor and Captain America than Tom Holland, Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans; the actor in the cape is more interchangeable than ever. With Cruise movies, that relationship is inverted. Does anyone particularly care about the adventures of Ethan Hunt? (That’s the name of his character in “Mission: Impossible,” in case you forgot.) Hunt is just another name for the man we really care about: Cruise, plain and simple.

Cruise has all of the qualities you want in a movie star and none of the qualities you expect of a human being. As a screen presence, he is singular; as a person, he is inscrutable. But it’s his inscrutability that has allowed him to achieve a sort of clarified, immaculate superstardom, one that exists almost entirely in the movies, uncontaminated by mundane concerns. Cruise the star burns as bright as any of his contemporaries, and far brighter than any who have come up since, in part because he continues to throw more and more of himself into his work and give up less and less of himself everywhere else. Who is he? You have to look to the movies to find out.

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Val Kilmer explains his ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ return and ‘authentic friendship’ with Tom Cruise

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The Iceman cometh again, this time as a friend. And as Val Kilmer tells The Times, “I can’t believe how kind the whole world has been. ... It’s very humbling.”

The box-office standout of the summer season so far, “ Top Gun: Maverick ” has already become Tom Cruise’s biggest domestic grosser and blown audiences away with its aerial action sequences . But perhaps the most memorable — almost certainly the most moving — scene in the film is the quiet reunion of onetime rivals , now closest of comrades: Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Cruise) and Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Kilmer).

The moment is informed by years of friendship both in the script and in real life — and by Kilmer’s real-life health struggles .

Iceman, who has throat cancer in a reflection of Kilmer’s own diagnosis, communicates with Maverick via typed words on a screen. When that’s no longer enough, he uses his struggling voice to connect with his friend of 3½ decades.

Why Val Kilmer’s brief cameo is the most powerful moment in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Some of the best acting work in the sequel happens because of returning star Val Kilmer. And not just Kilmer’s acting work.

May 27, 2022

“Very personal and moving” are the words Kilmer used to describe how playing that moment felt to him.

Kilmer answered emailed questions from The Times about the scene, his relationship with Cruise and how he’s doing after years of cancer treatment and surgeries. He said the onscreen reunion had been in the works for years but no reunion was necessary offscreen, as the two actors had remained friends since meeting on the original “Top Gun” (1986) .

“We talked quite a bit about what was best for the story and I think they got it right at the end,” wrote Kilmer of Cruise. “We are in touch and exchange Xmas gifts every year!”

As to the scene itself, Kilmer acknowledges he was the one typing the words on the computer screen as Iceman “talked” to Maverick.

“We actually shot it twice,” he said via email. “First time was in San Diego. They wanted to make a wardrobe change and we ended up with the scene you see in the movie with the computer.”

After one of the takes (we only did a few) I noticed that both Tom and Val had tears in their eyes. It felt like a genuine moment between two old friends.

— Joseph Kosinski, director, “Top Gun: Maverick”

Being mostly unable to use his voice is a huge adjustment, of course, for one of Hollywood’s more expressive actors. Vocal transformations have highlighted his appearances in such films as “ The Doors ” (in the deep baritone of frontman Jim Morrison), “ Tombstone ” (in the aristocratic drawl of Doc Holliday) or “ The Saint ” (in a host of guises of varying nationalities ). The key component to that “Maverick” scene, then, had to be that other, less heralded acting skill: listening.

“That’s exactly what acting is, reacting,” Kilmer wrote. “Being in the moment.”

When asked what help he appreciated most during the scene, though, the answer wasn’t technical or about extra time: “A couple of dear friends came by set!”

Also by email, director Joseph Kosinski said, “[Kilmer] is completely present in the scene and able to convey so much emotion without saying a word. I remember noticing that with his introduction in ‘Heat’ — so much said with just one look.

17 ‘Top Gun’ callbacks to watch for in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Tom Cruise’s ‘Top Gun’ sequel remembers the original with plenty of nostalgic callbacks. Here are 17 you might have missed.

May 26, 2022

“When working with an actor of that caliber, you try to create a space for them to do their best work, then get out of the way and let them create.”

Kosinski agreed with the perception that Kilmer and Cruise raised each other’s game: “You’ve got two masters at the top of their game playing the most iconic characters of their careers. I think there is a lot of Maverick in Tom, and Iceman in Val, so what you are seeing onscreen is an authentic friendship that has lasted over 36 years.

“After one of the takes (we only did a few) I noticed that both Tom and Val had tears in their eyes. It felt like a genuine moment between two old friends.”

It wasn’t all heavy, though:

“When we weren’t shooting, they were sharing funny stories with [producer] Jerry [Bruckheimer] about making the original film,” said Kosinski. “I think at the time they were a bit competitive with each other, but now it’s something they can just laugh about.”

Kilmer wrote, “Tom and I get along really well. We giggled like little kids in school between takes. I consider him a real friend. We shared intimate stories and challenges about our different lifestyles!!”

