'Top Gun: Maverick' star Teller: Film preparation was tough

Preparing for the role of fighter pilot Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw in the movie "Top Gun: Maverick" was a challenge, actor Miles Teller told dpa.

"I wouldn't say I enjoyed parts of it," Teller said in an interview. "I just don't want to undermine how much strain it puts on your body to be able to do that every day," the 35-year-old actor added.

For a year, Teller was on a jet plane every week for flight training.

More than three decades after the box-office success "Top Gun" starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis, the story of the breakneck pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is getting a sequence.

"I was not born when the first one came out, but luckily, 'Top Gun' is on TV," Teller confessed, adding that he watched it "when I was probably 13."

The film is to be released on May 26 in Germany and in the United States the day after.

Teller and the other actors, including leading man Cruise, had to undergo several months of intensive preparation before the film was shot, to get used to the g-force in a fighter jet.

"There were certainly moments I enjoyed," said Teller. "In other moments I could not wait to get back on the ground."

In the film, however, they were not allowed to pilot the F18 fighter jets themselves.

"The Navy would not allow us, but we were in the jet and we would do briefings with all these pilots, and we had to act like we were flying," Teller said.

"I think Tom was trying, but even Tom Cruise wasn't allowed to fly the F18."