Summary

• Miles Teller played Rooster in Top Gun: Maverick, but wasn't Goose's son in the original Top Gun. Many viewers may have forgotten that Rooster appeared in the 1986 movie before being reintroduced in the sequel.
• The original child actors who portrayed Goose's son, Bradley, were not approached to return for Top Gun: Maverick. The Weis twins have moved on from acting and are now teachers. They were not even credited in the original film and were considered as extras.
• Miles Teller was a great choice to play Rooster in the sequel. His performance was applauded, and he brought depth and emotion to the role. Bringing back the original actors would have hurt the impact of the movie and Teller's portrayal solidified his place in the role.

Miles Teller played Rooster in Top Gun: Maverick, the son of Maverick's best friend, Goose, but Teller didn't star as Goose's son in the original Top Gun. There are likely some viewers who forgot that Rooster appeared in the 1986 original movie before being reintroduced as a main character in Top Gun 2 decades later. In Top Gun, Bradley was portrayed by child actors and identical twins, Aaron and Adam Weis. Meg Ryan, whose career was yet to take off at this time, played Goose's wife, Carole, who also had a key role in Goose and Rooster's Top Gun story.

Despite his small role in the first movie, Bradley plays an important role in showing Goose's happy family life that adds to the tragedy of his death later in Top Gun. It also makes it all the more impactful when the adult Goose, played now by Miles Teller, comes back in Top Gun 2. While Top Gun: Maverick featured some returning cast from the original, Bradley aka Rooster was recast. Teller's performance was applauded by audiences and critics but there is some question as to why the change was made.

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Why Goose's Son Was Recast In Top Gun: Maverick

Neither Original Actor Was Approached To Return

According to Aaron and Adam Weis, neither was ed about reprising the role, and the reason for that is quite simple: the twins have since moved on from acting, and are now in the teaching profession (via San Diego Union-Tribune). Aaron Weis is a sixth-grade teacher, while Adam is a fifth-grade teacher. Their only other acting appearance outside Top Gun was a SeaWorld commercial with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Also, the Weis twins weren't even credited in Top Gun and were counted as extras.

Naturally, the studio wanted a known actor with experience to play an important role like Rooster in Top Gun: Maverick. Based on the fact that the Weis twins didn't pursue careers in acting, this is one case where bringing back the original actor wasn't an option that the studio could have explored. Regardless, their absence was another example of how much the cast changed for Top Gun: Maverick, which only featured two familiar faces: Tom Cruise's Maverick and Val Kilmer's Iceman.

How Top Gun 2 Rooster Actor Miles Teller Contributed To The Film's Success

Bringing Back The Original Actors Would Have Hurt The Movie's Impact

For all the reasons it made sense to recast the original Bradley actors, Miles Teller was an especially good choice to take their place in Top Gun: Maverick. The heart of the movie focuses on Rooster and Maverick's dynamic and how they process their shared trauma over Goose's death, which makes the role all the more important. Miles Teller's powerhouse performance illustrates clearly that he was the perfect actor for the job, as he's easily one of the best parts of the sequel, which perfectly leveraged Goose and Rooster's Top Gun legacy.

Top Gun 2 worked because it chose storytelling over the nostalgia of seeing recognizable characters from Top Gun, and Rooster's foregrounding and recasting were key elements of that. Casting the original film's child actors in grown-up roles can be satisfying for audiences, but it would have been wrong for the movie overall. Had one or both of the Weis twins returned to play Bradley Bradshaw (and had they even been recognizable three decades on), any familiarity would probably have been overshadowed by a lack of recent practice in the craft.

Teller, on the other hand, is a seasoned, skilled performer, and he was absolutely the right choice for Top Gun: Maverick. He has solidified himself in the role more than the original actors ever could given their brief appearances. As a testament to how effective Teller was in the role, he will reportedly be continuing on as Rooster in Top Gun 3 alongside Tom Cruise.

How Miles Teller Approached His Top Gun Role As Goose's Son

Teller Came Up With A Key Homage To Goose

While it was doubtless a challenge to the relationship between Goose and Rooster justice, Miles Teller said that he focused on capturing the character's "vibe," alongside a collaborative process with director Joseph Kosinski, with whom Teller had already worked prior to the Top Gun sequel (via Games Radar):

"Well, for me, I think when I would think about Goose, it was more of like, a certain feeling, you know, Goose's he's a vibe. In the original, you know, he and Tom are peers, Goose is his wingman and in this one Rooster flies alone, he’s a single-seater. So I think that speaks to him a little bit."

Notably, after considering thousands of call signs for the character, it was Teller who came up with "Rooster," Bradley's Top Gun: Maverick call sign. Teller also revealed that playing Goose's son was an emotional experience, as it continued a story that was established decades ago and touched so many in the process. As for sharing scenes with Tom Cruise, Teller had nothing but good things to say about working with the veteran leading man.

The Original Top Gun Goose's Son Actors Weren't ed For Maverick

The Actors Reveal Their Original Salary For Top Gun

Although Goose's sons in Top Gun — Aaron and Adam Weis — weren't considered for the sequel, they seem to harbor no ill feelings. Before Top Gun: Maverick hit theaters, Adam Weis commented that the sequel would be "fun to watch" (via Comic Book). Curiously, he also divulged that, for their part in Top Gun, they were only paid $384 each, which is about $900 today. It wasn't a lot, but Adam also explained that, "With that money, we started our savings s."

With the Weis twins no longer interested in pursuing acting, they don't seem to have any problems with Miles Teller playing the adult version of their character. Indeed, the challenge of playing Rooster entailed not just being Hangman's rival in Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell's guilt over Goose's death in Top Gun.

Able to climb the ranks of the U.S. Navy program formerly known as Top Gun, Goose's son undergoes his own journey of discovery, which doesn't repeat but pays tribute to Maverick's original wingman. It may seem a little rude that the Weis twins weren't even ed for the role, but the studio did what it had to do to properly continue Goose's story and arrive at the perfect ending for Rooster and Maverick.

Top Gun

PG

Drama

Action

9.0/10

Release Date

May 16, 1986

In this classic action flick, Tom Cruise stars as daring young pilot Pete "Maverick" Mitchell. Among the other students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school, he competes to be best in the class, and learns a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom.

Cast

Tom Skerritt

Runtime

110 minutes

Director

Tony Scott

Writers

Jack Epps Jr., Jim Cash

Studio(s)

Paramount Pictures

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