The Poster Memorabilia blog

Top Gun's Superstars in Person

The 1986 cast list nobody remembers, tracked down one signature at a time.

By an anonymous Hollywood insider

There's no doubt that Tom Cruise was the star of Top Gun, but do you know just how many big stars are in it? You probably don't, since they weren't big then. Apart from Cruise, the movie also starred Val Kilmer, Tom Skerritt, Tim Robbins, and Meg Ryan. They’re all icons today.

I feel like most people rarely remember Top Gun when they think of these stars' filmographies. I suppose it can't be helped since they went on to make totally different movies afterward. Robbins is now best-known for The Shawshank Redemption, for example, while Ryan became the quintessential rom-com lead in the 90s and early 2000s.

There's also Tom Cruise's superstardom, which casts a light so bright that other stars simply get left behind in the shadows. The guy's the quintessential modern-day movie star. His name alone can ensure that a movie goes on to be a box-office hit, even if it's another sequel to a film franchise that, in my opinion, has already run its course.

“If the world isn't going to remember them being in Top Gun, then at least I did.”

Anyway, I mention all this to say I found it weird that Cruise and Kilmer were the only ones who returned for Top Gun: Maverick. The rest were all still working and bigger than ever, so why not get them all back to pile on the star power? Watching that Kilmer scene now, after losing him last year, I'm just glad they got him in there while they could.

If the world isn't going to remember them being in Top Gun, then at least I did. In my crusade to get the stars to sign my Top Gun movie poster, I also chased down the supporting cast. I didn't get to all of them, but I'm still proud I met the big stars.

✦ ✦ ✦

Meeting Tom Cruise was easy enough because he's never one to shy away from the public. I met him at the New York premiere of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in 2011, and he was the first cast member to sign my poster. The whole thing was so easy that I've since gotten him to sign many other movie posters.

The others were a bit more challenging since they weren't as active throughout the 2010s. I was lucky to get Meg Ryan's autograph at all. I met her at the 41st Annual Chaplin Award Gala in 2014, where she and Billy Crystal reunited on stage to honor Rob Reiner. She stepped back from the spotlight not long after that, and only recently has she started working in movies again.

I also met Tim Robbins that same year and got him to sign two movie posters. It was at the 20th anniversary screening for The Shawshank Redemption, where he reunited with the rest of that movie's cast. Since they were all there, I figured I'd get that cast to sign my Shawshank poster too.

Fortunately, Robbins was happy to sign two posters. In fact, the whole cast was nice when I met them. They seemed happy to sign my Top Gun poster, which tells me that they probably enjoyed making the movie. And I really hope that’s the case, so at least if the public forgot they were in it, they themselves didn’t.

Some things you watch. This one you keep.

Guaranteed authentic for life • 90-day returns, any reason