Ryan Reynolds says ‘Top Gun’ made him want to marry a plane

Ryan Reynolds felt the need for speed, even as a 9-year-old.

The A-list actor plays a Navy fighter pilot who gets thrown into a sticky situation in the action comedy “Mayday” (streaming Sept. 4 on Apple TV). And in 1986, Reynolds was in awe watching Tom Cruise in similar dire straits in “Top Gun,” at a Vancouver movie theater alongside his older brother Patrick.

“It was just mind-blowing,” Reynolds, 49, says. "As a young kid, you were watching this movie where you never thought airplanes could be that cool. I was like, ‘Maybe if I'm lucky, I could marry an airplane. I don't know if anyone's ever joined bodies in such a way, but I'll find a way. I'll be so good to it. I'll treat it so great. I will never disrespect it.'”

Reynolds also loved how there was “such wish fulfillment” in “Top Gun,” he adds. Being a Canadian youngster at that time, “everything about America was just a little shinier, bigger, cooler, faster. And that movie was really the personification of that feeling for me."

Set in 1987 during the Cold War, “Mayday” stars Reynolds as Troy “Assassin” Kelly, a hotshot American pilot who gets tapped for…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/entertainment/