'Top Gun' producer says 'it wasn't easy' convincing Tom Cruise to play Maverick

Top Gun debuted in theaters May 16, 1986, just over 35 years ago.

In other words, it's about time for rumors surrounding actors considered for Pete "Maverick" Mitchell to be resolved once and for all.

Variety's Brent Lang asked Jerry Bruckheimer, one of four Top Gun producers, exactly that. Here's what Bruckheimer had to say:

"It was always Tom. Once we finished the screenplay, he was the only actor we talked to. ... It wasn’t easy. We wanted Tom after we saw Risky Business and he kind of hemmed and hawed. So we arranged for him to fly with the Blue Angels at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro, California. He drove up there on his motorcycle, and he had just finished a movie with Ridley Scott, Legend, and his hair was long and in a ponytail. 

"And they took one look at him and thought, we're going to give this hippie a ride. They took him up on an F-14 and flipped him and did all kinds of stunts to turn him around and make sure he never got back in a cockpit. But it was just the opposite. He landed and he walked over to a phone booth and called me up and said, 'Jerry. I’m making the movie. I love it.' He became an amazing aviator himself. He can fly just about any plane they can make."

Cruise has reprised his role for Top Gun: Maverick—directed by Joseph Kosinski rather than the late Tony Scott, who tragically died in August 2012—due out Nov. 19.

Bruckheimer and Kosinski provided more insight into the highly anticipated action drama for Empire Magazine's new Cruise-themed issue released earlier this month: