On ‘Top’: ‘Maverick’s’ Miles Teller Talks ‘Top Gun’s’ Legacy

When it was released in 1986, the general consensus around critics was that Top Gun was just another standard-issue action movie. But fans and time proved them wrong. Released the weekend before Memorial Day, the film stayed in the box office Top 10 until Halloween on its way to becoming the year’s top-grossing film. In 2015, the U.S. Library of Congress added the film to America’s National Film Registry, marking it as a film with cultural, historic, or aesthetic significance. And 36 years later, it’s still popular enough to finally be getting a sequel, Top Gun: Maverick. While Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer return from the original, the new cast members are led by Miles Teller, who plays the son of the first film’s “Goose” Bradshaw. Though Teller wasn’t born until a year after Top Gun opened in theaters, he still understands the film’s place in pop culture. (Click on the media bar below to hear Miles Teller)

Top Gun: Maverick opens in theaters on May 27.