Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick Co-Star Shared A Funny Story About The ‘Challenge’ Of Being Pals With Him

Greg Tarzan Davis as Coyote in Top Gun: Maverick
(Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

Tom Cruise is on a career high right now, as his 2022 new release film Top Gun: Maverick is the highest grossing domestic film of his long career. The film is also breaking records for Paramount, and behind the film are a number of newly formed relationships between the many of its stars. Greg Tarzan Davis, who plays Coyote in the newly released Top Gun: Maverick, has now opened up and shared a funny story about one “challenge” of being friends with Cruise.

At this point, there have been plenty of stories about how intense and extreme Tom Cruise can be. The man does a ton of his own stunts, no matter how dangerous or skilled they are. He loves a challenge, and really doesn’t seem to be someone who will back down from a new experience. That being said, not very many people can look a possibly deadly situation in the face and smile like Cruise can. 

In an interview with ET, Greg Tarzan Davis says it is challenging being friends with Cruise, because he really has to watch what he says to the Top Gun star. Davis recalls the time he casually told Cruise he thought it would be cool to go skydiving, just to wake up to a phone call about the extreme sport. Here it is relayed in Davis’ own words:

It's a challenge, you know, because he’s the type of person that, if you say something is cool or you say that you wanna do something -- like I said, 'Oh man, it'd be cool to learn how to skydive,' and he's like, 'Oh yeah? You think so?' The next day I get a call saying, 'Hey, yeah, so I was talking to Tom and Tom said that you wanted to learn how to skydive. I'm like, 'Wait, wait! That was just the conversation starter, Tom! I didn't really mean it.'

I feel like Tom Cruise is just aching to make some new adrenaline junkie friends, and he jumps at the opportunity to nurture that inner dare devil in fellow actors. There were certainly some intense training and stunts that Cruise made his co-stars go through, including learning how to fly real fighter jets.

While it doesn’t sound like Greg Tarzan Davis ended up skydiving, he did film another movie with Tom Cruise. The Mission: Impossible franchise is known for having some pretty death-defying stunts and Davis has a role in the upcoming Mission: Impossible 7 opposite Tom Cruise

Acting in two major Tom Cruise films puts Greg Tarzan Davis in the metaphorical line of fire when it comes to intense stunts and adrenaline packed scenes. It only makes sense that Cruise would take Davis super seriously when he heard he might want to take that experience and bleed it over into his personal life.

I guess the moral of the story is to not mention wanting to try anything extreme around Tom Cruise, or else he’ll have it on your schedule for the next day. Luckily that’s only a problem for his friends and co-stars, though, and fans can enjoy all the stunts and action from a distance. Top Gun: Maverick is in theaters now, and fans are really loving the action packed movie so far. Mission: Impossible 7 will release July of next year and is expected to have even more stunts fit for even the most extreme adrenaline junkies. 

Carlie Hoke
Content Writer

Constantly thinking about books, coffee, and the existential dread I feel from Bo Burnham’s Inside.  While writing I’m also raising a chaotic toddler, who may or may not have picked up personality traits from watching one too many episodes of Trailer Park Boys.