Skip to main content

New Top Gun: Maverick featurette takes the actors to the sky

Do you feel the need? The need for speed? It’s been nearly four decades since Top Gun drilled that catchphrase into our collective psyches. Later this week, Tom Cruise will reprise his role as Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick. In the sequel, Maverick is training a new generation of Top Gun pilots, and he takes that duty seriously. Cruise also felt it was important to teach the new group of actors how to convincingly portray elite pilots. And as seen in a new featurette, Cruise insisted that the new performers learn how to fly for their roles.

As depicted in the video, the cast went through several months of training for the film. Perhaps the most harrowing part of that training was a simulated underwater evacuation. From there, the actors were taught how to fly their own planes in stages, and how to handle movement and spatial awareness inside the cockpit. However, Cruise and company took it a step further. Not only were the actors flying their planes, but they were also filming their in-cockpit footage for the movie. That’s the kind of thing they don’t teach you in film school!

Top Gun: Maverick | Most Intense Film Training Ever (2022 Movie) - Tom Cruise

Here’s the official synopsis for the film, courtesy of Paramount Pictures:

Recommended Videos

“After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: ‘Rooster,’ the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka ‘Goose.’ Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.”

Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick.
Paramount Pictures

Jennifer Connelly also stars in the film as Penny Benjamin, with Jon Hamm as Vice Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson, Glen Powell as Lieutenant Jake “Hangman” Seresin, Ed Harris as Rear Admiral Chester “Hammer” Cain, Monica Barbaro as Lieutenant Natasha “Phoenix” Trace, Jay Ellis as Lieutenant Reuben “Payback” Fitch, Danny Ramirez as Lieutenant Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia, Greg Tarzan Davis as Lieutenant Javy “Coyote” Machado, and Charles Parnell as Rear Admiral Solomon “Warlock” Bates. Val Kilmer will also briefly reprise his role as Maverick’s friend and former rival, Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky.

Joseph Kosinski directed the film from a screenplay by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie. Peter Craig and Justin Marks came up with the story for the sequel. Top Gun: Maverick will hit theaters this Friday, May 27.

Blair Marnell
Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek…
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1’s ending, explained
Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell turn around in a small car, looking concerned.

Nearly three years ago, director Christopher McQuarrie started filming Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1, and it's been a long journey to get this sequel on the big screen. Franchise star Tom Cruise has been headlining the Mission: Impossible films since 1996 with increasingly risky stunts and over-the-top action that has kept audiences coming back for more. But Dead Reckoning Part 1 takes things to another level with a story that is too big for a single movie.

By most accounts, Dead Reckoning's two-movie adventure will mark the end of Cruise's Ethan Hunt and his time in the Impossible Mission Force. When the ending comes around for Part 1, Ethan's team has been forever changed, and even bigger challenges lie ahead in Part 2. If you need help making sense of it all, then you've come to the right place because we're about to dive in. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to keep reading, preferably after you've already seen Dead Reckoning Part 1.

Read more
The 10 best movies and TV shows to watch on July 4th
Tom Cruise looking stern in Top Gun: Maverick.

Every year, there are a few things that remain consistent about July 4th celebrations: there will be fireworks, there will be beer, and there will be some form of cooked animal flesh ripe for consumption. It's the American way.

Yet the Fourth of July also involves watching movies and TV shows that celebrate the American spirit and identity in a variety of ways. From war epics like Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers to searing social commentaries like Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and the show The Americans, these thoughtful movies and TV shows celebrate the Fourth of July by reminding us of our shared values and histories. And yes, there are explosions galore as well.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Read more
10 years later, Oblivion is still Tom Cruise’s most underrated blockbuster
Tom Cruise wields a futuristic gun in Oblivion.

Top Gun: Maverick may have cemented Tom Cruise’s return to the top echelon of the Hollywood ranks last year, but that film is far from the only impeccably made blockbuster that Cruise has worked on in recent years. As a matter of fact, Cruise has been on a bit of a hot streak for well over a decade now, basically ever since his practical stunts in 2011’s Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol helped put him back on viewers’ radars again

In the 12 years since then, Cruise has had a few misses here and there (we’re looking at you, Rock of Ages), but he’s nonetheless managed to steadily rebuild his reputation among moviegoers with blockbuster hits like Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation and Mission: Impossible — Fallout and cult favorites like Edge of Tomorrow. In 2013, Cruise also teamed up for the first time with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski for the original sci-fi adventure film, Oblivion. Unlike Maverick, though, Oblivion received a lukewarm critical and financial response upon its release.

Read more