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Since the film has come out, apart from its box-office laurels and generally enthusiastic reception, Kilmer’s cameo has been one of its most universally praised elements. Justin Chang’s review in The Times voices a typical response: “In one fictional moment, he gives us something unmistakably, irreducibly real, partly by puncturing the fantasy of human invincibility that his co-star has never stopped trying to sell.”

Kilmer says the flood of affection has been surprising: “I can’t believe how kind the whole world has been. I get hundreds of fan letters every week. It’s very humbling.”

The 62-year-old actor says he’s nowhere near done. “I’m so great,” he writes of his physical and emotional wellbeing. “Feeling stronger everyday. My dream is to play Frankenstein with Werner Herzog directing. Right now we are in a conflict because he wants to modernize it and I want to keep it classic! Also working on an exciting project that gives artists a place to learn and share their creative talents called Kamp Kilmer .”

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‘Top Gun’ actor Barry Tubb sues Paramount over use of his likeness in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’

Feb. 23, 2024

Halle Berry mourns ‘sweet friend’ and late ‘X-Men’ co-star Adan Canto

Jan. 10, 2024

James McCaffrey, ‘Rescue Me’ star and ‘Max Payne’ voice actor, dies at 65

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Tom cruise in ‘top gun: maverick’: film review.

The ace fighter pilot returns 36 years after first feeling the need for speed in Joseph Kosinski’s sequel, also starring Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly and Jon Hamm.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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As inescapable a pop-cultural totem as 1986’s Top Gun became, Tony Scott’s testosterone-powered blockbuster has all the narrative complexity of a music video crossed with a military recruitment reel. It’s hard to think of many more emblematic products of the rah-rah patriotism of the Reagan years, with its vigorous salute to American exceptionalism and triumph over a Cold War enemy left purposely vague — hey, don’t want to shut out a lucrative foreign market.

All that has only continued to toxify in the post-Trump age, with patriotism curdling into white supremacy. So depending on where you sit on the political spectrum, your enjoyment of Top Gun: Maverick might depend on how much you’re willing to shut out the real world and surrender to movie-star magic.

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Venue : Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition) Release date : Friday, May 27 Cast : Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis Director : Joseph Kosinski Screenwriters : Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie

Which this superior sequel — directed with virtuoso technical skill, propulsive pacing and edge-of-your-seat flying sequences by Joseph Kosinski — has in abundance. Every frame of Tom Cruise ’s Maverick is here to remind you, soaking up the awestruck admiration of the young hot shots ready to dismiss him as a fossil and the initially begrudging respect of the military brass who try and fail to pull the cocky individualist into line. “He’s the fastest man alive,” one of the slack-jawed hero worshippers in the control room says early on. And that’s even before he does his signature robotic “Cruise Run.”

“It’s not the plane, it’s the pilot,” we hear more than once. And Cruise leaves no question that he’s the pilot, despite hiring a pro craft team and a solid ensemble cast who were put through extensive flight training. Even the relic F-14 Tomcat, Maverick’s tactical fighter plane of choice in the first movie, gets fired up for a glory lap, a salute to aged movie stars and old technology in one. Cruise’s character is somehow positioned by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie’s screenplay as simultaneously a rule-breaking rebel and a selfless saint. That makes this a work of breathtaking egomania outdone only by the fawning tone of Paramount’s press notes.

Starting when Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” accompanies footage of new-generation F-18 hornets slicing through the clouds and swooping down onto an aircraft carrier amid a sea of high-fives, fist-pumps and thumbs-up, the sequel follows the original beat for beat, to a degree that’s almost comical. And yet, as formulaic as it is, there’s no denying that it delivers in terms of both nostalgia and reinvention. Mainstream audiences will be happily airborne, especially the countless dads who loved Top Gun and will eagerly want to share this fresh shot of adrenaline with their sons.

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell lives alone in a Mojave Desert hangar with a photo shrine on the wall to his former radar intercept officer and best buddy Goose, who died during a training accident in the first film. (Anthony Edwards and Meg Ryan are seen in a helpful recap framed as Pete’s tortured memories.)

Maverick zooms into the Naval base on his Kawasaki each day and continues to get his kicks as a daredevil test pilot, resisting the advancement in rank from captain that would have grounded him by now. But when his aerial showboating pisses off Admiral Cain (Ed Harris), who’s pushing to transition to drone aircrafts and make stick jockeys obsolete, Maverick gets his wings clipped.

Despite having lasted just two months as an instructor almost 30 years ago, he’s reassigned to the elite Fighter Weapons School, aka Top Gun Academy, in San Diego, which was established in 1969 to train the top 1 percent of Naval aviators. Neither Cain nor the academy’s senior officer, call sign “Cyclone” ( Jon Hamm ), wanted him for the job. But Maverick’s former rival and eventual wingman Iceman (Val Kilmer), who went on to become an admiral and command the U.S. Pacific Fleet, convinced them he was the only man who could prepare pilots for a top-secret mission.

A uranium enrichment plant has been detected on enemy soil — once again, exactly which enemy is unclear — and two pairs of F-18s need to sneak in, bomb the bejesus out of it and then get out fast, overcoming a near-impossible quick climb over rocky peaks and then surviving the inevitable blast of enemy missiles and aerial dogfights.

