Top Gun: Maverick Producer Reveals Tom Cruise’s “Grueling” Training

Now that we know Tom Cruise is legitimately planning to make a movie in space, it’s only understandable the insane training sessions the actor puts himself through while still on the planet. Later this year, the megastar will appear in Top Gun: Maverick and as one might expect, the actor put himself and his castmates through a whole ordeal while getting ready for the highly anticipated flick. In a recent chat with Yahoo!, Top Gun producer Jerry Bruckheimer, detailed the “grueling” process Cruise put both himself and his colleagues through prior to production on Maverick kicking off.

“He put the actors through this grueling process over three months so they could take the G-forces when we put them in the F/A-18s,” Bruckheimer revealed. “It was really a tough slog for these young actors, because they also had to go through water survival training, where they are blindfolded and put in a water tank that’s turned upside down and they have to figure out how to get out. And Tom went through all the same stuff! They told me he went through that training just like a 22-year-old would — that’s how good he is.”

The producer made sure to point out the only interior jet footage used in the original feature was of Cruise, because the other actors couldn’t stomach the twists and turns. As Bruckheimer reveals, Cruise worked at length with director Joseph Kosinski on devising a camera rig that’d allow the majority of the cast to get filmed while in their respective fighter jets.

“For Maverick, we put five cameras in the cockpit, so the actors not only had to act, they had to know when to turn the camera on and where the sun was to match the previous scene,” Bruckheimer added. “They had a lot to do in that cockpit when they were flying these planes on sorties, which were designed by Tom and Joe. Tom gave all the briefings and all the debriefings after the shoot along with the great Top Gun pilots that we work with from the Navy.”

Joining Cruise include Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, and Val Kilmer reprising their roles from the initial flick. Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, and Lewis Pullman are new additions this time around.

Top Gun: Maverick is set to hit theaters December 23rd.