reveal about how Top Gun: Maverick will
unfold. They promise that it will be “emotional”
(Cruise) and “a movie movie, which I love”
(Bruckheimer). We know that the story will pick
up with Maverick still living up to his name,
grinding his gears as a fl ight instructor when
a man of his talent, who didn’t speak truth to
power, could be an admiral by now. “That’s the
problem,” says Bruckheimer. “He’s a maverick.
He does what’s right. And sometimes the brass
don’t like that. And that’s what happens to
people who buck the system.” We also know that
he’ll teach a group of young hotshots, including
Miles Teller as the son of his former wingman
‘Goose’. But that’s pretty much it.
They’re remaining tight-lipped perhaps
because they know that, while the story of
Top Gun: Maverick, co-written by Cruise’s
professional BFF Christopher McQuarrie, will
be important, people are going to see this thing
because of the visuals. Because of aerial
sequences that will blow your mind, thanks to
Cruise’s new system, which allowed director
Joseph Kosinski to place IMAX cameras in the
cockpit of a fi ghter jet. Sick bags are entirely
optional. “I said to the studio, ‘You don’t know
how hard this movie’s going to be. No-one’s ever
done this before,’” laughs Cruise. “There’s never
been an aerial sequence shot this way. I don’t
know if there ever will again, to be honest.”
They may never be done again because they
were done for real. Now, let’s get one thing
straight — Cruise does a lot of his own fl ying in
this movie, but even the most heavily-insured
man on Earth has his limits. “The Navy wouldn’t
let him fl y an F-18,” admits Bruckheimer,
“but he fl ies a P-51 in the movie, and he fl ies
helicopters. He can do just about anything in
an airplane.” But Cruise, and his co-stars,
including Teller and Glen Powell, who were put
through a gruelling aerial boot camp designed
by Cruise himself, were actually in those planes,
being fl own by some of the best pilots on theplanet, whizzing past
mountains and whipping
along the ground at low
altitude, pulling turns inducing
G-forces that would cause
lesser mortals to pass out.
“When you’re pulling heavy
Gs, it compresses your spine,
your skull, it makes some
people delirious. Some people
can’t handle it,” says Cruise.
“So I had to get them up to
being able to sustain high Gs,
because they have to act in the
plane. I can’t have them sick
the whole time.”
The results, according to Bruckheimer, are
spectacular. “You will experience what it’s like
to be in an F-18, in that cockpit with those
pilots,” he says. Looks like that long absencehas made Cruise and Bruckheimer feel the
need...the need to take our breathawayone last
time.CHRIS HEWITTTOP GUN: MAVERICKIS IN CINEMAS FROM 25 JUNEAbove: Cruise and Monica Barbaro on
set. Right: Hiding the keys is the only
way to keep him on the ground.THE ICE-CREAM
“I got given an ice-cream maker
for my birthday,” Pugh tells
Empire. Her one million Instagram
followers have witnessed the
entire process. “I ended up
being quite good at it. I made
peanut butter, banana and rum,
raspberry, orange and lemon
ice-cream. And they’re massive!
You get so many scoops.”THE MARMALADE
“We have a Seville orange tree
in the garden,” Pugh explains.
“I promised my gran that I’d
make her marmalade.” The
process is therapeutic for her
and her followers. “There’s so
much crap on Instagram. But if
watching a marmalade video at
the end of the night is gonna
help you sleep, then great!”THE CACTUS
Pugh’s cactus, which she
named Barry, is a regular guest.
“Last week, I noticed that there
was one whole half that was,
like, black and rotting,” she
recalls. She made a video,
asking her followers for advice.
“Everybody was telling me
that I need to chop the rot out.
The red bit kills the plant.”The Black Widowstar on what
made her recent Instagram
Stories essential viewingWORDSHELEN O’HARAH OW
FLORENCE
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