The candidates for that mission are “the best of the best,” former star graduates who are pretty much a repeat of the 1986 bunch aside from being more culturally diverse. There’s even — gasp! — a woman, Phoenix (Monica Barbaro). The two that matter most, though, are swaggering blowhard Hangman (Glen Powell) and Goose’s son Rooster ( Miles Teller ), still carrying around the ghost of his father and hostile to Maverick for stalling his career by taking his name off the Naval Academy list.

The Hangman-Rooster dynamic more or less mirrors the Iceman-Maverick friction from Top Gun , just as the incongruously homoerotic shirtless volleyball scene is echoed here with a rowdy team-building football game on the beach.

The only notable place where the screenwriters don’t genuflect to the original model is with Kelly McGillis’ astrophysicist and civilian Top Gun instructor Charlie, who declined a plum Washington job to stick with her man but doesn’t even rate a mention here. Instead, Maverick sparks up an old romance with Penny ( Jennifer Connelly ), a single mom with fabulous highlights. She runs a local bar — its name, The Hard Deck, doubles as a tactical plot point — which apparently puts her in an income bracket to own a sleek sailboat and drive a Porsche. (Producer Jerry Bruckheimer never met a power vehicle he didn’t love.)

Maverick’s task during training is to test the limits of the super-competitive candidates, whittling them down from 12 to six and choosing a team leader. “It’s not what I am. It’s who I am,” he says of his aviator vocation during a rare moment of self-doubt. “How do I teach that?” Anyone failing to guess who’ll land the team leader spot and who’ll be their wingman isn’t paying attention.

The simmering conflict between Maverick and Rooster — who can’t see past his resentment to perceive the protective responsibility his dad’s friend feels toward him — provides an emotional core even if the role makes scant demands on Teller’s range. But that’s true also of Connelly, Hamm and everyone else in the cast; all of them get the job done while remaining satellites that merely orbit around Cruise’s glittering Planet Alpha, eventually having to acknowledge that Maverick’s a helluva guy no matter what stunts he pulls.

The film’s most moving element comes during the brief screen time of Kilmer’s Iceman, whose health issues reflect those suffered by the actor in real life, generating resonant pathos. There’s reciprocal warmth, even love, in a scene between Iceman and Maverick that acknowledges the characters’ hard-won bond as well as the rivalry that preceded it, with gentle humor.

Kosinski (who directed Cruise in Oblivion ), the writers and editor Eddie Hamilton keep a close eye on the balance between interpersonal drama and flight maneuvers; scenes intercut between field practice and classroom discussions during which Maverick points out fatal errors on a computer simulator are particularly sharp. This is all nuts-and-bolts buildup, however, to the mission itself, in which hair-raising action, seemingly insurmountable setbacks and miraculous saves keep the tension pumped.

This is definitely a film that benefits from the Imax experience and the big-ass soundscape that comes with it. The muscular score by Harold Faltermeyer, Lady Gaga and Hans Zimmer also pulls its weight, with Gaga’s song, “Hold My Hand,” getting prime romantic placement. Musical choices elsewhere tend to lean into a retro vibe — Bowie, T. Rex, Foghat, The Who — while Teller gets to hammer the piano keys and lead a Jerry Lee Lewis sing-along that pays direct homage to his screen dad.

The most memorable part of Top Gun: Maverick — and the scenes that will make new generations swell with pride and adulation for good old American heroism — are the dogfights and tactical maneuvers of the pilots. Just as they should be. The best thing this movie does is boost visceral analog action over the usual numbing bombardment of CG fakery, a choice fortified by having the actors in the airborne cockpits during shooting.

Cinematographer Claudio Miranda’s work benefits from the technological advances of the past three decades, with camera rigs allowing for you-are-there verisimilitude. Cruise’s insistence on doing his own flying is undeniably impressive, even if the headgear’s breathing apparatus gets in the way of his trademark clenched-jaw intensity. No one is going to dispute that he works hard in this movie, justifying the labor of love. But no one is going to come out of it concerned for his self-esteem, either.

Full credits

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Out of Competition) Distribution: Paramount Production companies: Skydance, Jerry Bruckheimer Films Cast: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer Director: Joseph Kosinski Screenwriters: Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie Story: Peter Craig, Justin Marks, based on characters created by Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr. Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison Executive producers: Tommy Harper, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Chad Oman, Mike Stenson Director of photography: Claudio Miranda Production designer: Jeremy Hindle Costume designer: Marlene Stewart Music: Harold Faltermeyer, Lady Gaga, Hans Zimmer Editor: Eddie Hamilton Visual effects supervisor: Ryan Tudhope Aerial coordinator: Kevin LaRosa II Casting: Denise Chamian

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'Top Gun: Maverick' star Jay Ellis on earning his character's call sign in real life and his biggest takeaway from working with Tom Cruise

• Jay Ellis spoke to Insider about starring in the blockbuster " Top Gun: Maverick ."
• He recalled the late night out with costars that resulted in them living up to their pilot call signs.
• Ellis is currently the host of Smithsonian Channel's "How Did They Build That?"

