Top Gun Exposed: Onset Secrets They Didn’t Want Out

Val Kilmer’s Ad-Lib

Val Kilmer originally declined the role of the Iceman in Top Gun. Scott Ridley hunted him down and found him to talk him into playing the now iconic part of the gum-chewing, Maverick hating pilot. Barry Tubb (who played Wolfman) said that the cast would pile into Kilmer’s van and use it to “wreak havoc across the Mexican border” before hurrying back for their call time on set.

Fitting for a script with so many changes (from the very first script until after the whole thing wrapped) Kilmer ad-libbed the stand-out memorable moment when he coughed a harsher word for bull excrement in the hangar scene.

Meg and Anthony

Meg Ryan played Goose’s wife in Top Gun, and although she only had a few scenes, they were emblazoned in the mind of anyone who saw and loved the film. Her grief in the film after Goose’s death was an essential part of humanizing Maverick, showing the depth of the pain that he was trying to control and conceal.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Meg and Anthony had secretly started dating. They got very serious very quickly and moved in together. It was rumored that Anthony Edwards proposed to Meg Ryan and that she turned him down. They were only together for a year, from 1986 to 1987.