\t\t\tThe first time Monica Barbaro watched Top Gun, she was in San Diego with a couple of \u201cvery bro-y dudes,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWhat do you mean you haven\u2019t seen Top Gun?\u201d they asked her when she wasn\u2019t understanding their references to Miramar, the Marine Corps Air Station in which the film is set. \u201cI was like, \u2018What are you talking about?\u2019\u201dNaturally, the group eased her confusion by watching the cult 1986 aviation flick, starring Tom Cruise in one of his most famous roles. And college-aged Barbaro, a trained dancer who was deciding whether to make the transition into acting at the time, was impressed. \u201cI remember watching it and being like, \u2018Oh man, it\u2019d be cool to do something like that.\u2019\u201d But she wasn\u2019t sure it was possible. \u201cI just never really even put myself in it, because I never thought that there would be that space for me as a pilot.\u201dAnd yet, years later, she\u2019s doing exactly that, as she stars in the film\u2019s long-awaited sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, which finally opened this past weekend after two years of pandemic-related delays. She plays Natasha \u201cPhoenix\u201d Trace, a driven young pilot in the newest class of Top Gun recruits, all training for a dangerous mission under the guidance of daredevil Pete \u201cMaverick\u201d Mitchell (Cruise). Like Barbaro, Phoenix also finds herself among the bros in this male-dominated course, which, unsurprisingly, isn\u2019t too different from real life. (Women make up about 21 percent of the Air Force and about 20 percent of the Navy, which houses Top Gun.) But she\u2019s treated as an equal, not just a potential love interest, as she plays pool and beach volleyball with the crew, trades snide remarks, and competes for success like the rest of guys. She\u2019s only one of a couple female pilots in Maverick, but that\u2019s more than the original, which essentially had none. Barbaro, and members of the aviation community, hope this film can at least inspire more women to become pilots.For Maverick\u2019s 10-month shoot, which wrapped three years ago this month, art imitated life behind the scenes, as Cruise led his younger co-stars through a rigorous training program. The syllabus included flying in various planes and even underwater training (in case they had to eject from their aircrafts into water). But unlike Maverick and his students, this group got along swimmingly. \u201cI think we were all pretty gung-ho and ready to do it,\u201d Barbaro says. She and her fellow actors\u2014including Miles Teller, Jay Ellis, Glen Powell, Danny Ramirez, and Lewis Pullman\u2014grew closer because of it. \u201cWe formed some really intense bonds, because no one in our world was going through what we were going through.\u201dAnd all those flight scenes? They were real. \u201cThere were no simulators. We were in planes doing them.\u201d Perhaps a few close-ups of someone flicking controls on the dashboard weren\u2019t airborne, Barbaro clarifies, \u201cBut all of the flying that you see is in the air.\u201d Of course, those speedy takeoffs, sharp turns, dips, and spins took some getting used to\u2014for the actors and their stomachs. \u201cI was very lucky to have not thrown up,\u201d she laughs. Barbaro, whose acting credits include The Good Cop, UnREAL, and Chicago P.D., will later star in an upcoming Netflix series with Arnold Schwarzenegger, though she never thought she\u2019d become an action star. Turns out, she\u2019s not even an adrenaline junkie, even if she plays one well on screen. If anything, she saw herself doing period pieces, after growing up watching British dramas and BBC Jane Austen specials. \u201cI like being an actor because I get to change it up,\u201d she says, leaving the door open for a potential period drama in the future. \u201cThat is what I love about this\u2014that I get to totally steer in different directions.\u201dHer love for acting and film was fostered by her favorite titles growing up, like Romy and Michelle\u2019s High School Reunion, Galaxy Quest, Charade, and Am\u00e9lie. Alfonso Cuaron\u2019s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban also opened her eyes to (literal) movie magic. \u201cI would love to escape life day in and day out and get to pretend to be in entirely different worlds for a living,\u2019\u201d she remembers thinking. With a growing resume like hers, who says she can\u2019t?Here, Barbaro talks Maverick, the women who took her under their wing, and having mentors like Cruise and Schwarzenegger. What was your initial reaction to landing a part in Maverick?I was super stoked because of the fact that I got to play a pilot. I told my mom immediately, and that my part in this classic action movie was not going to be that of a love interest; although, I will say, I think Jennifer Connelly is incredible in this, and I think she is strong, stands alone, is great at sailing, runs her own business. She\u2019s the coolest. So I think every woman in this was in good hands, but it was cool to just be able to be a character whose purpose in each scene had to do with the other characters and had to do with the trajectory of the plot, not necessarily, just be a component to fall in love with or not. Her presence is just as valid as everyone else\u2019s. Again, as is Jennifer Connelly\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The movie shows both sides.Yeah, having one woman represent that for a character in the film, and then one woman representing being a co-worker and a fellow pilot and someone to be trusted and responsible.Though the original movie is iconic, it\u2019s very much a boys\u2019 club, and that changes a little bit in the sequel.Yeah. And I mean, the Kelly McGillis character [Charlie, Maverick\u2019s instructor and love interest in Top Gun] was also smart and knew what she was talking about and went toe to toe with Maverick. But I think it just was a really different time. And I think they did a great job of maintaining genre and still updating it so that there was more diversity across the board, which was incredible. It\u2019s hard, because there\u2019s also a lot of pressure with it. I\u2019m sure there are still people out there who think women shouldn\u2019t be flying these planes, and then you meet incredible women who are flying these planes, and you want to do them the honor of representing them in a way that showcases them to the best of your ability, because they are so incredible and they deserve the best representation possible. Some of them grew up having seen this movie, wanting to be fighter pilots sometimes because of it, despite the fact that there was no representation of them in this film. I have heard from people that are hoping [Top Gun: Maverick] helps more women realize that they can be pilots, even if they are commercial pilots or have their own license, or whatever that may mean, because I think we only make up nine percent of the aviation community, even though we\u2019re half the population. I would hope it\u2019s inspiring, but we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
\t\tJay Ellis, Monica Barbaro, and Danny Ramirez in Top Gun: Maverick.
