Top Gun: Maverick / Top Gun 2 is right around the corner and Tom Cruise fans cannot be happier about witnessing him in another action sequence. Cruise is well known for his skills, be that acting or his guts to perform his own stunts. Cruise’s career gained mileage after his much-anticipated role of Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise. He even revealed that Mission: Impossible Fallout helped him get four steps ahead for Top Gun 2.
Although the cast flew in fighter aircraft in the original Top Gun film, the majority of the plane sequences were shot in a studio with the cast seated in a cockpit mock-up to mimic flight. This allowed the actors to give their greatest performances without needing to be in the air. This strategy, however, compromised a level of realism that could only be reached by having the performers fly. For the sequel, Cruise and producer Jerry Bruckheimer set out to fix that. Each actor underwent a Top Gun “boot camp” that included genuine flying instruction and sequences shot inside the cockpits of real F/A-18 Superhornet fighter jets.
Mission: Impossible Fallout prepared Tom Cruise
Cruise recently spoke with BBC Radio 1 about how filming Mission: Impossible – Fallout prepared him for his next role in Top Gun: Maverick. Cruise’s latest installment in his long-running detective saga ended with an over-the-top helicopter stunt. The actor added that working on the action and developing the technology for it helped him prepare for the fighter scenes in the Top Gun sequel.
“You know, when I did the first one, I flew. I had no real warm-up… The breadth of the film was more expansive, so how do I educate the studio, the filmmakers, and the actors on what it is that I wanted to accomplish? You can see in the American-made Fallout, I’m developing the technology. I’m thinking about it.”
Because of Cruise’s passion for realism in his films, stunts have been created that are both bold and convincing. The actor has hung over the edge of a plane during takeoff, scaled the world’s tallest building, and memorably broken his ankle in a rooftop-to-rooftop leap in the Mission: Impossible franchise. Top Gun: Maverick has been considered one of the finest sequels ever created by reviewers due to his expertise in aircraft and attention to realism.
Source – BBC Radio 1
