'Top Gun: Maverick' Interviews With Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jay Ellis
“Top Gun: Maverick” stars Miles Teller (Rooster), Jon Hamm (Cyclone), Jennifer Connelly (Penny Benjamin), Jay Ellis (Payback), Monica Barbaro (Phoenix), Glen Powell (Hangman), Greg Tarzan Davis Coyote), Danny Ramirez (Fanboy), Lewis Pullman (Bob), Charles Parnell (Warlock), Bashir Salahuddin (Coleman), plus producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joseph Kosinski discuss their highly anticipated “Top Gun” sequel in this interview with CinemaBlend’s Sean O’Connell. Find out how Tom Cruise surprised Jennifer Connelly with a flight, how the cast supported each other during the movie’s delay and more.
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00:00 That's what Topkin's been doing for years, making grown men cry.
00:03 Here comes some G's.
00:05 There's five G's.
00:07 [screaming]
00:09 Seven G's.
00:11 Let me be the next person to tell you guys how great this movie is.
00:25 Keep it coming.
00:26 How much fun it's going to be for you guys.
00:27 I saw where the cop was and started to tickle fire.
00:29 [laughter]
00:31 All right, so with all due respect to your performances,
00:34 when we see you guys in the jets, how much of it is actual acting,
00:37 and how much of it is you guys reacting to crazy shit that's happening to you?
00:41 Acting is reacting.
00:43 Literally.
00:44 I mean, it's all performance actually, because you have the four cameras in the cockpit,
00:49 and to be fair, a lot of the time, you know, with the cameras,
00:53 you couldn't always see everything,
00:55 and I think that's why we had so many hours in these things beforehand,
00:59 so that we weren't--we were as comfortable as we could be in the jet,
01:02 and then you're just able to focus on--because you have to act like you're flying the thing,
01:06 and you have to be in perfect sequence with your pilot,
01:09 otherwise the shot falls apart.
01:12 I mean, I think that was a good thing, that there were so many things we had to focus on up there
01:18 to be able to get the shot and all these things that, yeah, didn't have any of those moments.
01:24 There is a little bit of both, because we got so used to going up there,
01:27 and our bodies were so adapted to the Gs,
01:29 that I think a month or two in of being in the air,
01:33 Tom was like, "All right, so you guys have adapted so well,
01:35 that now you guys have to start adding more intensity in certain moments."
01:41 So then we then had to just act in--as we're scraping the side of a mountain,
01:45 we also had to be like, "All right, we're so used to it that we have to add a little bit more."
01:49 Professor Cruz trained us so well that we--
01:52 you know, when you're flying 500 knots through canyons,
01:55 you're not as phased as you were months earlier.
01:59 Let's go, let's see what you got.
02:01 Before we started actually flying in the jets, of course, we could do all the reading and the research
02:05 and watching from other people's experiences on YouTube,
02:07 like how to handle the G-forces and what the maneuvers really feel like,
02:10 but it's not until you actually get in the air and be able to feel the like, "Hup!"
02:16 You know?
02:17 The what?
02:18 [laughter]
02:19 That is an imitation of a G-pull.
02:21 Oh, yeah.
02:22 We had a slightly different variation, which is so fun.
02:26 [laughter]
02:27 That's not exactly how it goes, but that's--
02:30 I try to save myself all the time.
02:33 Yeah, that's all we were doing on the beach football scene, just going, "Hup!"
02:37 [laughter]
02:39 Please tell me at some point you got into one of the planes and went for a ride.
02:42 I wish. No, I did not get to experience that.
02:45 They're pretty judicious with letting people inside $80 million of taxpayer-funded machinery,
02:53 so there was a lot of things to sign before I would have been able to do that,
02:57 but I did not get to do that, unfortunately.
02:59 I won't give any specifics away, but at one point your character does get to go up in a plane,
03:03 and I was so very happy that it happened.
03:05 Is that something you asked to happen?
03:07 I did not ask, but I did not say no.
03:10 [laughter]
03:12 I think it might have been Tom's idea.
