Goose’s son in Top Gun, Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, was played by Miles Teller in Top Gun: Maverick, but that’s not who portrayed him in the original movie. In Top Gun, Bradley was portrayed by child actors and identical twins, Aaron and Adam Weis. Instead of either of them, Fantastic Four star, Miles Teller, was cast as the son of Maverick’s co-pilot, Goose (Anthony Edwards). 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.
Undoubtedly, Goose was an important character in the original movie, a trend Rooster continued in the sequel. Goose’s son, Bradley, is best remembered for the line, “goodness, gracious, great balls of fire.” The child was around four years old during the first movie but was well into his 30s when he became part of the Top Gun: Maverick cast, 34 years later.
Why Goose’s Son Was Recast In Top Gun: Maverick
But what happened to the original twin child actors who played Bradley Bradshaw in the first movie? According to Aaron and Adam Weis, neither was contacted about reprising the role, and the reason for that is quite simple: the twins who brought to life Goose and Rooster’s Top Gun story 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
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 box office record-breaking Top Gun: Maverick, which perfectly leveraged Goose and Rooster’s Top Gun legacy.
The movie worked because it chose storytelling over the dopamine hits of seeing recognizable characters from Top Gun, and Rooster’s foregrounding and recasting were key elements of that. Casting an original film’s child actors in grown-up roles can be satisfying for audiences, as was the case with Fuller House, but it can just as often go poorly, as per Sofia Coppola’s uninspiring turn as Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III. 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.
Miles Teller, on the other hand, is a seasoned, skilled performer, and he was absolutely the right choice for Top Gun: Maverick. Audiences already can’t wait to see more of Rooster in Top Gun 3. This might not have been the case if studios tapped any of the original actors to portray Goose’s son.
How Miles Teller Approached His Top Gun Role As Goose’s Son
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. “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,” explained Teller in an interview (via Games Radar). “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. Miles 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.
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 accounts.” With the Weis twins no longer interested in pursuing acting, they don’t seem to have any problems with Miles Teller playing the Hangman rival and adult version of their character.
Indeed, the challenge of playing Rooster entailed not just being Hangman’s rival in Top Gun: Maverick, but also being a living, breathing, piano-playing symbol of Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s guilt over Goose and Rooster 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 contacted 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.