\n\tScott Garfield\/Paramount Pictures<\/p>\n
Did you talk to any real-life women pilots or women in the community to prepare for the role?I flew with them in the booth. I think there were maybe one or two flights where I flew with a guy. Pretty much all of the footage of me in the film up in the air, is being flown and piloted by [women]… And same with Lewis [Pullman, who plays Robert \u201cBob\u201d Floyd] actually, because he plays my backseater. So, anything that was over the shoulder was of someone who looked like Phoenix from the back.Lewis and I flew with two women in particular who I\u2019m just a huge fan of. They came to the premiere with me last week, and it was just so exciting to have them there. That was the nice thing about seeing it three times\u2014having them there, I was like, \u201cOh yeah, when we were flying in the snow, that was with Bacon and then that low-level flight was with Dragon\u201d\u2014those are their call signs. It was just fun. They were definite role models for me, and for the character for sure. And I got to talk to a lot of female aviators on the ground too. What did you learn from them?I think the main lesson that came out of me inquiring what it was like to be in a male-dominated field was that, I think they strive to get to a place where their gender is not what the commentary is about, because even I saw, just in the tiniest ways, as soon as I booked this, it was like, \u201cMonica Barbaro will play a female pilot.\u201d Like, well, no shit, I am a female. I\u2019m not playing a female just as much as Glen Powell is not playing a male. You say he\u2019s playing a pilot, so won\u2019t you say the same for me?And that was the energy, I think, behind what they were saying. They work really hard. Sometimes, they have to work twice as hard to prove themselves in these spaces. And then, ultimately, when it comes to being asked questions, it becomes more about the fact that they are female than about the fact that they are pilots. And yet, I think it was really important to them to have this character [Phoenix] be represented in a very specific way, that she\u2019d be strong and competent at the very least, and just one of the guys that she flies with.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019m not playing a female just as much as Glen Powell is not playing a male. You say he\u2019s playing a pilot, so won\u2019t you say the same for me?\u201d<\/p>\n
The training program looked so intense. Can you fly a plane at this point? What were all the skills you were able to develop? I mean, I was more scared for the water portion than I was for the flying. I did a lot of my own [stunts], holding my breath underwater and doing laps and strengthening as a swimmer, just so I would be comfortable. I think that taught me about my ability to get past fear in a really interesting way. I think I overcame things\u2014that was really great. In terms of the flying, I was just having a blast. I am halfway through ground school in becoming a pilot. I have taken this very slowly. I need to get back into it, but a project will come up and I dive into that. But I mean, I love it. We did learn how to start up a plane, take off, land, do all that. I mean, I wouldn\u2019t trust myself in most emergency situations right now. I like to say in an apocalypse, if a plane had fuel in it, I would essentially know what to do to get out of a bad situation. But no, I definitely need some training to get back in and fly on my own. We did 40 hours of flights and we flew in several aircrafts. We\u2019re all aviation nerds now. If I get to check out a cockpit, I take videos and send them to the other guys, because it\u2019s just fun.
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Tom Cruise starred and also lead you through training. What was it like seeing him in action?I mean, that was incredible. That was the most interesting thing I think about all of this, is that we got to watch him operate at the level that he always does. His expectations of everyone around him are through the roof, as they should be, because everyone is able to show up and do incredible things with that belief and trust in them. The way he designed this program for us, I think was based on having experiences where he has ramped up his stunts to an incredible degree and didn\u2019t necessarily have the opportunity to do things the way he did for this on the first one.And I think he saw that as a bit of a loss, and something that he really wanted to be able to achieve on the sequel was to do all of the stunts for real. And he very well could have put himself in a plane and then had us all on green screens on the ground. But he didn\u2019t, he took us along and fought really hard to give us the opportunity to get to do things the way he does them, and that was awesome.Looking ahead to your other projects, you have a Netflix series with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is also a huge blockbuster action star. Is there anything you can tell us about that?It\u2019s all very much under wraps because we\u2019re filming right now. But it is super fun, and I\u2019m really glad I\u2019ve had this stunt experience in Top Gun to bring with me here, just to validate the expectation that you rehearse something a lot in order to get it right, to do on the day. That\u2019s definitely the mentality of dance. \u2026 Last week, I was talking to Tom about [a] scene and asking him some questions and he was like, \u201cOh yeah, here\u2019s what I know about things like that.\u201d We can always reach out to him, which is incredible. And now I\u2019m excited to use Arnold as a resource, because he\u2019s obviously done so many things and he\u2019s already done this action-comedy space, which is really specific and more of what we\u2019re going forward with in the show. It\u2019s supposed to be fun. I\u2019m just excited to see it.The two of them work so differently in their own ways and are great in their own right. It\u2019s just really fun to get to see people you\u2019ve been watching for so many years\u2014to not only meet them, but to get to work with them and see what makes them tick and see how they operate.This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tErica Gonzales
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tErica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more.<\/p>\n
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