The audience coming out of “Top Gun: Maverick” this weekend wants to know one thing: do actors really want these fighter jets? In short, yes.
Tom Cruise, who returns as “Maverick,” is known for doing his own acrobatic work, and he wanted his stars Miles Teller, Monica Barbaro, and Glen Powell to learn to fly. That’s where the film’s aerial coordinator, Kevin LaRosa Jr., spoke.
LaRosa Jr. worked with Cruise to put together an intense flight program that began with the cast flying on a smaller plane. “We started with the Cessna 172 and took them to basic flight. That allowed them to see what it was like to take off, land and know where to look and get their hands on it,” LaRosa said. get an idea of how a small force felt g.
And just like in a real training program, once the actors were comfortable with that, they graduated to the next level and went on the aerobatic plane, the Extra 300. “That was similar to what I would see. the general public in an air show where these planes do crazy maneuvers. It can throw up to eight g of force. It’s exciting, “says LaRosa Jr.
Again, exercise would increase your G tolerance. “This is almost like a muscle memory to me. If you don’t fly for a long time, you could go up and get sick. a brain muscle and you get used to it and you get better. ” He adds: “We built them to the point where they mostly didn’t get sick.”
The next was the Albatross L-39. “That allowed them to experience a fighter training plane. When they graduated from that, we had aviators.” LaRosa Jr. he adds that some cast members are working to get their full license. Glen Powell, who plays Hangman, did get his.
When the actors put on F / A-18, LaRosa Jr. he says, “They were confident and they felt good. They were used to these G-forces, and then they were able to focus on working with Joseph and Tom to tell this amazing story.” He continued: “They didn’t have to worry because they were on this high-performance fighter jet flying through canyons.”
As someone who has dedicated her life to being an air coordinator, flying and teaching, LaRosa Jr. praise the talent of the cast. Barbarian, he says, was the most impressive. “She absolutely killed her and did a good job adapting to the physiological effects of everything.”
Monica Barbaro as Phoenix was one of the cast who learned to fly real fighter jets. Scott Garfield
Equally impressive was Powell, who fell ill while filming the F / A-18 scenes. LaRosa Jr. he says: “He would take over his business and then return to the game. One of the most impressive things was to see how some of the cast were able to process and recover.”
The training program prepared the actors, so that when they were ready to fly and film, Cruise’s determination to want the best possible performances was delivered.
As for the mission training program that the pilots follow, LaRosa Jr. says jet-to-jet photography allows the public to go live with fighter jets while IMAX cameras were mounted inside and outside the F / A-18. “As an audience, it feels like we’re there with them.” LaRosa Jr. “When you mix all these things together, you end up with the perfect mix of aerial storytelling. It’s a perfect combination of living with our actors who are absolutely on those planes, maneuvering and pulling G and also letting the audience see where we have to orient ourselves spatially and see these planes maneuvering down and in and around the training ground. ”
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