Tom Cruise Is Doing Some Impressive Motorcycle Riding For Top Gun: Maverick

Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis on a motorcycle in Top Gun

Top Gun: Maverick may be all about flying fighter jets, but those aren't the only skills Tom Cruise will be showing off in the new sequel. His character's ground vehicle of choice is, of course, a motorcycle, and Cruise's skill at driving one is even impressing his co-stars. Jennifer Connelly, who will co-star with Cruise in the film, recently spoke about one scene in the movie that had the actor showing off just how good he was by the way he was able to hit his mark every time, even while coming to a complete stop from a high speed. According to Connelly...

He’s an excellent driver. I was marveling at it actually, because we had this scene. We were doing that and we raced down the street and we pull up at the house that’s supposed to be my house and, like, not once was it even half of an inch off. Every time it was zoom down the street and then stop perfectly exactly on the mark. He’s got skills! For sure.

It may seem like a small thing, but hitting your mark in order to be sure you're properly in the frame of the camera is sort of important, and if you're on a motorcycle going 40 miles an hour, stopping in a specific spot isn't going to be the easiest thing in the world. Unless of course you're a professional rider, and at this point Tom Cruise basically is.

The actor is famous for wanting to do as much of his own in front of the camera work as he is capable of doing. He's climbed buildings and jumped out of airplanes at high altitude and he's been on a motorcycle a few times. Eventually, when you do things like this enough, you're just going to become naturally good at them due to all the practice and now you can bet that Tom Cruise can do some pretty impressive things on a motorcycle.

It hasn't even been that long since Cruise rode one for a film. Mission: Impossible - Fallout that had him weaving through traffic running in the opposite direction. If he can do that, hitting his mark probably didn't even require much thought.

While Tom Cruise probably won't need to do anything too extreme on a motorcycle in Top Gun: Maverick, that doesn't mean the movie won't be full of impressive action performed by Cruise himself. It appears that Tom Cruise is learning to actually fly planes for the new movie. While he won't be flying the actual Navy fighter jets that will be the focus of the movie, it's been reported he will be flying some sort of aircraft himself, possibly made to look like Cruise is flying a fighter jet.

From what Jennifer Connelly tells ET it seems that Top Gun: Maverick is moving right along and that means that before we know it the long awaited sequel to Top Gun will actually be here.

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.