Shadow and Act was live on the red carpet at the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick during its press week in San Diego in early May. The premiere took place on top of the USS Midway Museum.

Tom Cruise stopped by along with Jay Ellis, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell, Jon Hamm, Jake Picking, and Miles Teller to talk about the film and how they are excited about fans to see it all.

There were actually multiple versions of the script, and Cruise noted how some of the previous versions did not work.

“It was a moment where quite frankly, they didn’t work,” he told us. “You know, one of the stories worked. You have an idea and you start to know that we’re onto something emotionally, what effects we want to create the audience, and then we just started delving into it and it became very interested in these concepts. And I think you see it you see the emotional journey of the characters, you see the world is incredibly fascinating and that was always there. But what’s the drama? What’s the story? The story is king, always. So those things you have to develop as you’re going along.’

Davis, who was electric on the carpet from start to finish, told us about living in the moment.

“It’s an amazing feeling…something I’ve been dreaming about since I was a kid is coming true,” he said. “So why not have fun? Somebody told me you need to act like you’ve been somewhere before… I have has never been here. I don’t know how to act. [laughs]”

Teasing how the film’s highly-touted shirtless beach volleyball scene will be something fans who have seen him in Grey’s Anatomy will love, he also teed up the music in the film while also noting the sequel’s music shouldn’t be directly compared to the original.

“[The] Lady Gaga song is a beautiful song,” he continued. “And you know, people love the original soundtrack so much. I mean, who wouldn’t? Is this f*****g phenomenal! What you don’t want to do though is compare that one to this one. Because it’s two separate things, you don’t want to compare the first one to the second one. And I want people to go and listen and feel the goosebumps like I do every time I hear it.”

Watch the full interviews below:

Top Gun: Maverick hits theaters this weekend.

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