How Tom Cruise Matured With 'Top Gun' (And Vice Versa)

• Tom Cruise takes over the title role of "Top Gun: Maverick", twenty-six years after the first part.

• The character has kept certain characteristics while adapting to new generations.

• It testifies to the care that the actor brings to his productions.

But what is his secret ?

Between the first

and

twenty-six years later, Tom Cruise has not aged a bit.

Or so little.

Yet he has matured and he says so.

“Producer Jerry Bruckheimer was ready to do a

right away and the audience was asking for it, but I needed to grow and learn,” he said at the Cannes Film Festival where the film was presented. a few days before its theatrical release on Wednesday.

Like the comedian, the Maverick character he plays in

has grown and learned in this second installment.

But not too much all the same.

He is always ready to break the sound barrier, even with the ladies (here Jennifer Connelly) who swoon when he appears.

However, commitment is not really his thing.

What turns him on, Maverick, is being free.

There are even some who say they saw him fly and others, his superiors, who want to pin him to the ground.

Guess if they'll make it.

Balloons and naked torsos

Supported by an old friend (Val Kilmer who also takes over his role for a very moving brief appearance), Maverick must train youngsters (and a young girl, it's 2022!) for a super dangerous mission.

He was ordered to stay ashore.

Guess if he will obey.

saga

taught me that you can play with the complicity that the spectators have with the characters, which served me well for this film,” he says.

Maverick has assimilated the lesson well: one of his students (Miles Teller) is none other than the son of Goose, who died at the end of the first

.

We let you imagine the atmosphere in class.

The first part endeared the films of aviators to many spectators.

It celebrated fearless America, manly friendship and a barely concealed taste for ball games between bare-chested gentlemen.

There was a very pleasing crypto-gay flavor that the years have not dissipated.

In 2022, we are still playing ball by showing our muscles, but the time has come for transmission.

Maverick becomes a surrogate dad.

This does not prevent him from dropping his shirt at the slightest opportunity, just to show that he still has some in the air and that action is still his hobby.

He doesn't need superpowers to exist.

He's a real man who does his own stunts without special effects.

A real man made in the USA, quick to befriend the kids while letting them know who's the boss.

This is what is paradoxical in Maverick and undoubtedly in Tom Cruise.

Between rebellious kid and old sage, he does not choose.

It finds its place between the two, where cinema legends settle.

“With this film, I didn't want to disappoint either the spectators or myself,” admits this eternal young man of 59 who admits that he is still thinking about his next project.

In

, a scornful officer tells the hero that one day there will be no place for him in the world.

Maverick replies that this day is not today.

A motto that Tom Cruise seems to take on board.

Knowing how to adapt while remaining yourself, the recipe for its longevity.

Movie theater

Cannes Film Festival: Tom Cruise's crazy day until the screening of "Top Gun: Maverick"

Movie theater

Cannes Film Festival: Tom Cruise takes over the handle of "Top Gun" and brings it to the Croisette

• Movie theater

• Tom Cruise

• Cannes Film Festival 2022