Nobody was rooting for the success of Top Gun 2 quite like Tom Cruise, and it turns out he had brilliant advice to offer the rest of the Top Gun cast along the way. Glen Powell, who played Hangman in the action movie, has revealed how Cruise gave him excellent guidance when it came to sticking the landing for the film’s big finale.
As a legacy sequel to the ‘80s movie Top Gun, it came as quite a surprise that Top Gun: Maverick was so popular, but the thriller movie ultimately will be the highest-grossing movie of 2022. A large part of that is Cruise’s role in the picture, with our Top Gun 2 review praising his “acting range.”
The actor’s involvement went further than just his performance though, as Powell revealed in a recent instalment of Variety’s Actors on Actors feature.
Speaking to Kate Hudson, star of the detective movie Knives Out 2, Powell explained how Cruise guided him on bringing his character to life: “Sometimes you can fall into the trap of wanting to be liked on camera. And in a movie like this, where you know there’s going to be a lot of eyes on it, you don’t want to be Draco Malfoy.”
“But Tom gave me this advice: ‘For the ending to work, you have to completely lean into that. Everybody else in the movie is questioning their own ability. You’re the only guy that’s not questioning it. So if there’s any sort of apology in anything you say, the movie doesn’t work. Lean into the douchebaggery of it all,'” Powell added.
Tom Cruise just gets it, doesn’t he? That advice is actually incredibly shrewd and helps Hangman be the kind of character we love to hate, before he swoops in to save the day in his own, cocksure manner.
For more aviation amusement, check out our interview with Danny Ramirez, Greg Davis, and Jay Ellis from the Top Gun 2 cast. Or, dive into our list of the best Tom Cruise movies.