03:14 He mentioned it to me when we were in the plane shooting a scene
03:18 that we were just supposed to be on the runway, never supposed to see us take off,
03:24 and he asked me if I'd been in a P-51 before, which I said, "No, Tom."
03:29 Then he asked if I'd done any aerobatic flying before, to which I said, "No, Tom. Why?
03:35 Should I be expecting to?"
03:37 And he said, "It's just going to be very gentle. We're going to do some very gentle rolls.
03:40 It's going to be very beautiful."
03:42 So that was how I found out we were going to be doing that aerobatic flying, which was amazing.
03:47 It was really amazing, and thank goodness it was with him as a pilot for so many reasons.
03:54 A, because what a life experience, but also I have so much faith in him. He's so skilled.
04:00 His exploits are legendary.
04:03 His callsign, Maverick.
04:06 Boy, your friend?
04:07 Payback.
04:08 Fanboy.
04:09 What do they call you?
04:10 Bob.
04:11 Bob.
04:12 Did everyone love their callsigns?
04:14 Did anybody want to trade out their callsigns at all?
04:16 Don't take the bait, Bob.
04:18 Heck no.
04:19 I think I loved Bob.
04:20 I loved mine.
04:21 I think it spoke to all of us.
04:23 It's funny, we got the opportunity to, and one callsign changed, and it made sense.
04:29 And I was thinking about it, because you hear Phoenix in a lot of, like it's not uncommon.
04:35 You hear it in a lot of contexts, and there are other characters out there with the name.
04:39 But then we all sort of earned our callsigns in very funny ways.
04:47 Yeah.
04:48 Uh, what will I say about that?
04:50 Yep.
04:51 She rises from the ashes.
04:54 That's just what I'll say.
04:56 First night out.
04:57 And he will pay you back.
04:59 I will. I will actually.
05:01 And if you throw me in the ocean, I will Bob.
05:03 You will Bob.
05:06 I got to actually come up with mine.
05:09 When I first got the job, immediately my original callsign was Slayer.
05:18 And in the first Navy briefing, they were like, you know, these are Air Force callsigns, these are Navy callsigns.
05:24 They were Air Force callsigns, like Slayer and Spine Ripper.
05:27 And I was like, well I got to change this as an Air Force callsign.
05:30 So I went down to Miramar, stayed with some Naval aviators, really just riffed on what that was going to be.
05:35 So that's, yeah, Kaczynski, McCrory, you know, and I all came up with Hangman.
05:39 Where's he going?
05:40 That's why we call him Hangman.
05:42 He'll always hang you out to dry.
05:44 You have a callsign that would be perfect for Penny.
05:46 I don't have one that would be perfect for Penny.
05:48 I had one in real life at one point a very long time ago, which has nothing to do with Penny.
05:54 But in college, I kind of forced myself onto the running team just because I really wanted to be on a team.
06:00 But didn't play any sports, which doesn't really work.
06:03 But I thought maybe I can will myself to run fast enough.
06:08 And so they let me on kind of.
06:12 I think I might have been more a mascot than anything because I never competed, which is a little suspicious.
06:16 But I was on the roster.
06:17 And on the roster, we all had nicknames that were assigned to us.
06:20 And mine was Death Grip.
06:22 Probably because I was the slowest with the least training and the least skill.
06:28 But I was very determined.
06:30 I love it.
06:31 I always held on.
06:33 What happened to movie soundtracks?
06:35 I mean, I grew up in a time when every film had a soundtrack and Top Gun was one of the pivotal ones.
06:41 I just wonder where they went to and which ones did you guys listen to a ton?
06:44 Oh, man.
06:46 I mean, that's a great--you know, a soundtrack I listen to all the time is Pulp Fiction.
06:50 Oh, that's a wonderful one.
06:52 One of the last great ones, actually.
06:54 Yeah.
06:55 To be honest with you.
06:56 I've never really contemplated where they just kind of fade away and then you don't really notice they're gone.
07:01 But that goes into big movies as well.
07:05 So you need big movies to have soundtracks that kind of resonate with people.
07:08 So that's the great thing about--Top Gun Maverick is going to have Lady Gaga's song.
07:12 So that's going to be one of the new tunes to come out of it.
07:15 Absolutely.
07:16 Did you have one?
07:17 I did, actually.
07:18 And you know what's interesting?
07:19 I knew the music before I even knew it was a movie.
07:22 Because this movie came out way before I was born, but it was Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man,
07:26 which is like one of the most sonically beautiful things ever put on wax.
07:31 And a friend of mine sent me the album and I was listening to it.
07:34 And then later I was like, "Oh, there's a whole movie."
07:36 But, you know, soundtracks are a big deal.
07:38 You know, the perfect song will help you really encapsulate how you feel about that movie at that time.
07:43 And then it becomes special forever.
07:45 Yeah, I mean, obviously Top Gun was the one that stuck with me that summer of '86.
07:50 The original Top Gun, for sure, that "Take My Breath Away" always got stuck in my head.
07:55 Kenny Loggins, you know, "Footloose," you know, we all remember that.
08:00 Kenny's obviously got a song in our movie.
08:03 You are now officially associated with two franchises with amazing soundtracks,
08:07 "Footloose" and "Top Gun."
08:09 Which one do you prefer?
08:10 I'm just in the Kenny Loggins fan club, I guess, man.
08:13 I'm going to go see Loggins and Messina at the Bowl.
08:15 I'm a huge fan.
08:17 I mean, I'm just-- yeah, it's great.
08:19 I'm just revisiting movies from the '80s.
08:22 Every little bit, that's what I'm going to do.
08:24 What I'm excited about this is, you know, Lady Gaga wrote an original song for our film.
08:28 And she did, you know, such an incredible job that Hans used the theme to create the love theme for the film
08:35 and orchestrated it, so, you know, I can't wait for people to hear that.
08:39 I think Lady Gaga's song, really, she really knocked it out of the park.
08:42 It's pretty phenomenal.
08:43 Damn right.
08:44 Excuse me, miss.
08:47 Hey, hey, hey.
08:48 Don't worry, I'll take care of this.
08:50 Like Tom in the original, you get to sing in this movie.
08:52 Oh, yeah.
08:53 And you can sing, man.
08:54 You're a great singer.
08:55 Thanks, man.
08:56 So how did you feel about that scene, approaching it?
08:57 Any trepidation or--?
08:59 I think-- well, I was-- it's one of those things where I told them right off the bat,
09:05 I said, "I played piano when I was younger.
09:07 I still dabble a little bit, but I want to-- but I don't need a double.
09:11 I will play and sing this live."
09:12 OK.
09:13 And so then you realize it's a pretty hard song, and he sings pretty high.
09:18 But for me, those are always just good kind of motivators to-- like fear of failure, I think,
09:24 is-- a lot of actors say that, but it is very true.
09:27 Show me what you're made of.
09:28 There's a speech in the middle of the movie that I love where Maverick says--
09:31 Push beyond your limits.
09:32 So who, for you, from an acting standpoint, was your Maverick?
09:35 Who pushed you beyond where you were comfortable?
09:37 I've been very fortunate in my career to work with some of the most talented people in the world,
09:41 and this is certainly one of them.
09:44 And I've had a lot of incredible teachers down the line, too.
09:48 And one of the things that I learned was the uncomfortable part is the part where you learn the most.
09:55 And I think that that gets to what you were saying with what Tom's character was saying in the film.
10:00 It's like, let's see what your limits really are.
10:03 There's the line from The Right Stuff, too, where it's like, let's find out where that demon lives.
10:08 Let's see where it is.
10:10 And you don't know it until you go past it sometimes.
10:13 Tom kind of serves that role on the film.
10:17 I would describe it more as him bringing you along on his energy.
10:21 And also, he's taking part in the casting process, so there's the added factor that he chose you in the first place.
10:28 So there's confidence that comes along with that, and then he pushes you and pushes you in a good way.
10:33 So he would be--yeah, he is my Maverick.
10:35 I think Tom pushed me every day, you know, with good reason.
10:39 This is a really special film for him, a special character to come back and play.
10:43 So we wanted to honor the original but make sure that we tried to surpass it and tell our own story.
