[imagesource: Paramount Pictures]
Tom Cruise does not take training for his action films lightly.
As for the actors that join him on set, well, they simply have to join his league, too.
To ensure that, Tom puts them to the test in a series of rigorous and mind-bending military-like scenarios. Some of these basically force the actors to resist the very laws of physics, to ensure the action is authentic.
It’s the kind of thing that, per The Telegraph, “separates his mega-budget action flicks from all the other mega-budget action flicks”.
You have seen the trailer for Top Gun: Maverick, and even the South African parody version, but you have no clue what went into getting those incredible shots of fighter jets going through brain-melting G-force, nose dives, and twists and turns.
Miles Teller, who plays the son of Maverick’s former partner Goose, called the training a “Tom Cruise boot camp”, but that hardly captures the insanity that they have to go through:
“We were getting in killer shape. And also for the stunts and stuff that Tom does in movies, it’s usually a very specific type of training. You’re not just going into the gym and lifting some weights.
We did flight training for three months before we started filming… We got put through the wringer.”
Cruise told Total Film that he developed an entire programme for the actors, It dealt with how to get them in the F/A-18s, teaching them how to fly and handle the Gs every step of the way, and not have them roll their eyes back and vomit all over the show in the process:
The reasoning was this: the only way to get the actors to appreciate what it’s like to be a fighter pilot is to make them, however briefly, fighter pilots.
After building up their flight time with passenger rides on single-propeller aircraft and L-39 jet, the Maverick cast were paired with US Navy pilots and each launched from an aircraft carrier in an F/A-18 Super Hornet jet with a top speed of 1,190mph.
Teller said the training was tough on sleeping, too:
“I was bunking up with [co-star] Glen Powell. During the night we would just be lying there and you would hear explosions of jet fuel and machines colliding with the deck. Everything on the ship is shaking.”
Besides passing the Top Gun school’s standard physical training, the actors also have to pass the Naval Aviation Survival Training course, which includes a test called ‘The Dunker’.
Teller says that it “feels like some sort of torture chamber to a degree”.
Aside from having to control the threat of heaving your insides all over the cockpit, the actors also had to think carefully about cinematography:
“The stakes are incredibly high,” says Teller. “Even if you are not actually flying the fighter jet, you need to be aware of every movement, because if the camera is pointed at you and you are even a millisecond off as far as timing, the whole scene is a bust. That means everything from the motion to the eyeline has to be perfect.”
The actors more often than not walk away from the Tom Cruise boot camp with a sort of badge of honour, though, proud and in awe of what they achieved.
Top Gun: Maverick will hit the big screen on May 27.
[source:telegraph]
