James Corden

Tom Cruise took James Corden to Top Gun training school on The Late Late Show Monday night, which ended up being super awesome and hilarious. Cruise picked up Corden in a private plane at 4:56am at the Burbank Airport, where Cruise himself flew them to the desert. Some might remember the last time Cruise was on the Late Late Show in 2018, when he forced Corden to go skydiving. Now, Cruise is promoting his highly-anticipated Top Gun sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, so it was only fitting that this time around they stay in the plane, but with Cruise as the pilot. "You're not a pilot, you're an actor," a skeptical Corden pointed out. "With all due respect, you played a lawyer in A Few Good Men, I wouldn't want you to represent me in court, okay? I'm gonna go up in a 75-year-old plane with somebody who is not a pilot," asked Corden before he took off running in the opposite direction. Eventually, Cruise got Corden strapped in, where he warned him that, should the engine catch fire, he would "get rid of the canopy, pitch the nose up 45 degrees and then go inverted" and ultimately "dump" Corden out of the airplane. Understandably, the late night host was petrified. Corden had a tough time with that first flight, even feeling a little sick when he finally got back on stable ground. So you could imagine his reaction when Cruise pointed to a modern fighter jet fit for warfare, and told him they would be going up in that plane next. However, after some Top Gun training, a little bit of singing, and even a conga line that included a small model jet, Corden was strapped in and on the highway to the danger zone. Of course, it wouldn't be a Tom Cruise flight without Maverick going inverted, which he proceeded to do after telling Corden he would "just fly straight." "I love you and I hate you at the same time. That was absolutely outrageous," said Corden in the end.