How have you spent your summer? We're pretty certain Jay Ellis has got you beat.

For seven weeks, the actor toured the world to do press for the hit movie " Top Gun: Maverick ." From the famed red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival to getting applause from thousands in Seoul, South Korea, Ellis has gone from being known as Lawrence from HBO's " Insecure " to hot-shot pilot Ruben "Payback" Fitch in the biggest movie of the year.

Ellis talked to Insider about the highlights of the press tour, getting married in Italy, hanging out with castmates Monica Barbaro, Lewis Pullman, and Miles Teller, and passing Tom Cruise a script he's developing with "Maverick" costar Glen Powell.

From successfully not falling down the famous stairs at Cannes to getting a wedding gift from Tom Cruise, Ellis has had quite the summer

You basically spent your summer on a press tour for " Top Gun: Maverick ," going from Cannes to South Korea. What stands out from this experience you were just on?

Man, there's so much there. I don't even know if I've fully processed it all, to be honest with you. Though it was over the course of six or seven weeks, it feels like it happened so fast. And every experience topped itself.

We started with a premiere in San Diego on an aircraft carrier where Tom landed in a helicopter! [ Laughs .] Then we got on a plane early one morning and flew to Cannes and walked that red carpet. It felt like 55 million photographers were yelling at us. We walked up those stairs and each of us was like, "I hope I'm not the one who falls, don't let it be me." 

You guys did it real slick. 

I appreciate it. We all came together and supported each other and said we weren't going to fall. 

And Jay, on top of all that, you go and get married to Serbian actress Nina Seničar. Congrats!

That was kind of the cherry on the sundae. It was in Italy and was this three-year process trying to figure out due to COVID. We thought it would be maybe 100-150 people and 200 people showed up to party with us. 

Did Tom Cruise give you guys a nice wedding gift?

Tom did give us a very nice gift. 

Can you reveal what it was?

No, I don't want to. But he gave us a very nice gift. Neither one of us was expecting it at all. It was hand delivered the day before the wedding. We opened it the night of the wedding after we partied and all I will say is it was a his-and-hers thing. That's what I'll say. 

Ellis passed Tom Cruise a script he and Glen Powell are developing

I'm curious, when you have that amount of time with a group that includes major players like Jerry Bruckheimer, director Joseph Kosinski, and Tom Cruise, is there ever a moment when you can grab one of those guys and pitch them a project you want to do?

[ Laughs .] What is really great about all those guys, and Christopher McQuarrie as well, they were so open to us coming to them with scripts and ideas.

I mean, after we shot "Top Gun" I directed an episode of "Insecure" and I remember when I first got the script, the first person I texted was Christopher McQuarrie and asked him, "How would you shoot a thing like this?" And he immediately texted me back, and this is while he was prepping "Mission: Impossible 7" in London. 

And Tom has read a project Glen Powell and I are doing together. They all have been insanely supportive, it's been really cool. 

That's great because to not at least try to plug yourself in with those guys would be crazy on your part.

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You have got to shoot your shot. 

Ellis said a late night with the cast led to them living up to their pilot call signs in the movie

So what is the backstory of your call sign in the movie, Payback?

I went into Joe's office after I read the script and I was like, "Payback, huh!" and he was like, "Do you like it?" And I was like, "I think I do." And he basically told everyone, "If you want to come up with new call signs, let me know." When we all heard that, we all felt this is my way to make my mark on the movie.

But honestly, we found out that we were the call signs given to us. 

We all took a trip to Nevada, where Top Gun is based, to do a culture trip, meet pilots, and experience the place. It's me, Monica, Lewis, Glen, and Miles.

We go out with all the officers. Lewis doesn't speak to us the entire night. He was a total B.O.B. We were like, "Is he being method?" He told us later he was just really nervous.

Monica was going to prove she could hang with everyone that night and then literally rose from the ashes like a phoenix the next day.

And there was a moment in the night when I got Lewis' phone, I told him my phone had died, and he gave it to me. Now, in the Navy, if you set your phone on a bar you have to buy drinks for the entire bar. 

Oh, so what happened to Maverick in the movie is a real thing?

That's a real thing. I put Lewis' phone on the bar, and the bartender rings the bell. There are like 100 people in there that got a free beer. So ultimately I had to pay him back the tab he paid for.

And Glen, as the Hangman, in the middle of the night, just disappeared. He just went back to his hotel room. Didn't tell anyone. That was our first night together and we all earned our call signs that night. 

Ellis isn't mad you can't see him shirtless in the beach football scene

I noticed something the second time I watched the movie: you don't get a glam shot in the beach football scene. Everyone basically gets a single shot showing off their bodies except you. Does that piss you off?

No! I remember the first time I saw that and I was like, "Huh. Wait! What?" But then I had this moment where I realized I've spent the last 6-7 years butt naked on TV. I'm happy for people to recognize me in my clothes. It's a new thing for me.

But I will also say, I realized I look better than all of them shirtless. What can I say? [ Laughs .]

They realized that in the edit and decided it was just too much to show you shirtless.

I don't want to embarrass the biggest movie star in the world! It wouldn't be fair to Tom. And Miles and Glen. Any of them. [ Laughs .]

But honestly, it didn't bug me because it was the first time I was like, I'm not a piece of meat after all.

Observing Tom Cruise's work ethic has rubbed off on how Ellis has approached projects since 'Top Gun'

You are currently the host of Smithsonian Channel's "How Did They Build That?" I noticed you have an instagram account dedicated to pictures you take of beautiful sights you come across in your travels. I'm guessing you didn't have to think long to agree to do this show.

They reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in hosting and I'm not sure if they knew how much I love architecture and how much traveling I do, but for me, I was 100% into it.

My dad was in the Air Force so we traveled a ton while I was growing up and, as an adult, I've had the opportunity to travel. 

So what stood out working with Tom Cruise that will stay with you going forward in your career?

So much of my experience on "How Did They Built That?" was influenced by what I saw with Tom and that's dedicating yourself 100% to the thing you're doing and being a student of that thing. And he did that every day on set. 

We would be in the middle of shooting "Top Gun" and he would talk about how he saw a scene last night in a movie he watched and described it in insane detail. You realize he's in the middle of making "Top Gun" but he's taking time every night to be a student and watch films. That is something that I've carried with me.

I shot another season of "Insecure" after that, I shot "Mrs. America," and "How Did They Built That?," every single thing that I've done I've poured 100% of myself into it while I'm doing it, and not spread myself too thin or lost focus. Hopefully, it shows in the work.  

"Top Gun: Maverick" is currently playing in theaters. Season 2 of "How Did They Build That?" airs on the Smithsonian Channel.

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Favorite interviews of 2022: Tom Cruise for "Top Gun: Maverick"

FOX 5's Kevin McCarthy is sharing his favorite interviews from 2022 and talking all about his time catching up with Tom Cruise for "Top Gun: Maverick."

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Tom Cruise Doesn’t Change His Narrative for Anything, Not Even Cannes

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Tom Cruise would rather be boring than lose control of an interview. He’s learned from his aberrations, whether jumping the couch or advising people not to take prescription drugs. And so, his participation in a May 18 MasterClass Conversation at Cannes could have been an extension of Paramount’s 68-page press kit for “ Top Gun: Maverick ,” which basically shoves aside director Joseph Kosinski to promote the film’s almighty producer (with lip service to Jerry Bruckheimer).

Tom Cruise waited until they could do it right. Tom Cruise labored for years figuring out the right script (maybe with some help from mssrs. Christopher McQuarrie, Eric Warren Singer, and Ehren Kruger?), as well as the best time and place to execute. (By the way, the movie is a riveting, taut, and hugely entertaining E-ride.)

And of course, Cruise insisted that the studio wait to release the movie in theaters. The sole breakthrough moment in French journalist Didier Allouch’s valiant attempt to open up his Cannes quarry was a set-up for a message Cruise is happy to promote: The movie waited two years to open because his films will only play in theaters. No streaming allowed! “They wouldn’t be able to do that,” he said. “That was not going to happen, no.” (Huge applause.)

In fact, some box office analysts believe Paramount waited too long to release its golden egg. Yes, it will score somewhere between $85 million and $100 million domestic on its May 24 opening weekend, but it’s possible that the film would have had no competition at all back at Thanksgiving. Now it has “Jurassic World Dominion” coming on June 8.

The Cruise sizzle reel reminded us of his range. “Risky Business.” “Interview with a Vampire.” “Days of Thunder.” “Vanilla Sky.” “War of the Worlds.” “Collateral.” “A Few Good Men.” “Valkyrie.” “The Last Samurai.” “Edge of Tomorrow.” And there’s his three Oscar-nominated movies: “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Jerry Maguire,” and “Magnolia.” But the interview was dull as dishwater. Given the chance to discuss his heartbreaking bedside scene with his dying father (Jason Robards) in “Magnolia,” Cruise preferred to take credit for inventing the character and showing Paul Thomas Anderson his creation for the first time on a stage.

Over the 41 years since his breakout in “Taps,” the guy gives the same interview every time. Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this before: As a child of four, he dreamed of flying airplanes and making movies; he is grateful to be able to do both. He liked climbing to the tops of trees in the wind.

When he was a little older, he tried to parachute off the roof with a sheet and somehow arose unharmed. He cut grass, shoveled snow, sold holiday cards for money to share with his family and to buy movie tickets. He tried to learn everything he could about how movies were made, from the agencies and marketers to every crew department. Directors like Harold Becker let him watch rushes and explained performances and lenses. Cruise never forgot how to watch his performance objectively, like he was the audience. And as he pursued shooting films all over the world, he studied what made different audiences laugh and cry.

