Tom Cruise Shares 'Top Gun' Set Secret, Plays Coy About Sequel

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Jimmy Kimmel Live

Tom Cruise may have pulled one over on super producer Jerry Bruckheimer before he agreed to star in Top Gun over 20 years ago.

While on Tuesday's Jimmy Kimmel Live, the action star admitted that he had a need for speed upon accepting the role of Maverick, and recalled when Bruckheimer tried to persuade him to do the movie by having him fly with the Blue Angels.

"He said that you didn't want to do the movie, and then you got there and you flew with them, and then you were all in. Is that true?" Kimmel asked.


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Cruise then shared a secret that he said not even Bruckheimer knew. "OK, this is really funny. Jerry, I've never told you this story. The truth is that after the first meeting, I met with [director Tony Scott], Jerry and Paramount Pictures. I got in the car and I was flying to New York. I told my agent, 'I'm going to make this movie, but don't tell Jerry I want to make this movie, because I want to fly with the Blue Angels,'" he confessed. "You've got work these things, you know? I'm a businessman. Also, I said, 'I want to fly the F-14. I've got to have at least three flights in the F-14. I want all the training.'"

"Sorry, Jerry," he added. "I forgot you and I never really had that conversation."

Cruise may have "bamboozled" the producer, but the plane ride wasn't all he'd hoped. "I vomited with the Blue Angels," the 54-year-old actor disclosed.


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This led to yet another crazy story from Cruise's Top Gun days. "We set up the cameras, and it wasn't like today. It was really challenging—quite brilliant of Tony Scott, how he figured out how to do it. But the guy who flew me in the first flight, his name was Bozo. The pilot's name was Bozo! So, I'm strapping in, we're getting in there, and you just see the helmet go on that says 'Bozo.' I'm like, 'Bozo?'" the Jack Reacher: Never Go Back star explained, recalling that the emergency lights were on when they were taking off. "I remember saying, 'Bozo, these lights...There's a lot of red lights.' He's like, 'Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.' He starts turning them off. I'm like, 'OK.' He's like, 'They don't call me Bozo for nothing.'"

"I remember, the first flight in the morning, we were going really hard and were moving around, and we did like nine and half Gs -- very hard on my body -- and I had the vomit bag," he continued. "In between takes, I just quickly leaned down to quickly empty my guts into this bag. There was an A-4 over here, and an F-14, and the second I did that, he pulls up."


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Cruise said it soon got to be too much. "My head was on the ground! I was pressed on the floor holding my vomit. I'm trying to press the talk button; it was on the foot. I kept going, 'Bozo! Bozo! Bozo!' I was choking, and he just kept pulling up and up and up," he exclaimed. "Finally, he released and we were going straight ahead. I said, 'Bozo, what's the matter with you, man? Didn't you see? You pulled up and my head was hitting the floor.'" Bozo responded, "'Well, I told you they don't call me Bozo for nothing.'"

Kimmel didn't let Cruise leave without asking if he'd be open to doing a sequel of the 1986 classic. "Kenny and I were talking about it," he quipped, referring to Kenny Loggins, who sang "Danger Zone," the movie's theme song. "It's just got to be right. That's all."

Ahead of the 30th anniversary of Top Gun last May, ET spoke with Bruckheimer, who was more optimistic about a second movie but was adamant about having his leading man on board. "You don’t make Top Gun without Tom Cruise," he insisted.


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