but they just felt very confident in their characters and felt at home. Of course there’s also the relationship I have with the Navy. I went back in ’85 with Jerry Bruckheimer and pitched the story to the Secretary of Defence, Lehman, at that time. And so all these years later, I’m on the Roosevelt and I see a photo of him Lehman, christening Roosevelt. So everything was coming full circle. But it was that kind of teamsmanship and collaboration.
18
The love for this film is probably even greater than the first time around? It was pretty crazy the first time, but you’re right, this time it’s 36 years people have been waiting for it. Particularly, we decided to do it, then the pandemic hit. I kept having to postpone the release and I was like to the actors, ‘I’m sorry guys, we’ve gotta do it, this is for the big screen, we’ve got to hold it.’ This is for theatres. And you hear the sound system – it was made for that and to have that release. So it was daunting to do it and then that response, there’s the first thing of absolute relief and to have an audience respond that way is just a dream. That’s what I want. I want to entertain the audience and have them feel that way.
The first film gave us so many iconic moments – that beach volley ball scene, for example, only to be rivalled by the beach football scene in this one – and you look the same on the beach 36 years later! It’s actually 37. We shot it in ’85. [laughs]
Top Gun is such an iconic film – how did it feel trying to emulate that success? Daunting. I would go to bed at night for decades figuring out – how could I do it? How could I match this? What would that be? So interestingly enough, artistically I thought, ‘This is really a tremendous challenge’ – and that appealed to me. But technically we weren’t in a place right away to be able to shoot it the way that I wanted to shoot it and put the audience into what they’re going to feel when they see this movie. So every film that I did, when look at ‘American Made’ where I was experimenting with aviation in a different way, kind of looking at cameras. With Fallout McQ [Chris McQuarrie] and I we were doing that. The whole time I was always investigating technology and seeing where we are and exploring the story. I’d lay in bed at night and think, ‘What can we do?’ So it was not something that I took lightly. When we started I said, ‘Everybody has got to be all in, they’ve got to know what we’re going to do.’ And I had to sit down when we were hiring the actors, I said, ‘We’re going to teach you how to become a pilot’ and I had to teach the pilots how to become filmmakers also. So I had to teach them about editing, lighting, geography. Because when you’re up there, you’ve got to know what shots going to look good when you’re flying and also the actors have to give performance. So when they got up there, they weren’t worried about anything else
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So you owe a lot to the Navy in making this? Everything. I want to thank them. I was honoured with becoming the 38th civilian to be an honorary naval aviator. They gave me that commission. I was very touched by that. And also, TOPGUN school gave me a plaque that only the TOPGUN graduates get, certain pilots get. I grew up wanting to be an aviator. I wanted to make movies and wanted to be an aviator. I remember at four years old I would sit there and look at my wall with P-51 and Spitfire on the wall. I’d dream about movies and stories. And to have ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and the P-51plane is my P-51 that I fly and have been flying for a long time.
Finally Tom, you are always so busy – what do you do when you have a day off? This is what I do right now. This is a day off for me because I’m not shooting! I’m just chillin’ now. I don’t have days off. Look, I’m fortunate, I’m lucky. This is my dream. I’ve wanted to make movies since I was four years old and I’m lucky, I’ve spent my life on movie sets and travelling the world, which is what I always wanted to do. I wanted to travel the world and be part of different cultures and celebrate them and have that experience. So this is not work – this is living the dream.
CE L EBRIT Y INTERVI EW TOM CRUI S E
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