‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Star Glen Powell Shares Touching Tribute to Tony Scott, Recreates Iconic Photo

Glen Powell is honoring the “Top Gun” cast and crew before him.

While the sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” deals largely in legacies — ill-fated Goose’s son Rooster (Miles Teller) joins the ranks under Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, played by returning icon Tom Cruise — Powell plays antagonist Hangman, the modern counterpart to Val Kilmer’s Iceman alter-ego (although Kilmer is also back for the long-awaited follow-up).

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Set 30 years after the original 1986 film directed by the late Tony Scott, “Top Gun” Maverick” is helmed by Joseph Kosinski and has already taken over the summer as the blockbuster to beat. Breakout star Powell posted a behind-the-scenes photo alongside Kosinski, recreating a famous shot of Scott and Cruise from “Top Gun.”

“We went into this journey humbled by the legacy of the great Tony Scott. Based on the response to our film…I think Tony would be proud,” Powell captioned. “I asked Joe Kosinski to recreate this iconic shot with me. Just two ‘Top Gun’ fans getting sent back to ‘Top Gun’ in the way every fan dreams.”

Legendary director Scott, brother of fellow filmmaker Ridley Scott, died in 2012.

Kosinski exclusively detailed how “Top Gun: Maverick” revisited one of lead star Cruise’s best roles and paid homage to Scott’s first film. The inherent emotional arc between the two installments is further established with a cut between the decades-spanning films, with Cruise seeing a young Rooster (Teller) as a child in the 1986 movie.

“That was not in the script. That was something we discovered and I asked my editor to try when we were putting the bar scene together, where Maverick’s watching Rooster,” Kosinski told IndieWire. “I realized that Rooster is in the first movie, sitting on the piano with the cowboy hat. I wasn’t sure what it would feel like, cutting the first movie into this film. Even from the first assembly, I saw how evocative it was and how emotional it was.”

Kosinski added, “You really see Maverick as a young man, holding Goose in his arms. The visual connection between Rooster and Goose is so strong, you just put it together.”

As for the franchise legacy and the success of “Maverick,” Kosinski summed up, “There was no difference between ‘Top Gun’ fans and non-‘Top Gun’ fans. I could have never anticipated that, but I do think people could potentially get more out of it if they’ve seen the first film. But people seem to enjoy it either way.”

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