Top Gun: These 10 actors almost played Maverick instead of Tom Cruise

In 1986, Tom Cruise flew to the heights with Top Gun. Noticed in Taps, Outsiders, Risky Business or Legend in the early 80s, the one who was only a rising star became THE new face of American cinema thanks to the success of Tony Scott’s feature film, which garnered more than 350 million dollars in the world for a budget of only 15 million greenbacks.

At the time, even before filming, Cruise was aware that Top Gun is a major step “superior” even in his career. He is thus involved in the production process, with the approval of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and participates in all the preparatory meetings, from the sets to the costumes through photography. And the scenario, of course, which he develops with his producers for a month.

“I saw – cinematically – what they were going to do”remembers the comedian in the press kit of Top Gun Maverick. “But the script wasn’t great. It didn’t work. There was no real character with Maverick. It was a pretty vague universe, not very defined (…) So we started talking about this script, and I said that for me it was a movie about competition, about honor, a movie about friendship, about sacrifice and stakes and mistakes, and coming to terms with those mistakes “.

Convinced by the project, the actor also has two requirements: to shoot in a real F-14, and to fly with the Blue Angels, the Navy demonstration team which offers air shows across the United States. “It was a great flight. For the first time, I felt the different levels of G-force. You can read, learn about G-force, but you don’t understand it until you learn it. didn’t live. It was a great flight. They let me do what I wanted – and I kept going until about 5G. And what Jerry doesn’t know, because I kept them going for months to know if I was going to engage in the film or not, it is that I was then already convinced that I was going to do it”.

The rest is legend, and continued thirty-six years later with Top Gun Maverick, acclaimed by the public (it is the best film of the post-COVID era according to AlloCiné spectators) and very lucrative at the box office ($400 million across the Atlantic, more than $800 million worldwide). Yet, as is always the case in Hollywood, many comedians have been considered, even approached, for the role of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. A look back at ten actors who almost flew away instead of Tom Cruise.