10:49 Part of the great--I think why this movie is resonating with so many people is that we're also seeing the evolution of this character.
10:55 You know, you make different decisions when you're 25 than you do when you're 50.
10:59 And different things mean different things to you.
11:02 So responsibility means something very different when you're 25 than it does when you're 50.
11:07 And loss and grief and friendship and duty and all of those things that are big themes in the film.
11:13 Well, and life experience, too.
11:15 That's for sure.
11:16 There's learning in the classroom and there's actually doing, which is another big theme of this movie.
11:19 Yes, it is.
11:20 And does that apply to acting also?
11:21 Very much so.
11:22 You know, acting is a very weird thing in that you can't just practice it by yourself.
11:28 Right.
11:29 It's not violin playing or painting or something.
11:33 You can't just go in a room by yourself and become an expert at it.
11:37 You actually have to do it with other people and in front of an audience and get that kind of feedback.
11:41 So there is the sense of the man in the arena, for sure.
11:45 What is one thing that Tom gave you guys that you'll take away from this production and use with you for the rest of your career?
11:51 I think the responsibility of storytellers, of always--of not being okay with just doing an okay job.
11:59 You know, just always pushing the limit no matter what type of--if it is a movie like Top Gun Maverick or if it's an indie drama, whatever it is, it's in pushing the envelope forward in our medium.
12:09 Because we've--I mean, there's--I think I looked it up, there's like 500,000 movies in existence, right?
12:15 Or something like--or a bigger number.
12:17 And it's like, we can just always watch one of those or if we're going to bring something new to the table, it should have new life or just be pushed to the absolute limit.
12:25 So I think that.
12:26 It was sort of like--it's interesting because not only am I working with the icon that is Tom Cruise, but Ed Harris is like, "I love that dude!"
12:34 I think I've seen The Abyss more than most people. Probably too much.
12:38 I think it may be a little bit unhealthy, my relationship with that movie.
12:41 But he's a consummate professional. He's a really nice guy.
12:44 You know, even in the makeup trailer, he'd be chatting me up.
12:46 And so, I just--it was one of those experiences you have, but you kind of can't even think about it in real time.
12:51 You kind of have to wait until you're finished with it at home and you're laying in bed going, "Did that shit really happen? That's so crazy. I got pictures. I guess it did."
12:59 But yeah, it was--I mean, I feel very lucky.
13:02 Good morning, aviators. Today's exercise is dogfighting.
13:06 Two versus one? You've got to be kidding.
13:09 Jay, how did growing up in a military family allow you to bring some more insight to the character?
13:13 You know, I think the thing for me was there was this pride and this respect and even responsibility, which I think everyone ended up feeling the responsibility,
13:22 especially as we got to meet more of the pilots and more of the aviation community at large.
13:26 But for me, I remember the first time we drove on base in North Island, I was like, "Oh, this is my childhood."
13:32 Growing through the gates, showing someone my ID, this is literally like all these memories just started to pop back in my head.
13:39 And I just had this sense of like, "Oh, I know that's the VX. That's the theater. Oh, there's a subway here. Yep, there's a subway on our base."
13:46 There was all this familiarity that immediately just kind of kicked in for me.
13:51 And I think I even found myself, with the exception of one night where we went out, I think I found myself even very much being back on the kind of clock that I was on when I was a kid.
14:03 Like, "You're up at this time. You do this thing. You hear the horns in the morning. You hear--"
14:07 Like, there were all these things that just started to kick in. And for me, it was just this immense pride.
14:12 And also, the responsibility of wanting to portray men and women who, you know, sacrifice their lives and time away from their family every single day to protect this country.
14:24 We're going into combat on a level no living pilot's ever seen.
14:28 Your reputation precedes you.
14:33 I have to admit, I wasn't expecting an invitation back.
14:37 They're called orders, Maverick.
14:39 Mr. Bruckheimer, back in 1986, when a movie did as well as Top Gun, you would try to make a sequel out of it.
14:45 Was there any push to maybe get a sequel going at that time?
14:48 Yeah, there was. We certainly worked on it, but we got sidetracked with all the movies that we had to shoot right away.
14:55 And that's kind of what happens in our business. And Tom went off and did a lot of terrific movies, working with great directors and writers.
15:02 So it finally came together when there were some zeitgeists that wanted to say, "It's about time we get this movie made."
15:09 And thanks to Joe, we came up with a story that Tom loved.
15:13 Just want to manage the expectations.
15:14 What's the hardest part about having a movie get moved back when you know it's good?
15:18 Anticipation is real.
15:21 You know, you're just, we're so proud of the film.
15:24 And we saw the movie, the cast and I saw the movie in deep pandemic, lockdown pandemic.
15:31 We all went to a theater with masks on and we sat 10 seats apart.
15:35 And we were so thrilled with the movie. And then we were like, "Well, is it ever going to come out?"
15:41 We don't even know. So the fact that actually we're getting to share it now with the world is tremendously exciting.
15:47 People ask me that, "You gotta be so bummed this movie's not coming out and all these things."
15:52 And I don't know, I think personally, I've just never been, I would have been more anxious if it was delayed and it was horrible.
15:59 To be fair, but with everything else, I'm just really proud of the work we did.
16:04 And I wouldn't have wanted it to come out if theaters weren't open and people didn't feel comfortable sitting next to each other
16:10 and really kind of having that summer blockbuster experience.
16:15 So I'm all good with it.
16:17 I think it was always meant to be a huge community film.
16:23 And also, you know, epically on a big screen with a wonderful sound system.
16:29 And I mean, they designed specific IMAX cameras for this film that could go in jets at certain speeds and pull G's and all the things.
16:38 And so to know that it required community and to know that we were so far away from being able to gather was, I think that was probably the hardest thing.
16:47 What an answer. That was phenomenal.
16:49 I mean, what can you, you can't even say anything else.
16:52 I was never feeling like, like, we got to get this thing out ASAP, like we should put it out on streaming or anything.
16:58 It felt very comfortable. Like, I'm really glad that Paramount and Tom and Joe know that, like, there's no other way than in theaters with a packed audience, because this is how this film was meant to be seen.
17:10 I mean, I think the hardest thing for me was just not being with you guys.
17:12 Like, yeah, it was just like, oh, I wanted us to all we had such a great time filming and bonded so much that, you know, it's very normal to go away for 10 months to a year.
17:22 And then the movie, then you come back and you do your press tour and the movie comes out.
17:25 And like for me, it was like, oh, I can't wait to get back with the gang.
17:28 Like, oh, it's like going back to school. It's like that morning before you go back to school and you can't sleep and you know, like the outfit.
17:33 Did you guys ever do this? You like know exactly what you're going to wear. You're going to look great.
17:37 You're going to like say the cool thing and pick the right locker.
17:39 But we never got to we just got pushed out and pushed out. And finally, we're now at school.
17:43 And I just feel excited to be here with you. And it's a great first day of school. It's a great first day.
17:47 Thank you very much. Thank you, man. Thank you. I appreciate that.
17:51 It's really good to think about the reason that the release date is moving back and back.
17:54 We were all going through a pandemic together. All of us. Nobody was excluded from that.
17:59 You know, unless you had a super secret satellite somewhere, you could be on another planet for a while.
18:03 But for most of us, you know, we really had to hunker down.
18:06 And so for me, even though, yeah, you always want people to see stuff, but you want them to really experience it at the right time.
18:12 And I feel like our movie now is this wonderful present kind of waiting for us at the end of this sort of long journey.
18:18 It's coming out in the perfect time. You know, right after the pandemic, we're really fighting for the cinemas to stay open and keep pushing forward.
18:24 We want people to be in the cinemas. And I think this is the perfect time. Timing is everything.
18:28 When it ended, I said, oh, that's why they pushed it back.
18:31 Exactly. You know what? We were all frustrated. But I got to say, Tom and Paramount did the right thing.
18:37 This is the most cinematic movie I think I've ever seen in my whole life. Ever made.
18:41 To see with an audience. It's truly it's like there's nothing like it.
18:44 The kind is headed for extinction.
18:46 Maybe so, sir.
18:49 But not today.
18:52 [Music]
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