Miles Teller says he told Tom Cruise he needs 'one month per ab' heads up for potential next “Top Gun” film

After all, Rooster needs to be ripped.

Paramount PIctures Miles Teller in 'Top Gun: Maverick'

Paramount PIctures

Miles Teller in 'Top Gun: Maverick'

Miles Teller has a big ask for his Top Gun: Maverick costar Tom Cruise, should an opportunity to do a third entry in the high-flying franchise emerge.

"I just told Tom, I said, 'Give me enough time, heads up for me to get in shape," Teller said Wednesday on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. "One month per ab — I need six months heads up."

Related: Miles Teller pays tribute to Top Gun: Maverick flight instructor killed in plane crash: 'Gone too soon'

Teller played Lt. Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, the son of the late Goose (Anthony Edwards) in the 2022 film, the sequel to the 1986 blockbuster Top Gun. Cruise portrayed Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in both. While the original is about Maverick attending an elite flight school as a student, the sequel focuses on his tenure instructing the next generation of pilots (including Rooster).

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"You might be shocked, but I do not greenlight that thing," Teller told Colbert jokingly. "I have nothing to do with it."

When Colbert pressed on whether more adventures in the "Danger Zone" were coming, Teller said more seriously that he didn't know. "There's a lot of enthusiasm on the fans' side. There's a lot of enthusiasm on the creative side," Teller said. "So we'll see."

See the moment at 2:10 in the video below.

Teller's costar Glen Powell, who played Jake “Hangman” Seresin in the sequel, teased in an August conversation with Josh Horowitz that he had a date for the sequel, but he declined to share any other information. "Absolutely not," he said.

Released in May 2022, Top Gun: Maverick was hugely successful at the box office, earning $1.48 billion — with a "b" — globally, making it the highest-grossing film of 2022. The crowd-pleaser was seriously nostalgic, packed with references to the original film, such as a cameo from Val Kilmer's Iceman and, yep, that famous beach volleyball scene filled with suntans, sunglasses, and abs for days. Costarring Jennifer Connelly, Jay Ellis, and Jon Hamm, the film's idea was that Maverick was being forced to revisit and confront his past.

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The next project for Teller is The Gorge, a sci-fi horror movie that he described as "a love story under tension," which arrives Feb. 14 on Apple TV+. He costars with Anya Taylor-Joy and Sigourney Weaver in the thriller about two operatives sent to guard opposite sides of a gorge who find themselves having to team up to survive.

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