Top Gun: Maverick's Glen Powell Thought Tom Cruise Doomed Him
By this time, it's common knowledge that signing on to do a Tom Cruise action movie could be hazardous to one's safety. Cruise has a passionate zeal for doing his own stunts no matter how dangerous, and he has a tendency to ask the same of at least some of his co-stars, all in the name of creating unforgettable moments for the audience. Of course, he's also creating unforgettable moments for those co-stars, as Glen Powell of "Top Gun: Maverick" recently relayed in a humorous talk show anecdote.
The filming of "Top Gun: Maverick" involved plenty of aerial stunts that aren't usually a part of today's CGI-oriented movie sets, but it was actually a skydiving incident that had Powell thinking that his life was going to be cut short by Cruise's fanatical methods. Fortunately (and obviously), he lived to tell the tale, and Cruise doesn't have the skydiving death of one of his more promising young co-stars on his conscience.
Glen Powell shared the story of a Cruise-orchestrated skydiving trip gone wrong
During a sit-down on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" (via YouTube), Glen Powell shared a very funny story that could have been tragic had things gone a little differently. It all happened because of Tom Cruise's insistence that he go on a skydiving trip during reshoots on "Top Gun: Maverick." Powell says he brought a date to the jump but then found out that Cruise demanded that he dive solo without any instructors strapped to the chute with him.
"So I literally have to jump out of this plane by myself," Powell shared."I couldn't find my tab when I was falling," he added. And amusingly enough, Powell says that as he thought his life was ending, it was Cruise that was in his thoughts. "It's the nightmare that everybody talks about. But my first thought — which is not, like, a selfless thought — but my first thought was, 'Oh, Tom just killed me. He's going to feel so bad.'"
Finally, of course, Powell found the tab for his parachute, made it to the ground safely, and even went up for another jump. But it's fascinating to think that he came so close to what would have been a career and life-ending skydiving accident, all because of Cruise's insistence that he make the jump by himself.