Although he officially earned his pilot’s license in 1994, Tom Cruise’s fascination with flying goes back to Top Gun in 1986, where he famously played Navy fighter pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Over the years, Cruise has purchased multiple private jets, flown them frequently enough to earn the nickname “Emissions Impossible” from environmental groups, and even sparked rumors of once using a jet for quick grocery runs during his marriage to Katie Holmes.
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But it’s helicopters that showcase Cruise’s extreme dedication to realism on screen. For Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), Cruise underwent an intensive training regimen, reportedly logging 2,000 flying hours in record time so that he could personally execute a treacherous 360-degree spiral maneuver through mountains.
Normally, a pilot would require months of daily training just to become a novice, yet Cruise pushed himself to expert-level proficiency, simply because he refused to hand the scene to a stunt double or CGI.
Even outside the world of filmmaking, Cruise seems to view flying as an extension of his larger-than-life persona. He once used a helicopter to fly his co-star, Kevin Pollack, to work.
Appearing on The Rich Eisen Show, Pollak recalled a surreal moment from the early 1990s, when the two were working together on Rob Reiner’s courtroom classic A Few Good Men. Most of the movie was filmed in Culver City, with some exteriors shot in Washington, D.C. But when the production needed to replicate scenes set in Guantanamo Bay, they turned to Long Beach, California. That’s when Cruise made an unusual offer.
“The night before we were going to shoot in Long Beach,” Pollak explained, “Tom says, ‘Hey, do you want a ride to work tomorrow?’” At first, Pollak assumed Cruise meant by car. But when he showed up the next morning, he realized his co-star had something far more dramatic in mind.
Pollak found himself valet-parking his car, not at the studio lot, but on an airport tarmac. Waiting for him was Cruise, already suited up to pilot a helicopter. “You haven’t lived until you valet-park your car on a tarmac,” Pollak laughed. Before he knew it, the two were airborne, cruising over Los Angeles in what Pollak described as both a thrilling and nerve-wracking 11-minute trip.
“He hops into the pilot’s seat, I’ve got the headphones on, and he turns to me and says, ‘Do you like the view?’ It was bonkers,” Pollak recalled. “I kept thinking, do we need to tell the insurance company about this?”
Eisen, wide-eyed, could only respond with an astonished: “Oh my word.”
More recently, Cruise was spotted casually piloting a helicopter into London with his rumored girlfriend Ana de Armas, who sat calmly next to him with her dog Elvis in tow.
For Pollak, though, the memory of that first chopper ride remains unforgettable. “When I look back at the film, at the scenes in Long Beach, I just think, ‘Yeah, that was the day Tom Cruise flew me to work.’”
