EXCLUSIVE: Glen Powell and Greg “Tarzan” Davis Talk the Quieter Moments of Filming Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick is now in theaters and we got the chance to sit down with two of the stars from the movie, Glen Powell and Greg “Tarzan” Davis.

The sequel to the hit 1986 movie, Top Gun, we chatted making the movie, the quieter moments of filming, working alongside the Navy, and so much more. Check out what they had to say below.

Many audience goers have said that this movie is as good, if not better than its predecessor, Top Gun.

Powell: “Wow.”

I completely agree with it. When you both hear things like that, how does that make you feel?

Davis: “I will say this. Not to sound cocky or anything, but if you’re doing something to be the same as the last one, then why you’re doing it. That’s what Tom [Cruise] said too. He’s always trying to push the envelope and be better than his last performance. That’s what motivates him. It just it’s like, okay, we did what we set out to do, make Top Gun Maverick better than the first one and give people the experience, who grew up on it back when it came out in ’86 and to have younger generations say, ‘Wow, I feel the same way my parents felt when they saw the first Top Gun.’ That’s what we’re striving for at this point.”

Powell:” The other thing that makes this movie really special is most of the pilots… I mean I became an actor. One of the biggest influences was Top Gun, but most of the pilots that we were flying with became pilots because of Top Gun. You have these really full circle, amazing moments like that, where you really do see the impact. In addition, cinematic nostalgia. It’s had a true influence on a lot of people’s lives and especially people who joined the Navy and dedicated their lives to protecting freedom. It has been amazing to see kind of the response, because that movie holds such a place in people’s heart.

I’ve now realized why I’ve kind of been nervous. I know was Tom’s nervous about it early on, but I also know why most people are nervous about reboots or sequels or any of that stuff. It’s exactly what you’re talking about. To recreate that feeling, it’s next to impossible. Tom, literally one of his biggest phrases is even with call signs. When I was like, ‘Hey, what about this call sign?’ He’s like, ‘It’s good. Let’s beat it.”

Davis: “Yeah, always.”

You both did a lot of intense training to prepare for filming this movie, especially learning to fly the F18’s. Did either of you know when you auditioned for this, that’s what the training would entail or is this something that once you guys got your parts, they were like, “Oh by the way, you also are going to go through this intense training.”

Powell: “Yeah, exactly.”

Davis: “I signed a page saying, ‘Are you scared of fly?” I don’t remember. It was something like, ‘Are you afraid of heights? Are you afraid of flying?’ Of course, you say no, as an actor. ‘Are you willing to fly’? Like ‘Yeah, of course I am.’ I didn’t expect too actually be up there. I knew Tom did his own stunts. I was like, ‘Of course Tom is going to do something like that.’ I didn’t know the severity of it, but I was like, ‘Tom is going to do it the chance of all of us doing it or any of us doing it. Nah.’ When it was presented, the opportunity, I was like, ‘What are you serious?’”

Powell: “The fact is, everybody knows that Tom does his own stunts. That is one thing that has defined him different to any other movie star is that level of commitment. The other thing that’s also impressive is how he convinced the Navy to put random actors in the back of 80-million-dollar assets. That’s the thing that I find to be the most impressive because we can screw up these planes very easily. I remember dropping a piece of gum in one of my planes and they were like, ‘You did what?’ I was like, ‘I was chewing a piece of gum. It fell out.’ They were like, ‘Your gum fell out in the F18?’ I was like, ‘Is gum going to bring this plane down?’ They’re like, ‘Yes.’”

Oh my god!

Powell: “The mechanical nature of it, if it slips into anything, it could have an adverse reaction and they’d have to dismantle the whole plan. I like, ‘Oh no.’”

I would be freaking out.

Davis: “The scary part too, was the ejection handles. I don’t know about you [Powell]. I was nervous because there’s a stick right there. There’s the ejection seat where you have to pull and it’s just nervous energy of like, ‘What if I just accidentally?’”

Powell: “You remember the story about the admiral who did that? It was this amazing story. It was one of our first nights in Fallon [Nevada]. We haven’t told anybody that story, but it’s one of our favorite stories where this admiral was flying at night, he was in the back seat. He doesn’t fly. He was admiral in the Navy, doesn’t fly. They were like, he just wanted to ride. They inverted the plane and he got nervous. He grabbed something and he ejected himself out towards the ground. When you eject yourself out, It 30 and it’s more than 30 G’s it’s oh, maybe even upwards of 70 or something. You lose an inch and a half on your spine for the rest of your life because of the serious compression and ejects him out.

You’re kidding!

Powell: “You black out when you eject it’s so much pressure, you black out, and you wake up. I was just imagining this Admiral waking up floating towards the ground in the middle of the desert, not knowing what happened. That’s the thing is you have this handle right here. When you do go inverted, your natural reactions to grab onto something, because at that point, your head’s kind of heading towards the canopy. You do become very aware of what you can grab onto and what you can’t, because that’s a very scary thing to have between your legs.”

That’s insane! To add to that pressure, you both also had to operate the camera from within the jet.

Davis: “Cockpit.”

How do you do that, record just lines, and not grab the eject handle. My head would explode trying to do all of that.

