The character of Phoenix not only kept himself in the boys’ club but Top Gunsof the fighter pilots, but she’s also the heart of the movie. “Navy and Paramount and Tom Cruise and Joe [Kosinski], Jerry Bruckheimer — everyone has at one point or another told me how important this character is to them and how important this character is to female pilots in general,” Barbaro said of the role. . The pressure to represent a contingent of female pilots in one character was enormous, but Barbaro made it to the mission, meeting many women in the Navy to better understand their experience and help shape the character. faith and strong will that we see on screen. “The original script was that she was more like how men write tough women,” she said. “It’s a bit tough, almost like they’re making up for the fact that they’re a woman. And I think it’s evolved into a space where she’s just good at what she does, and she’s not questioned, and whoever questions her, that’s a good way in the story. to show that they have the problem, not her. ”
Finding the right balance for the character is half the challenge for Barbaro, as the role also requires thorough preparation. The cast had to go through many hours of flight simulation along with various survival training before they could even step foot in an F/A-18. “We worked really hard to be prepared so that by the time we filmed, we could have done a thousand other things that we had to keep an eye on,” she said. “Those are the things you don’t think about. You fly back and forth and replay the footage, and your mask gets warped, and you have to go back to the whole thing. Not only so expensive, [but it’s also] Tired, both time consuming and wasting time of the army. All of this has to be super specific, and by that point you don’t have to think about how difficult it is to fly in those. “
