"Top Gun: Maverick”
CinemaBlend had to talk with Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, joined by stars Charles Parnell, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez and Greg “Tarzan” Davis about the epic sequel to the 1980s classic. Watch as they discuss some of their favorite moments with Tom Cruise, the surprise and anxiety of flying in real jets, when they realized "Top Gun: Maverick” had become a global phenomenon, and so much more.
CinemaBlend had to talk with Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, joined by stars Charles Parnell, Jay Ellis, Danny Ramirez and Greg “Tarzan” Davis about the epic sequel to the 1980s classic. Watch as they discuss some of their favorite moments with Tom Cruise, the surprise and anxiety of flying in real jets, when they realized "Top Gun: Maverick” had become a global phenomenon, and so much more.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00It's like a mountain that keeps growing.
00:02People were still coming out in crazy, crazy numbers.
00:04I was like, there's no way.
00:06You feel it in the air, and we're all like,
00:08this is definitely really special.
00:10That's when I realized it was headed for something big.
00:13That's an experience you'll never have in your life.
00:17And we're off.
00:24Combat medals, citations,
00:27only man to shoot down three enemy planes in the last 40 years.
00:31Yet here you are.
00:33What is that?
00:34Well, Tom, you know, felt that Maverick was an iconic character in his filmography.
00:41And if he was going to make a sequel, it had to hit a bullet with a bullet.
00:45And Joe Kaczynski came up with an idea that we've been toying around with,
00:49but Joe kind of capsulated it.
00:51We flew to Paris while Tom was making Mission Impossible.
00:56And Joe had a lookbook and sat down with Tom and said,
01:00here's a story I want to tell, and here's what it's going to look like.
01:04And Tom looked at him and said, look, Joe, if we're going to make this,
01:06we're going to make it real.
01:08I want everybody in those planes.
01:10I want to feel it.
01:11And Joe said, that's the only way I want to make it.
01:13And Tom picked up his phone and called the head of the studio at the time,
01:18said, I want to make another Top Gun.
01:20And of course, they were delighted.
01:22Your reputation precedes you.
01:25I have to admit, I wasn't expecting an invitation back.
01:27Oh, God, there's a lot of good memories working with Tom Cruise.
01:31The first thing that comes to mind is my very first day.
01:33It kind of encapsulates him.
01:35So my first day was a speech that I make,
01:37that Warlock makes introducing Maverick to the new students.
01:42And he wasn't supposed to be there that day.
01:44I do the speech a few times on camera.
01:46We do a few takes, and everybody's used to relaxing after I'm done
01:49because we're going to cut there and he's going to shoot his another day.
01:52I'm about to go again.
01:54I see some activity behind a curtain, and it's him getting dressed.
01:57And they're like, OK, do it this time.
01:58He's going to actually come in.
02:00The other actors didn't know.
02:02I introduced him.
02:04Now, mind you, I hadn't met him because I missed the table read because I was working.
02:08So this was my day to meet him.
02:09I thought I was going to meet him in a few days, but there he was.
02:11And we didn't even say hi.
02:13I did the scene again.
02:14He walks up, just like the way you see in the movie,
02:17in the movie, and you hear his footsteps.
02:19And I've been wondering if that's the take they used,
02:22because everybody kind of stiffened in their chair
02:24when they realized that somebody was actually coming and weren't cutting.
02:27And then he did his speech.
02:28So I'm watching Maverick live, standing there on the side.
02:31And then he just drops off and goes, Charles, how are you?
02:34Welcome to set.
02:35I'm Tom.
02:35And so I met Maverick Tom at the same moment.
02:40And that was pretty wild.
02:42That's my first huge memory.
02:44But I have a lot of great memories working with him because he's great.
02:46He was great to me.
02:47He's great to the cast.
02:48He's relentlessly positive.
02:51He keeps your spirits up.
02:53He keeps you feeling good about what you're doing the whole time.
02:55So it just lifts the whole spirit of the movie.
02:58All right, that was awesome.
03:00The thing that kind of took down this veil of, he's a superhuman already.
03:05So I think he's genuinely somebody that is a superhuman.
03:09And he's Tom Cruise, right?
03:13But the first time that we were going to meet at an airbase,
03:17there was a PA that was like, Tom's about to land.
03:21Tom's about to land in 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes.
03:23And so everyone got a little bit like, oh my god, Tom's about to land.
03:27And so we're all waiting in this hallway.
03:30He lands.
03:31He's saying hi to someone.
03:32And then that person, I forgot who it was, they leave.
03:35And he's yet to come up.
03:36He's about to come up to us.
03:37But he takes a sip of water.
03:39And he spills a little bit.
03:42And there's just a small little puddle on the ground.
03:44And with his foot, he just kind of like, you know,
03:47just like washes it away, pretending nothing happened.
03:51And then he comes up and says hi to us.
03:54And I remember seeing that.
03:55And that took away, that took down these walls of like, oh, or like,
04:00it's just like, oh, he's just like us.
04:02Yeah.
04:02And then from that building point, he not only is like us, but he proved it.
04:06And he's one of the most compassionate, empathetic people that is just like,
04:10he wants you to succeed as much as he wants himself to succeed.
04:14And like, he really shows that every single day.
04:16So that's more so the overall story.
04:18I think my favorite moments on set with Tom was like after set,
04:22when we would wrap and we'd all like huddle up.
04:24And he'll tell us stories about the old times.
04:27Or he'll just, you know, tell us about his experience.
04:30Oh, no.
04:37About his experiences growing up.
04:41I thought that was the coolest thing to hear because you read about it in books.
04:46You see it on YouTube.
04:47But to hear from, you know, the person who actually experienced it and met these other,
04:51you know, icons and what it was like for him to work with, you know,
04:56great icons of his time in our position was truly special.
05:02And I think that took down the walls too.
05:04Let me be perfectly blunt.
05:06You were here at the request of Admiral Kazansky, aka Iceman.
05:10Well, Tom always said, I'm not making a movie unless, you know, Val's in it.
05:14And we called Val and talked to him about the character he was going to play.
05:20And Val had some other ideas.
05:22And we collaborated along with Tom and Chris McQuarrie and came up with
05:28the role that he plays in the movie, which obviously is very emotional.
05:33And it's one of the emotional cores of the film.
05:36It's that ride that Maverick goes through with an old friend and the emotions he feels
05:42through the making of the movie.
05:44And the audience feels that.
05:45And that's a big part of our success.
05:48He seems to think that you have something left to offer the Navy.
05:51What that is, I can't imagine.
05:52Getting it was a bit of a process.
05:54I had an audition and you get to a point in your career where you have an audition,
05:58you just kind of forget about it.
05:59And especially with something this big, you go, OK,
06:01I'm not going to get too crazy about it.
06:03But then I got an email that said, Tom Cruise liked your tape.
06:06And then you start getting a little excited.
06:08And then I had a few more auditions.
06:10And then once I got the job, I just kind of froze.
06:12It's like, oh, my God, I got it.
06:14And I was like, oh, my God, what am I going to do?
06:16How am I going to do this?
06:18So it was a combination of being frozen and being really excited all at the same time.
06:23What kind of mission is this?
06:26So when we auditioned for the movie,
06:28a shout out to our cast and director, Denise Chayman, who's absolutely amazing.
06:33We had to sign a release saying that we were comfortable flying.
06:37I don't think anyone equated comfortable flying to the back of an F-18
06:43for like 15 to 16 hours, plus 40 hours of flight training.
06:47I don't think we put those two together.
06:51And I think we knew we were going to fly for sure.
06:54But I don't think we thought it was going to be that.
06:56And then the other piece I would say that none of us were prepared for
07:01or definitely knew about was like the swim test.
07:04The swim test is something that none of us knew about at all whatsoever.
07:09I mean, you're in a pool for about four hours moving the entire time.
07:13And you have 40 pounds of gear on, helmet, gloves, boots, everything.
07:17So you start out swimming the length of the pool a couple of times
07:20and a couple of different strokes.
07:22Then you do another one where you have to go like the full distance
07:24of the pool underwater to simulate if there were like a fire on top of the water.
07:29And then after that, you go into like a couple different floats
07:32that you have to do in order.
07:34And you never put your feet down.
07:36You never touch a wall.
07:38You're moving the entire time.
07:39I feel like Michael Phelps.
07:41Like, I feel like I could probably beat Michael Phelps after.
