Miles Teller had jet fuel in his blood while filming Top Gun 2 and Tom Cruise wasn’t impressed
Actor Miles Teller revealed that, while filming Top Gun 2, he had trace amounts of jet fuel in his bloodstream and Tom Cruise was not impressed.
Top Gun 2 opened to massive critical and commercial success, building off the legacy of the classic 80s action movie. Tom Cruise returning as protagonist Pete “Maverick” Mitchell was obviously a huge selling point for the sequel, but he was surrounded by a strong, supporting cast who brought depth to the movie.
Among this stellar supporting cast was Miles Teller, playing the son of Maverick’s RIO Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, who died in the first Top Gun movie. Teller’s character, Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, served not only as an early antagonist to Cruise’s character, but also as a reminder of Maverick’s failure in the first movie.
Teller clearly took the role to heart, as he revealed in an interview.
Teller had jet fuel in his blood…literally
Miles Teller as Rooster in Top Gun: MaverickIn an interview with Seth Meyers, Teller recounted how began to develop an illness during filming. This eventually grew so bad that he broke out in hives covering his whole body after being inside the jet.
Teller eventually needed to go to a doctor for testing to diagnose the mysterious ailment. The results were quite surprising.
“So I go to the doctor and my blood work comes back and I have flame-retardant, pesticides, and jet fuel in my blood,” Teller told Meyer. Luckily, with this information Teller was able to be treated and return to filming.
While news of having jet fuel in his blood would make most people nervous, Teller seems to have taken the news in stride.
Tom Cruise was not impressed
Teller says his reaction to learning about the jet fuel in his bloodstream was that “this is kind of cool.”
“So I go to set the next day and Tom [Cruise] is like, ‘So how did it go, Miles? What did they find?’ I was like, ‘Well, Tom, it turns out I have jet fuel in my blood.'”
Unfortunately, Cruise did not have the impressed reaction that Teller was expecting.
Tom responded to the news by simply saying, “yeah, I was born with it kid”, Teller says. But the exchange stuck with Teller as an example of Cruise’s incredible attitude and dedication to his craft. “That was a very Tom moment for me,” Teller told Meyer with a chuckle.