THE FAMILY
“EVERYONE HERE IS THE BEST THERE IS.”
Surrounding Maverick with the characters who would wake him from his stupor was not an easy task for Kosinski, Cruise, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and co-writer/producer Christopher McQuarrie. There’s room for the likes of Lewis Pullman’s slightly hapless Bob, or Monica Barbaro’s pugnacious Phoenix, to shine. But the big breakthrough comes from Glen Powell’s Hangman, an arrogant arse of a pilot who is kept from villainy by Powell’s sheer star-making charisma. “He’s a bit of an asshole at the beginning,” admits Kosinski. “Glen brought a lot of lines. Particularly in the airplane, he would go up with his notebook with, like, 30 lines he wanted to give us while in the air.” To paraphrase Hangman: He’s good. He’s very good. In fact, he’s too good to be true.