07:45Not now, but then.
07:47Damn right.
07:47I wish I could put some skin in the game.
07:49I did not know.
07:50I knew Tom did his own stunt.
07:52So I thought that was reserved to Tom Cruise because it's Tom Cruise.
07:56I did not know that he was going to say,
07:58hey, now all of y'all are going to be flying in jets.
08:00So when I was told, because they started before me.
08:04So they had their training.
08:05But when I was told that, hey, you're about to join the crew and start flying with them,
08:08I was like, oh, OK, try to stay with me.
08:14For me, it was, yeah, it was much of the same,
08:17even though I was in the first group of people that were training,
08:20but I just didn't, I didn't read the flying print.
08:24I did sign a paper that said, like,
08:26if you sign this waiver, you're telling us that you're not afraid of flying.
08:30And I signed it because I'm like, if I don't sign it,
08:32I can't audition and I want to audition and therefore I'll sign it.
08:35And before I knew it, I was in the Cessna doing a couple hours a week
08:38and then in the next 300 and L39.
08:42And it just kind of like crept up on me.
08:44And it had been discussed once I got the role,
08:47but I had no idea we're going to be in the air.
08:49Truly, truly, I should, like, I'm now going to read every,
08:53the Apple agreements that I'm now signing up on my phone,
08:55I'm reading all of it now.
08:56Push beyond your limits.
08:58I got to tell you something, every one of them,
09:00every one of them just roared through this with enthusiasm,
09:06enormous amount of effort and pain and fear,
09:11everything that goes through you when you,
09:13how they gave them underwater training in case they got dumped in the ocean
09:18and they were blindfolded and turned upside down in a cage
09:23and had to find their way out.
09:24And then the pounding their bodies took by doing the G-forces,
09:29they were doing seven, eight times their body weight.
09:32And when you look at the footage,
09:34you see the pain on their faces and the contortion,
09:37that's not acting, that's real.
09:39They're feeling that.
09:40So it's an experience I don't think an audience will ever forget.
09:43And they certainly won't forget it.
09:45We're going into combat on a level no living pilot's ever seen.
09:49Not even him.
09:51There was some talk when we first saw the movie after it had been edited,
09:56there was some talk of, and Glenn, let's just say it was Glenn,
10:00who was begging Tom and Jerry Kaczynski, our director,
10:06Eddie Hamilton, our editor,
10:07begging them to do an extreme cut and then also put us in 4D
10:12so we would just get like tossed around the entire time
10:14while you were in the extreme cut.
10:16Luckily, that is not out there right now because I couldn't sit through it.
10:22But I do want people to sit through it
10:24so they can experience what we experienced firsthand.
10:31Every day was an adventure.
10:32You never quite know what's going to happen with an audience,
10:35if it's going to fall off a cliff or not.
10:37But it keeps, it's like a mountain that keeps growing.
10:41Yesterday's grosses were better than last week's grosses on the same day.
10:45So you just never know.
10:47This movie just keeps going.
10:48People have seen it multiple times.
10:50It's enormously entertaining.
10:52We take inside a world that they'll never be a part of
10:55or most people won't be a part of, an aviator,
10:58and show them how it actually works.
11:00And they get a ride in an F-18 in that movie and in the theater.
11:03When you see this on IMAX or a big screen, it is a great ride.
11:08It's something that I think will last with you.
11:12And it's just such a thrill ride.
11:14You're in that F-18 with our characters,
11:17and that's an experience you'll never have in your life, most probably.
11:22Literally.
11:23I'll tell you, the first three people that approached me on the street, coffee shop,
11:28none of them had seen the movie once.
11:30They had all seen it more than once.
11:33One guy told me casually that he had seen it before.
11:36But the other thing was,
11:37they didn't make a big deal of how many times they saw it.
11:39They just, that was just part of their,
11:42I'm sorry to disturb you.
11:43I saw the movie four times.
11:45I really liked it.
11:46And so that's when I went, oh my.
11:50Wow.
11:51I was like, you don't even need that many people to see it
11:53if everybody's going to see it four times.
11:54But that's when I, but seriously, that's when I realized
11:56it was headed for something big
11:59because people kept going back to the movie theater.
12:00Because at first you worry whether you're going to get people to go to the movie theater
12:05because as a society, all of us were just so used to having it on the TV.