Powell: “Operating the camera. I know my trick was that we have these kneeboards. Real pilots have kneeboards to write down any notes they have. If somebody, they get directions as a pilot, I have the same thing. I would go, okay. If AS is giving me runway information and wind speed and all that stuff. I write all that stuff down before I take off. They have a lot more stuff to think about. Yeah. There are other planes in the air, they’re dog fighting and all that stuff. They have more things that they need to write down. I use that kneeboard to write down all the information that I would need. In the case that there’s no more blood in my head and I’m getting loopy, at least I have my lines there, different versions on how to say it, all that stuff. I have it all there. I’m not trying to get creative while I’m up there, because you don’t have any creativity. Me personally, you’re executing.”

Davis: “I didn’t have any creativity up there.”

Did you have to do a lot of ADR [Automated dialogue replacement] to make sure the audience could hear your dialogue?

Powell: “The interesting thing about the mics is the microphones are in the mask, you do a little bit of ADR, but what was interesting is to create all the ambient noise around the plane, all that stuff. They used a lot of the stuff that we actually shot because there’s this tonal quality to it that you can’t match.”

All that pressure had to take a toll on both of you.

Davis: “Luckily Tom set up this program to get us comfortable in the air, in the jets and stuff like that. That wasn’t something that none of us were worried about. It was the pressure of you don’t have playback while you’re up there. You’re up there for an hour and a half, two hours. All you can do is just hope that you’ve got it. During that time period, you’re just going, ‘Okay, I got it.’ You’re telling your pilot like, ‘Let’s go again.’ We want to make sure that you have it. The goal was really just to get at least out of the hour and a half, you want to at least get 30 seconds of usable footage. That was the pressure of not knowing like, ‘Dang did I… Is my continuity, right? Is the lighting, right?’ There are no notes that are being given to the actors. That was a challenging experience, but it was fun. I learned a lot from it.”

When you were doing the training, were you put with someone who pertained to that specific, whether it was a wingman, a pilot, or a weapons op, did you work directly with someone in your character’s specialized field?

Powell: “There was this really great thing that Joe [Kosinski] and Tom put together early on, which was essentially a, I wouldn’t call it a meet and greet. I would call it more of like, ‘Hey, go spend the weekend at Fallon Nevada. The home of Top Gun. Go. We’re going to go fly around. You guys are going to get in the 18’s for the first-time you guys are going to go.’ Actually, we weren’t in F18s the first time that was early on the process that was early. We were on the base. The point of it was to go get drunk with pilots at an officer’s club. That was like, the whole point is to figure out, ‘Hey, who is your character in this movie?’ What was really interesting is a lot of these pilots, like my character’s supposed to be cocky as all get out, unapologetically cocky. All of these guys were so sweet and humble. Like, ‘No, I’m just so happy to be here.’ I’m like, ‘Where is my Hangman?’”

Davis: “Which was funny because all of them were very, very sweet. You have this idea of these people being in the military being rough and tough, but they were very, very kind. They’re able to flip this switch of having this killer instinct, which I thought was very, very interesting and the whole process, this was like an extreme level of method acting. What I used to say is we are not making a movie. We’re living real life because that’s what we did. Everything we did was real. Being in a bar, being in the hanger, being debriefing, freaking being in the F18, obviously that’s the realest part about it. Being on the bases. It wasn’t like they created a fake plastic F18. No, we’re doing scenes. In the hangar, those are real F18’s right there. Then you have one taking off in the background. It was a real immersion that I don’t think I’ve ever seen or ever been a part of or will ever be a part of something like that.”

Well, my final question you both have been on this promo tour for an awfully long time now. What is one thing that no one has asked you that you wanted to talk about?

Powell: “One thing that I found to be really, really special about this thing is truly what you’re talking about, which is full immersion. I think the quiet moments, everybody talks about being in the back of F18’s, of being on the carrier and all these things. We really were living on Naval bases among men and women in uniform. We would work out with these people. We’d go to dinner with these people. We’d go to town with… You party with these people. They took care, such great care of us.

You can only fly so many times. Usually, you’d be lucky if you got to fly one flight a day, every once in a while, you’d fly two. Most of the time it’s a pretty quiet day. I got to say the experience of being among the Navy, it felt more like joining the Navy than being an actor. That’s where we were living. We’ve shot this for a year. I just find that to be a really special thing.”

Davis: “Exactly. Yeah. I guess the question that I would ask or want to be asked, or if I asked you from what you said is like, ‘What was your experience?’ I don’t know. ‘What was your experience on the ground with the Navy? Living with them? How did you enjoy the life? What was your life like, not being an actor?’”

Powell: “It was full immersion, but that was the other thing is even on the carrier, eating in the mess hall with these people and going to work out with them and them taking us down to ordinance room and remember taking us on tours and showing us all this stuff. They were so giving, going in the simulator on the base, them showing us where they lived, they would have us over for dinner. Remember the air boss had us over for dinner that one time. It was just one of those things that I remember. It’s not something you talk about and with press all the time. One thing that at least for me makes the Navy have such a special place in my heart.”

Davis: “I felt like part of them. We were all one unit, one heartbeat.”

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity