The Cold War was still very much a thing in the ’80s and that meant a whole lot of filmmaking was influenced by those happenings. It also meant that some anti-Soviet sentiment was going to creep into movies that were being made at the time. “Top Gun” is no exception. That is important as it, in a roundabout way, gave Cruise arguably the most defining role of his career. Without “Top Gun,” would Cruise have become Ethan Hunt leading the “Mission: Impossible” movies for more than 25 years? Would he have become a three-time Oscar-nominated actor? It’s tough to say. What we know for sure is that Cruise, despite being a rising star at the time, was not the first choice to play Maverick. The “Taps” star only ended up in a position to play the role of Maverick after Matthew Modine passed.
Indeed, Modine was offered the role first, having starred in movies such as “Private School” and “Vision Quest” prior to his would-be role in one of the biggest blockbusters of the ’80s. So, why on Earth did Modine turn down the role in a production from director Tony Scott and mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer? He wanted to star in Stanely Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” a radically different kind of war movie, instead. In an interview from 2020, the actor explained, saying:
“I wanted to tell the story about human behavior and what the war does to individuals, our youth and how the scars that people receive from combat are not always physical. I thought it was a much more important story to me than telling the story about pointing the finger at the Russians and saying that they were the bad guy.”
Modine has gone on to have a fine career and “Full Metal Jacket” is an unquestioned classic. Most actors would kill to star in a movie like that, so it’s hard to say he made the wrong choice, it’s just that his choice opened up the door for Cruise to slip through. On the other side of that door? Movie stardom that likes of which only a very small number of people who have ever lived on this planet will ever know.