“The derivation of art is skill,” he said. “I looked it up. It’s skill. Because my goals were: How do I be skillful in many, many things? I’ve grown up on movie sets in writers rooms and editing rooms — I’ve spent my life, and it’s an incredible, very privileged life — because it’s something that I’ve wanted to do. And I’ve always loved an audience, and I make my movies for audiences. Because I am an audience first and foremost. It is a different skill writing a movie than something for television, in the way of of how to shoot and how to communicate. Just like theater is different than cinema. It’s a whole different skill set.”

While he may suggest that he still doesn’t know everything about how a movie is made, he takes singing and dancing lessons and constantly adds to his skill set, whether it’s speeding motorcycles, airplanes, or race cars. He loves danger, and is prepared when he does his “Mission Impossible” stunts, but is also scared. “You know, no one asks Gene Kelly, why do you dance?” he said. “If I do a musical I want to sing, I want to dance. And I want to see how I can do it. You got to figure out it’s not just doing it. It’s how is it part of the story? How do we invest the audience in that? It’s always better to go for it, it’s always better to try than to tend to not do it. It’s always better to ask the question, and don’t be afraid.”

What does Tom Cruise have to teach us? I suppose it’s that working hard, taking chances, and learning your craft can take you a long way. Maybe all those rehearsals and do-overs on Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” were worth it. “You just find it and you just know what is right,” he said. “You’re preparing for something on camera that is immediate, that is alive. I don’t want people to see the work behind it.”

Tom, we have that in common: I’d rather watch a “Top Gun” movie than listen to you talk about it.

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Everything the ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Cast and Crew Have Said About a Potential Sequel

A Top Gun: Maverick sequel hasn’t yet been announced, but both the film’s fans and cast are ready for another round in the danger zone.

“My whole cast, we would all be there in a heartbeat,” Jay Ellis , who played Reuben “Payback” Fitch in the hit movie, told Fox News Digital in November 2022. “We would be grateful to be there.”

Released in May 2022, the action drama followed Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell ( Tom Cruise ) as he recruited and trained a new generation of fighter pilots for a specialized mission. In development since 2010, the movie’s lengthy production process paid off when it became the second-highest-grossing film of 2022 and the highest-grossing film of Cruise’s entire career.

In addition to Ellis, Maverick featured Glen Powell , Miles Teller , Lewis Pullman , Monica Barbaro , Danny Ramirez , Manny Jacinto and Greg Tarzan Davis as some of the recruits vying for a spot on Mitchell’s team. Pullman, for his part, said that watching Cruise in action was one of the best parts about working on the movie.

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“I had to just transform into a sponge and just absorb, absorb, absorb because it was a new lesson every day,” Pullman exclusively told Us Weekly in June 2022. “I’ve never seen anyone approach filmmaking the way he does, and I’ve also never seen someone that far into their career who still has such drive, has such curiosity, has such passion, has such a reluctance to settle, is always trying to make even the smallest scenes better.”

Keep scrolling to see what the cast and crew of Top Gun: Maverick have said about a potential sequel:

Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

Everything the 'Top Gun: Maverick' Cast and Crew Have Said About a Potential Sequel

A Top Gun: Maverick sequel hasn't yet been announced, but both the film’s fans and cast are ready for another round in the danger zone. "My whole cast, we would all be there in a heartbeat," Jay Ellis , who played Reuben "Payback" Fitch in the hit movie, told Fox News Digital in November 2022. "We would be grateful to be there." Released in May 2022, the action drama followed Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell ( Tom Cruise ) as he recruited and trained a new generation of fighter pilots for a specialized mission. In development since 2010, the movie’s lengthy production process paid off when it became the second-highest-grossing film of 2022 and the highest-grossing film of Cruise's entire career. In addition to Ellis, Maverick featured Glen Powell , Miles Teller , Lewis Pullman , Monica Barbaro , Danny Ramirez , Manny Jacinto and Greg Tarzan Davis as some of the recruits vying for a spot on Mitchell's team. Pullman, for his part, said that watching Cruise in action was one of the best parts about working on the movie. “I had to just transform into a sponge and just absorb, absorb, absorb because it was a new lesson every day," Pullman exclusively told Us Weekly in June 2022. “I’ve never seen anyone approach filmmaking the way he does, and I’ve also never seen someone that far into their career who still has such drive, has such curiosity, has such passion, has such a reluctance to settle, is always trying to make even the smallest scenes better." Keep scrolling to see what the cast and crew of Top Gun: Maverick have said about a potential sequel:

Credit: Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures/Paramount+

Jennifer Connelly

“I’ll be there. I’m ready,” Connelly told Entertainment Tonight of returning for a potential sequel in April 2024. “We had such a great time shooting it. It was fun.”

She also told the outlet that although she hasn’t seen a script for Top Gun: Maverick 2 , she has had conversations about it with Kosinski. “I'm his biggest fan. I think he's so great,” Connelly told the outlet. “[I talked to him] about the possibility of it, but I don't know anything concrete.”

Credit: Matt Baron/BEI/Shutterstock

Miles Teller

The Whiplash actor said all decisions about a sequel are for Cruise to make. "That would be great, but that's all up to TC," he told Entertainment Tonight in July 2022. "It's all up to Tom. I've been having some conversations with him about it. We'll see."

