After being delayed several years, Top Gun: Maverick opens around the country Friday, and the cast can’t wait for it to finally be out.
“I think that what this movie does is it puts you in the cockpit so you really feel as close as possible to what these Top Gun pilots really do,” Lewis Pullman, who plays one of the elite fighter pilots, tells ABC Audio.
“And it has heart. It has humor. It has excitement. It’s got every element that I think a massive blockbuster movie should have,” he adds.
Sharing some behind the scenes secrets, Pullman reveals that they didn’t use a green screen when flying the planes.
“We are sitting in those cockpits and we’re actually flying in the planes,” he says. “I think the Navy was real smart to not let us green pilots man these million dollar machines…we didn’t quite have enough time to get the training. And I think, you know, maybe insurance, but we’re in those cockpits and we’re pulling all those Gs.”
Speaking of training, Pullman says it was pretty intense but the most grueling part, preparing for a water rescue after ejecting out of the plane, wasn’t even in the movie.
“Blindfolded, put in like a mock cockpit of a helicopter, dunked underwater, flipped upside down. And then you have to hold your breath,” he explains. “It’s the most disorienting, discombobulating experience.”
Even though Pullman never questioned the training, which Tom Cruise designed, he admits, “… there’s moments in your mind where you’re like, ‘What would a green screen feel like?’ But then you watch the movie and you’re like, Thank the Lord, man.”
Top Gun: Maverick flies into theaters Friday, May 27.
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