“Top Gun: Maverick” actor Miles Teller described an intense flight training program that he had to undergo for the film that included over 20 hours in an aircraft and learning fighter pilot skills like the “hick maneuver.”
During an appearance on the podcast “About Last Night” last week, Teller said his “Top Gun” co-star Tom Cruise organized a months-long training program so the cast could experience flying in an F-18 fighter jet.
“Tom set up a training program. It was three months of really detailed intense flying so that we could get up in the F-18s and pull seven and a half G’s and not just be puking. It’s like 1,600 pounds of pressure,” Teller said.
“And if you’re flying and you have to look around because you’re training for air-to-air combat and if you have to look for this plane behind you. You’re breathing and you’re doing this thing called a ‘hick maneuver,’” he added.
Teller demonstrated the “hick maneuver,” which is a breathing technique that involves a series of harsh and quick breaths used to resist G-LOC, or g-induced Loss Of Consciousness.
Teller said he enjoyed the first half-hour in the air, but after a while the nausea sets in.
“The first 30 minutes are cool. You’re ripping around. And then you would start getting a slight nausea feeling,” he said. “You know, yeah, you feel like you’re about to puke and you have to just keep going.”
In May, MTV News asked Teller what he remembered about shooting the film in San Diego, Calif.
“I remember as soon as we finished our beach football scene, my agent had sent me an American flag chocolate cake, but I could not eat that cake. I could not touch that cake until we finished that scene,” Teller said with a smirk. “And I just remember tearing into that cake. I started with the stripes. Moved my way up to the stars. It was romantic.”
The outlet also asked Teller which aspect of his training for the film would “haunt” him.
“You have to pass this thing called ‘the dunker.’ You get strapped to a chair and then you get blindfolded, and then they slowly start submerging you in water. And then it very slowly starts to turn you upside down. So now you’re blindfolded, you’re underwater, you’re upside down, you’re strapped to a chair. And then you have to get out.”
“Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel to the original 1986 “Top Gun,” continues to thrill audiences around the world, bringing in more than $800 million in its third week in theaters.