Credit: AFF-USA/Shutterstock

Glen Powell

"Above my pay grade!" the Scream Queens alum told Variety in January 2023 when asked if a sequel is happening. "It feels like it's less vague than it was at one point, so we'll see."

In October 2022, the former Insecure star told People he hadn't heard anything about a sequel, adding that he'd sign on if given the chance. “I mean, we would all love to work together. We’d love to do it again. We’d love to be with Tom again," he explained. "If we’re lucky enough to do it again, I’m sure every single one of us would be there.”

Credit: Jim Ruymen/UPI/Shutterstock

Jerry Bruckheimer

The producer said he wouldn't think about Top Gun 3 until Cruise is finished with his Mission: Impossible commitments. "He's in the middle of shooting Mission: Impossible , he's got a lot of very difficult, hard stunts he's doing," Bruckheimer told Variety in January 2023. "It's not the time to take attention away from what's important to him right now."

Credit: Rob Latour/Shutterstock

Joseph Kosinski

The Maverick director said that a third film depends on finding another story worth telling. “Is there another story that is compelling enough that we need to go back?” he told Deadline in December 2022. “It seems to me at the end of this film that Maverick has some gas left in the tank. He’s not settling down.”

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Jennifer Connelly Is 'Ready' to Film “Top Gun 3” with Tom Cruise: 'I'll Be There'

T he actress also noted that she hasn't "seen anything" yet when it comes to 'Top Gun 3,' though she's discussed it with director Joseph Kosinski

Jennifer Connelly would love to return to the world of Top Gun again.

The Snowpiercer actress, 53, revealed in a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight that if she got the call to do a third movie in the popular franchise, she’d do it in a heartbeat. 

"I'll be there. I'm ready," Connelly told the outlet. 

She also pointed to her positive experience filming Top Gun: Maverick as the reason why she would return to the film series, saying, "We had such a great time shooting it. It was fun."

Related: Top Gun 3 Update: Jerry Bruckheimer Says Tom Cruise Has Been Pitched a 'Story He Liked' (Exclusive)

Despite her enthusiasm for the potential project, the actress noted that she hasn’t been privy to “anything” in the works yet. 

"I haven't seen anything," she said. "I had a casual chat with my friend, Joe Kosinski, who directed it, who I worked with twice now. I'm his biggest fan. I think he's so great. [I talked to him] about the possibility of it, but I don't know anything concrete."

Her comments come a month after Jerry Bruckheimer , the producer behind both Top Gun movies, confirmed to PEOPLE "we're working on" Top Gun 3 .

Related: Tom Cruise Feeling the Need for Speed Again in Top Gun 3 Movie: Report

"We pitched Tom [Cruise] a story he liked. But he's a very in-demand actor and he's got a lot of movies lined up, so we have to wait and see," Bruckheimer, 80, shared of the potential for a third installment.

He noted that part of what makes the Mission Impossible actor, 61, so popular is his work ethic, saying, "A lot of actors, they finish the day, they get in their car and they go home. Tom stays around, talks to the other actors, looks at the film that they shot, wants to know what's happening tomorrow. He's really engaged in every part of the process."

Never miss a story — sign up for  PEOPLE's free daily newsletter  to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Reports initially circulated in January that a third installment of the Top Gun movie franchise was in the works. The Hollywood Reporter reported that the film’s co-writer Ehren Kruger had been writing a script for the film and that Kosinski would be tapped once again to direct.

Miles Teller , who plays Lt. Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw in the film series, teased in July 2022 that he and Cruise had "been having some conversations" about the possibility of another movie . Though the actor, 36, noted at the time, "It's all up to Tom.”

He and costar Glen Powell , 35, both shared that they would be open to returning to the franchise again as well. 

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Read the original article on People .

“You can see the scars infront of the ears”: Doctor Breaks Down Potential Plastic Surgeries Tom Cruise Went Through to Get His Age Defying Look

While Tom Cruise has never acknowledged the cosmetic surgery claims, a doctor gives his expert opinion on the actor’s facial transformations.

• An aesthetics doctor broke down the transformation of Tom Cruise’s face over the last few years.
• He compared Cruise’s photos from 2012, 2016, 2021, and 2022 to give a detailed report on the work he may have done on his face.
• A plastic surgeon believes Cruise has spent up to 50 thousand dollars on cosmetic surgeries.

Tom Cruise has time and again proved that age is nothing but a number. Even though the actor has entered his sixties and will be turning 62 this year, he has managed to retain his youthfulness. Have you seen his recent films? It’s like aging and its trials don’t apply to Tom Cruise! Not only has he defied all the stereotypes that come with aging, but he also looks incredible for his age!

The question here though, is whether Tom Cruise’s exceptional good looks are just because he unlocked the gene lottery, or did he have some work done on his face to give him that youthful look? Well, a doctor has given his experienced opinion on just what Tom Cruise has done to transform his face in recent years.

Doctor Breaks Down Tom Cruise’s Face Transformation

Back in 2012, Tom Cruise told Playboy Magazine (Via Parade ) that he had never had any sort of work done on his face. He said, “I haven’t and I never would.” Years have passed on since then and people are convinced that the subtle changes in Cruise’s appearance are the result of cosmetic surgeries.

“There’s a bad CG shot in here”: Tom Cruise’s Interview with the Vampire VFX Artist Still Regrets One Iconic Scene in the Film

Aesthetics doctor, Dr. Jonny Betteridge, posted a video on his Instagram where he dived into the possible surgical procedures Cruise may have had to give himself the youthful appearance we all love.

Betteridge compared Cruise’s photos from 2012, 2016, 2021, and 2022. Talking about the change in his look from 2012 to 2016, the doctor said,

“There was a lot of speculation surrounding his appearance in 2016 and for me this is likely a combination of weight gain and filler-based treatments.”

Fast forward five years and this is what Betteridge’s expert opinion says: “5 years later we can see notable signs of aging particularly in his lower face where there’s laxity to the jawline and neck.”

Cruise’s biggest change was seen in 2022 and according to Betteridge, his lower face was more tightened and contoured which could be due to surgical face and neck lift.

“I know it’s not going to improve”: Guy Ritchie Wrote One of His Best Movies on Napkins That Was Saved by Tom Cruise to Make Him a Hollywood Legend

Comparing his look from 1996 to a more recent one, the doctor noted,

“You can see the scars in front of the ear. There’s a change in the shape of his earlobes which frequently occurs with face and neck lift surgery.”

However, Betteridge notes that while Cruise may have had some cosmetic surgeries done on his face, they were all carried out in age-appropriate and natural-looking ways.

Plastic Surgeon Thinks Tom Cruise Spent Around $5 0K on Cosmetic Treatments

In an exclusive interview with The Sun , plastic surgeon Dr. Richard Westreich stated that he believes Cruise has spent about $50,000 on cosmetic surgeries alone. However, he believes that the actor is not done with it, just yet.

“Through the years, it is possible that he may have spent up to $50,000 on cosmetic treatments. Overall, I think Tom is just getting started with it all. I think for most people, there’s an inflection point when the problem gets so bad that they decide they want to do something about it.”

Nicole Kidman Seemingly Acknowledges Ex-Husband Tom Cruise Who Gave the Actress Her First Major Hollywood Break in a 1990 Blockbuster

Westreich states that in Top Gun: Maverick , Cruise’s forehead was “as smooth as a drum.” He added,

“His eyebrows also look a little lower than usual. If Botox is done fairly heavily, then the brows can drop, and this looks like pretty heavy Botox to me on his forehead…I can see that by 2018, and certainly by 2022, Tom had some pretty deep forehead lines, and so I definitely think he’s recently had Botox.”

Cruise himself has never confessed whether the rumors about cosmetic surgeries are true or not. However, while the actor could have gotten work done to appear younger, there is no surgery in the world that could give him the soul and stamina of a 25-year-old. That’s all him!

Written by Mishkaat Khan

Mishkaat is a medical student who found solace in content writing. Having worked in the industry for about three years, she has written about everything from medicine to literature and is now happy to enlight you about the world of entertainment. She has written over 500 articles for FandomWire. When not writing, she can be found obsessing over the world of the supernatural through books and TV.

Copyright © 2024 FandomWire, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Victoria justice talks about her first sex scene, breaking news.

‘Top Gun 3’ In The Works At Paramount Following Tom Cruise Warner Bros Pact

By Anthony D'Alessandro

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Even though Tom Cruise inked a non-exclusive pact at Warner Bros earlier this week, it looks like he’ll continue to be busy with Paramount for some time. Reports tonight are that Top Gun 3 is in development at Paramount with Top Gun:Maverick co-writer Ehren Kruger currently writing a draft.

The word is that the project would reunite Cruise with Maverick ‘s Miles Teller and Glen Powell as well as producers Jerry Bruckheimer and David Ellison. Joe Kosinski, will reportedly either direct or produce.

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Puck had the news about Top Gun 3 tonight, and they’re speculating that it could be the 3x Oscar nominee’s potential next project after Mission: Impossible 8 . Even without Top Gun 3 , it will be a challenge for Cruise to get anything off the ground at Warners for a couple of years.

Top Gun: Maverick is the highest grossing movie of Cruise’s career at $1.49 billion. It won one Oscar last year for Best Sound and was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture.

What’s really glaring in tonight’s news is that Ellison’s Skydance, which is circling to scoop up National Amusements in an all-cash bid, was a producer on Top Gun: Maverick. Deadline first told you that Ellison and Red Bird Capital were kicking the tires on National Amusements. The Shari Redstone-led exhibitor controls nearly 80% of Paramount shares and is the gatekeeper for any M&A deal. One of the backers of the current bid by Skydance is Ellison’s father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison per a  WSJ  report. Ellison co-financed Top Gun: Maverick at 25% and shared in an overall net profit for the sequel of $391M.

Deadline reached out to Paramount for comment.

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