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In essence, “Top Gun: Maverick” is a 450 mile-an-hour flying-heist caper. “He’s got every kind of pilot’s license that you could possibly imagine - helicopters, jets, whatever,” Bruckheimer said. Behind the scenes, Cruise did roughly the same thing, gradually raising the actors’ aerial tolerance, and confidence, from small prop planes to F-18 fighter jets. Pete Mitchell (known as Maverick) readies a dozen young pilots for a dangerous mission to destroy an underground uranium plant in an enemy land. “Top Gun” made Cruise a superstar - and the experience of shooting it stuck with him so much, he was convinced he needed to lead a three-month flight course for the cast of “Top Gun: Maverick,” a sequel, now in theaters, that has had 35 years to build up suspense. The original footage “was just a mess,” he admitted. “They all threw up and their eyes rolled back in their heads,” Bruckheimer said in a phone interview. When the director Tony Scott put a camera in the cockpit, Cruise could smile for his close-ups. He vomited in his fighter-pilot mask.Ĭruise continued to fly so fast, and so frequently, that he learned to squeeze his thighs and abs to stay conscious. Zipping at 6.5 G’s - more than twice the G-forces some astronauts endure during rocket launches - Cruise felt the blood drain from his head. Cruise wasn’t yet world famous, so when he arrived at the hangar, his long hair still in a ponytail left over from “Legend,” the pilots, according to one of the film’s producers, Jerry Bruckheimer, decided to give this Hollywood hippie the ride of his life. Before Tom Cruise signed on to star in the original “Top Gun,” he asked to take a test flight in a jet.
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