Tom Cruise is crossing a canyon at 450 miles per hour. He lifts his F-18 fighter jet, the eight Gs visible in the lines of his face, before reversing the plane and diving. This is just one of the thrilling action sequences that have made Top Gun: Maverick one of the most acclaimed films of the year. Both fans and critics have sung his praises, and since its launch a week ago, it has so far raised about $ 176 million (£ 140 million) in North America alone. He also had Cruise’s biggest premiere weekend as a movie star, a crazy statistic considering his historic career.
Most importantly, however, it has demonstrated the continued strength of Cruise itself. While other stars turn to superhero franchises for the big box office, here is a man capable of bearing the weight of a box office hit just over his shoulders.
Cruise repeatedly touches the sky in the movie, but who put it there? This job went to Kevin LaRosa Jr., Top Gun: Maverick Air Coordinator and Chief Camera Pilot. FaceTiming from home, near an aerodrome north of Los Angeles, detailed how the film achieved its gravity-defying, little-used CGI stunts, and what it was like to be in charge of one of the most famous men on the planet. And a man who, just to add a little more pressure to LaRosa’s work, insists on doing his own stunts.
No double stunts required
Cruise is known to be a physical actor, preferring to jump buildings himself rather than have someone do it for him. He broke his ankle as he jumped from building to building in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, after which he got up and finished the scene. While hanging out next to an Airbus A400 in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Cruise was hit in the chest by a rock. He commented that “it felt like a bullet.” “If a bigger rock hit him in the chest, or if a smaller debris hit him in the face, then the show is over,” director Christopher McQuarrie told the New York Daily News in 2015.
It is this kind of devotion to his craft that has helped Cruise become an industry legend. However, with Cruise busy rolling through the sky on a fighter jet, LaRosa admits that she sometimes wished the biggest star in Hollywood didn’t have to do all the work. “We all think so, don’t we? Tom does things in this movie where I’m sitting around saying, ‘Oh boy, it was crazy.’
A pilot with a pedigree
LaRosa is a second-generation acrobatics pilot and a third-generation pilot, with a resume that includes characters such as Iron Man, The Avengers, and Transformers. Her father had even worked with Cruise before on Mission: Impossible III.
When Maverick was initially offered the job, LaRosa let out a shout that scared her own family. Initially he was just the camera pilot, LaRosa impressed both the producers who promoted him to coordinator, which involved informing the cast and crew before and after each flight. LaRosa led hours of briefings with the Navy before and after performing each stunt. “Everything in aviation has an inherent risk,” he says. “But these risks are denied with excellent briefings, risk mitigation plans and trials. We call it excellence in repetition.”
Air Coordinator and Chief Camera Pilot Kevin LaRosa Jr.
(Kevin LaRosa Jr)
The pressure of a sequel
From the outset, Cruise made it clear to the Maverick team that they were at a “disadvantage.” The original Top Gun transformed Cruise into the superstar it is today. Despite mixed reviews, the film grossed more than $ 350 million (£ 279 million) at the box office worldwide with a budget of $ 15 million (£ 11 million) and, thank you in part of an inescapable soundtrack, it became as synonymous with the eighties as the shell suits. “When you want to make a sequel to a movie like Top Gun, you’ll have all the critics, all the eyes, all the attention on you,” says LaRosa.
Basically, they had to do a home run, and Cruise gave several speeches to the set to energize the crew. According to LaRosa, Cruise told them, “We’re making a sequel to a very historical and iconic film and we need to achieve a level of perfection with Top Gun: Maverick that had never been seen before in the movie world.” LaRosa pauses, “Those are big words!” he says laughing.
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The training program
LaRosa also helped Cruise prepare the rigorous three-month in-flight training program for the rest of the cast, which included spinning underwater in an ejection seat to prepare for emergencies. “Apart from training them to be pilots, they had to check the boxes so they could fly on the Navy plane and go do the same training that these naval aviators do,” says LaRosa. Ultimately, they needed to know how to survive in an emergency on a fighter jet.
As for being shot underwater: “It’s not something you want to do.” However, LaRosa added that actor Monica Barbaro (Phoenix), who previously said her training as a dancer gave her a “high tolerance for pain,” impressed more during training. “Monica made it amazing, [she was]very good with G forces “.
Monica Barbaro plays ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ in Phoenix
(Scott Garfield / Paramount Pictures)
Close enough to hear the afterburners
“It looks like you’re there because we’re literally there,” LaRosa says. Filming in the sky, he is the one on the jet of the camera, aligning the photograph just “10 to 15 feet” behind the F-18s piloted by Navy pilots. That means being close enough to “feel the heat from the afterburners,” or the burning fuel coming out of the back of a jet engine.
Anyone who has seen the film will know that the stunts are awesome to watch. In a memorable scene, Top Gun pilots must perform a death-defying slalom through a cannon at a tree-scraping altitude to avoid enemy detection. The low-level flight, LaRosa recalls, was as real as it looks in the movie; in fact, he felt even more hairy from the cabin. “I think it’s hard to know how far we’re going down and fast,” says La Rosa, who adds that the riders had “a 100-foot target above the trees and rocks.” “When you do three, four or 500 knots per canyon, that’s up there.” He added that some Navy pilots were able to fall below this 100-foot floor.
Unlike Marvel movies, Maverick did not rely on the use of CGI for his aerial stunts: “Actually, everything was shooting a real plane.”
An aerial scene from ‘Top Gun: Maverick’
(Paramount Pictures)
Pass the patient’s bag
Due to the extreme G forces the cast was subjected to, there was a lot of vomiting on set, but LaRosa noted that actor Glen Powell (Hangman) had an ability to “run his business” with sick bag and continue. “Most people when you’re sick of the air, you’re done. You’re out of your mind,” says LaRosa.
“Glen would be in the back seat of an F-18, fighting with dogs and he would hear it. He would take care of his business and then say, ‘All right, let’s go!’ a set of skills, I don’t even know how to get there. “
The cruising effect
Of course, Cruise has an “iron stomach.” “He’s in better shape than I am, mentally and physically,” laughs LaRosa, who appears to be in his thirties, on Cruise, 59. “It’s clear and focused and it really makes you want to get into your A game.”
Glen Powell plays Hangman in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’
(Scott Garfield / Paramount Pictures)
LaRosa, who receives – like everyone who works with Cruise – a star Christmas cake every year, used the word “perfection” four times in the space of about 10 minutes while talking about the work attitude of Cruise. Everything is part of the Cruise lexicon, which has been forged with decades of anecdotes about the intensity of the star.
“Working with Tom, the best way I can say this is …” LaRosa pauses, perhaps wondering if what she’s about to say sounds a little too much like a Cruise joke. “If there’s something impossible, if there’s something that can’t be done, he’s the guy who’s going to figure out how we can do it. And there’s no one better for that.”
‘Top Gun: Maverick’ is now in theaters