12:09But then, yeah.
12:10But then when you hear people are coming several times,
12:13it's like, that really made me alert.
12:17I mean, that opening weekend was, I think for all of us,
12:21I think that was really a big thing for us.
12:24And I'll say, you know, after that would probably be like the following weeks,
12:28you know, not only was the opening weekend such a big deal,
12:32but like every week that followed broke a record
12:35in terms of like how much the movie like slowly fell off.
12:41Like people were still coming out in crazy, crazy numbers.
12:44Even last week, for example, I think it was like number two
12:47or number three in the box office domestically in the US,
12:49which is crazy because it's in its 12th week.
12:52I guess wild that that's happening.
12:55And I think like that's when we really started to notice it.
12:58And then I will say on the other side, you know,
13:00when we first started the press tour,
13:03the response that we were getting from people,
13:06I think it threw all of us because it was so,
13:08like people just loved the movie so much.
13:10They were so effusive about how much they loved it
13:12and wanted to know so much about it and our experience doing it.
13:16And I think that's really where we started to go like,
13:19oh, OK, this is special.
13:22This is a big deal.
13:25I don't think any of us thought like 13 weeks later,
13:29we would still be back in IMAX and crushing in the box office.
13:34And now obviously getting ready to come out digitally next week.
13:37I don't think any of us necessarily foresaw all of that,
13:41but I definitely think we were like,
13:42oh, there's no, who knows when this thing,
13:45there's no limit to this, to what this thing could do
13:47because so many people around the world love it.
13:48Like it's a film that anyone can go see and love.
13:53After the movie, we knew it before the movie.
13:55What are you talking about?
13:57Whatever.
13:58No, no, no, no.
13:59It was when we first started doing the interviews
14:02and they had the early, early screenings for press people.
14:08And every time somebody would come in,
14:12they would just not stop talking about the film.
14:14And it was like, hey, OK, y'all want to come and sit down
14:18and do the interview?
14:18Because y'all are pitching this amazingly.
14:20Like it was great.
14:21And after it'll be done, we're just like, oh, wow.
14:25This is, this is, people love it.
14:28People really, really love this film.
14:30Yeah, that was when I realized like, yo,
14:32we have a hit on our hands.
14:35Yeah, I think around that same time, yeah,
14:37we were in the same room, like basically being like,
14:39this is weird.
14:40This is weird.
14:40This has been a full day of everyone.
14:43Like they would start talking
14:44before the interview started recording.
14:46And out of just like pure enthusiasm,
14:49they were still from the high of like leaving the movie theater,
14:52even though it was the day before.
14:53Because I think when we saw it or even,
14:55even though we experienced it,
14:57that like leaving that theater, I was, I was on for a while.
15:01And then I was like, oh, that's the same.
15:03Like they rode the same roller coaster I did
15:05and they have the exact same effect.
15:07And, and yeah, that first day was more so like,
15:10we just, it was just like, oh, this is,
15:12you feel it in the air.
15:13And we're all like, this is definitely really special.
15:17But yeah, I'd say I agree with Tarzan.
15:19I honestly thought, I was like, OK,
15:21this is what, you know, PR for a movie is like,
15:23the studio pays interviewers to come in
15:26and talk highly of the film.
15:28Because there was no way every, every interviewer
15:30would come in and speak so highly of the film.
15:32I was like, that's, that's, there's no way.
15:34They must be, you know, gassing us up.
15:36But I mean, 99% Rotten Tomatoes score.
15:40I mean, it's not like I watch it or anything, but.
15:44And then, and audience score of 99
15:48with over 50,000 plus reviews.
15:51And so those 50,000 plus and then some
15:53are going to be able to watch it
15:55from the comfort of their own homes
15:56in their Sony Bravia home theater setups,
15:59whatever, whatever setups they got.
16:01They'll be able to watch it limitlessly.
16:03And I'm really excited about that.
16:04August 23rd.
16:06120 Hall has what it takes to follow me.
16:09Well, if we make, wait 36 years, I won't be around.
16:12So if we make another one, I hope we do it quickly.
16:17The end is inevitable, Maverick.
16:19Your kind is headed for extinction.
16:22Maybe so, sir, but not today.