It’s not the plane, it’s the pilot! Top Gun: Maverick is nominated for six awards at the 2023 Oscars — and some of the movie’s main hunks showed up for the event in style.
While a few of the film’s major stars including Tom Cruise — who is currently filming Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part II overseas — and Glen Powell — who is in production on an upcoming romantic comedy in Australia with Sydney Sweeney — had to miss the Sunday, March 12, event, others members of the cast represented the Top Gun family well.
Miles Teller stunned on the champagne-colored carpet with wife Keleigh Sperry. The Spectacular Now actor, 36, rocked a Celine tuxedo, while Sperry, 30, donned a diamond-encrusted silver gown. Costars Danny Ramirez and Greg Tarzan Davis both chose all-black looks for the soirée, which was held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
While the Mission: Impossible, 60, star didn’t land a nomination for Best Actor, the film is still in the running for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Song, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects and the most coveted award of the night, Best Picture.
The film, which premiered in May 2022, follows Cruise as he reprises his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a U.S. Navy captain and test pilot as he leads a new team of Top Gun graduates including Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Teller), who is the son of his late friend Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards). The movie serves as a sequel to the original 1986 film that introduced Cruise’s character as a rookie attending the United States Navy’s elite fighter weapons school.
While fans had to wait four years to see the sequel come to fruition after it was initially announced in 2017, Powell, who portrays student Hangman in the movie, teased that the wait would be worth it after wrapping production in August 2020.
“Tom and I talked after I watched it, and I told him! I was like, ‘I literally have no more fingernails left. I’ve chewed off all of my fingernails.’ … You cry, you laugh. It’s got adventure. It’s got romance,” the Set It Up star exclusively told Us Weekly at the time. “It’s just like one of those movies, where you’re like, ‘Oh, God, why can’t all movies be this fun and great?’ It’s so rare.”
Much like the OG cast, Maverick’s new faces made headlines after showing off their toned physiques in the film. According to Teller’s trainer, Jason Walsh, the Magnolia star made sure the men were prepared to show some skin — and their flying technique — on screen.
‘Top Gun: Maverick.’ YouTube
“I knew Tom was gonna put these guys through it and he definitely did,” the Rise Nation founder exclusively told Us in June 2022. “You can see it on their faces. When they’re doing this, they’re not faking it. This is real. … Tom is a huge advocate of making sure that these guys are really put through the rigors and the tests … so [it was about] physical preparation, just getting strong, moving well, make sure physically [Miles] was very fit.”
That same month, Powell revealed that Cruise even had the group reshoot their now-famous beach football scene, which paid tribute to the much talked-about volleyball scene in the OG Top Gun, in which Cruise and his castmates played the sport in jeans and no shirts.
“It was one of the first things we filmed. That was a great move, because you spend all this time getting into shape and it can be hard to maintain while you’re on set working these long shooting days,” Powell told Men’s Journal. “The tough thing was that we didn’t realize the filming demands of the montage, which was a lot of camera angles and long lenses. So after we’d filmed for an entire day on the beach with Tom, playing our hardest and looking our best, we thought we were done and went out that night to celebrate — drinking and eating wings and tater tots. The next morning, we found out they were only getting Tom’s angles and would be shooting the rest of us the following week. We were like, ‘What?!’”
Powell recalled the cast running “back to to the gym” before the reshoot.
“We shot that whole thing about three or four times in total. It became the running joke — ‘Time to do the beach football scene again,’” he recalled.