Glen Powell Is Much More Comfortable Going into Top Gun 3 Thanks to Recent Experiences

Glen Powell is good, very good in Top Gun: Maverick. Powell’s character, Lt. Jake Seresin, who goes by the call sign Hangman, may not have quite as much screen time as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) or Miles Teller’s Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, but Hangman goes through a meaningful character arc, which results in him playing “savior” at the end of the film. And with Top Gun 3 in the works, Hangman is expected to take flight again. However, this time around, Powell is much more comfortable given his experience with movies like Top Gun,Devotion and The Blue Angels now under his belt. Powell said in an interview with Screen Rant:

“I will say that when we made
Top Gun Maverick, that was a new shiny world for me.
And now
I feel that it’s still filled with brilliance.
It’s still shiny to me, but it’s also a group of people I call my family.
So, I can go into this movie in a different way.
Maybe just the fact that it
feels a little bit more lived in and a little more comfortable
for all of us will be really wonderful.”

Top Gun: Maverick

Tom Cruise returns as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, and keeps pushing the envelope as a seasoned aviator for the Navy in this sequel to the original Top Gun film.

Release Date

May 27, 2022

Director

Joseph Kosinski

Runtime

2hr 26min

Studio

Paramount Pictures

After playing Hangman in Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Powell portrayed the role of Lt. Tom Hudner in the biographical war drama Devotion later that same year. And he recently served as a producer on the new IMAX documentary The Blue Angels, which opened in theaters just last weekend. Powell said in the same interview:

“There are a lot of very smart brains on [Top Gun 3] that really do not need my brain involved at all.
They’re going to put a wonderful story together.
But I will say that
after making Top Gun and making Devotion, you really feel a sense of community in this Navy.
When I look at my texts in the morning, the fact that a lot of ’em are call signs is very cool,
and the fact that I still call these pilots my friends is really wonderful.”

‘I’m Sure There Is a Jet Waiting for Me Sometime in the Future’

There are arguably plenty of reasons that Top Gun: Maverick surpasses the original film, and one is the performance of Glen Powell as the Iceman-esque aviator Hangman. Jake Seresin is set up as one of the program’s elite pilots and as a cocky, self-absorbed sort. But when Maverick (Cruise) and Rooster’s (Teller) lives are on the line, it’s the loyalty-driven Hangman who can’t sit idly by and ends up saving the duo.

And with Top Gun 3 in the works, which will undoubtedly follow the further adventures of Pete Mitchell’s Maverick, it’s a safe bet moviegoers will see Seresin flying the friendly skies once more. And Powell is “sure” there’s a place set for him at the film’s family table in the “future.” Powell said in an interview with Variety back in January:

“People looked at me like I knew what was going on.
There is going to be some fun stuff being announced soon… but it was confidential to me.
I talk to [Joseph] Kosinski, Cruise and Jerry [Bruckheimer] all the time.
There is stuff happening and it sounds very exciting.
I don’t know when I’ll be going back…
I’m sure there is a jet waiting for me sometime in the future.”

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Powell’s latest big-screen project came with him working behind the camera as a producer on The Blue Angels IMAX documentary, which made $1.4 million last weekend in just 227 theaters (per Box Office Mojo). And Powell was in the news recently for making the Texas Film Hall of Fame, at which his prankster parents hilariously trolled the actor.