“You don’t need a green screen if you have Tom Cruise”: Miles Teller, Jay Ellis, Greg Davis and Danny Ramirez on Top Gun: Maverick

For a Top Gun fan, the wait for a sequel has been long. Three decades to be exact. But it was perhaps worth the wait: Top Gun: Maverick is better than even the most ardent of followers could have hoped for.

It’s been a labour of love for the film’s star Tom Cruise over all this time, and his near-obsessive approach to executing a follow-up that could live up to the hype is visible in every scene. Like his character Maverick, Cruise seems unstoppably youthful, even when up against the new generation who play the latest Top Gun graduates. After many a nod to the original in the first half, from epic sunsets over tarmac to a recreation of the famous bar scene with the deceased Goose’s son prompting a singalong at the piano, the second half cranks up a gear to deliver breath-catching flying scenes shot in real planes and many a moment packing an emotional punch, particularly the one shared with Val Kilmar as rival-turned-ally Iceman.

Ultimately it hits that sweet spot of a return to the iconic movie in a nostalgic way and delivering something fresh for 2022 and a high-velocity ride of a movie in its own right, as the quote goes, a task as tricky as “trying to hit a bullet with a bullet”. 

We had an absolute blast chatting to the cast ahead of the film’s release. Miles Teller shared how he prepared to play Goose’s son, both in terms of the emotional weight of the character as well as his look, what it was like working with Cruise, filming the flying the scenes and whether he sees come common ground between his roles in which is often being pushed to a limit, such as in Whiplash.

Jay Ellis, Greg “Tarzan” Davis and Danny Ramirez, who also play the younger generation of Top Gun pilots, spoke about reinventing the story for 2022, Tom Cruise defying the laws of ageing and standout moments of the shoot, from flying F-18s to the recreation of the infamous homoerotic beach scene.

Sarah Bradbury

Top Gun Maverick is released nationwide on 25^th May 2022. Read our five-star review here.

Watch the trailer for Top Gun Maverick here: