News culture This star athlete regrets having refused this role: he could have played alongside Tom Cruise in the cinema

Culture news This star athlete regrets having refused this role: he could have played alongside Tom Cruise in the cinema

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The Top Gun phenomenon

Few people have ever heard of Top Gunthe feature film that propelled the career of Tom Cruise in 1986. Today considered a cult film, Top Gun takes its name from the US Navy Air Combat School where some of the action takes place, and chronicles the final years of the Cold War from the perspective of American pilots, particularly Pete “Maverick” Mitchell whose Tom Cruise lends his features. Maverick owes its name to its sometimes unconscious behavior, such as when it decides to come to the aid of Bill “Cougar” Cortell against the orders of the hierarchy.

Even though he is very talented as a pilot, the attitude of Maverick does not please everyone, and especially not the other students at the aviation school Top Gun. But it is this behavior which has seduced the fans of Tom Cruise, and which allowed a sequel to be made a few years ago. Despite pandemic-related obstacles that forced producers to push back the film several times, Top Gun: Maverick ended up hitting theaters in May 2022, and Tom Cruise was able to slip once again into the skin of a Maverick certainly a little older but still just as reckless.

The role of (another) life

In Top Gun: Maverickthe character played by Tom Cruise must form a group of young graduates from the aviation school Top Gun as part of a special mission. Among the students, we find Bradley “Rooster” Bradshawthe son of the former navigator of Maverick played by Miles Teller (Divergent, Fantastic Four), but also characters like Jake “Hangman” Seresin (Glen Powell), Natasha “Phoenix” Trace (Monica Barbaro), and Reuben “Payback” Fitch (Jay Ellis), who will have to complete a high-risk objective at the end of their training. But even though the cast did an exemplary job, it’s hard not to wonder what might have happened if Lewis Hamilton had accepted the role proposed by Tom Cruise…

Indeed, there exists a world where F1 driver British could have played one of the young pilots of the school Top Gunbut unfortunately it is not ours. Hamilton made friends with Tom Cruise in 2014, when the actor invited the pilot to the filming locations of Edge of Tomorrow (a completely normal gesture when your name is Tom Cruise), and the two men seem to get along rather well since Cruise himself put Lewis Hamilton in contact with Joseph Kosinskithe director of Top Gun: Maverick, who offered the young pilot a role. However, Hamilton was forced to refuse because of his participation in the Formula 1 World Championship in 2018 :

First of all, I had never acted in my life. And I didn’t want to be the reason the quality of the film went down. Then, I really didn’t have the time to invest. I remember when I had to tell Joe and Tom – it broke my heart. And I regretted it, when they showed me the film and I said to myself: “that could have been me”!

Even if Hamilton finished champion, he still retains a little bitterness when he thinks about what could have happened if he had chosen to play alongside Tom Cruiseand that’s understandable. Top Gun: Maverick still totaled nearly 1.5 billion at the global box office, an astronomical figure after the pandemic. Besides, if you want to see (or rewatch) Top Gun: Maverickplease note that it is available to subscribers Canal+but can also be rented on Prime Video !