‘Are you joking?’: James Corden recreates Top Gun aerial stunt with Tom Cruise

Corden was seen freaking out as Cruise maneouvered the plane

James Corden has reenacted an aereal stunt scene from Top Gun: Maverick with Tom Cruise.

Cruise stars in the forthcoming sequel to fighter pilot thriller Top Gun, which is released in cinemas on Friday (27 May).

The actor was promoting the film during an appearance on The Late Late Show, for which he took Corden up in the air in a real jet and subjected him to some intense maneouvers.

Four years ago, the pair filmed another stunt for the Gavin & Stacey star’s talk show, in which they jumped out of an aeroplane.

“I’m very excited that James is doing this,” said Cruise, as part of the 15-minute-long segment that aired during Monday’s (23 May) episode.

“Was he the first late-night show I asked? Hell, no. He was just the first one… the only one who said yes.”

Corden can be seen looking distressed and swearing as the pair undertake Top Gun training in the air, with Cruise referring to Corden as his “Goose”, a reference to one of Top Gun’s best-known characters.

“When you say I am your Goose, it makes me feel excited and then I realise that Goose dies at the end of the film,” Corden jokes.

The full skit can be watched on YouTube.

In a four-star review of Top Gun: Maverick for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “Top Gun: Maverick really isn’t packed with the kind of craven nostalgia that we’re used to these days. It’s smarter, subtler, and wholly more humanistic.”

However, while she praised the film’s technical ambition and action sequences, she criticised the film’s treatment of the female characters from the original, writing: “Neither [Kelly] McGillis nor Meg Ryan, who played Rooster’s mother, make any kind of return. Maverick, instead, gets a new love interest in the form of Jennifer Connelly’s Penny, the admiral’s daughter offhandedly mentioned in the first film, now a bar owner and a single mother.

“There’ll come a time when we need to talk about why Hollywood only accepts older women who look a certain way. Until then, who can be blamed for getting swept up by a film this damned fun?”