Danny Ramirez made sure that his Captain America: Brave New World flight scenes didn’t put his friendship with Top Gun: Maverick costar Tom Cruise in the danger zone.  

The actor — who plays Joaquin Torres, a.k.a the Falcon — told fellow Maverick costar and future Marvel star Lewis Pullman that he made sure his high-flying fight sequences in the Anthony Mackie-led Cap installment looked as realistic as possible because he knew Cruise might watch the film and judge the accuracy of his performance. 

“I felt like if Tom [Cruise] saw my body positioning, he’d be judging the aerodynamics,” Ramirez said during the pair’s discussion for Interview Magazine. “You’ll see in the BTS, I’m holding proper form, so whether or not body parts were replaced, that’s not on me. I was aerodynamic, and banking when I had to bank, and trying to make sure that my head was in the right position because wind will then affect lift, and all these things.”

When Pullman noted that those maneuvers were also important in avoiding whiplash, Ramirez replied, “Yes. I think that’s what was instilled in me having done Top Gun. ‘Tom’s maybe going to watch this and if he does, I better come correct.'”

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In fact, Ramirez said that “there were days that I would be the only one putting on a G-force face” during takes in order to really sell his aerial acrobatics. He also shared why he believes Mackie’s Sam Wilson isn’t affected by the laws of gravity like Joaquin.

“Just because Sam’s suit is a way more advanced thing that I’m like, ‘Alright, he’s under a different reality,’” the 32-year-old said. “Mine’s a little bit more analog, and so we have tubes to breathe, and I’m the literal cockpit. I’m the jet.” 

And Ramirez knows a bit about flying one of those. The 32-year-old starred as Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia — one of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s (Cruise) newest recruits — in the highly-successful Top Gun sequel. As part of preparation for the film, he and his costars were all put through an intense training regimen that saw them flying in high performance jets in order to emulate real-life fighter pilots. 

And, yes, Ramirez got sick a ton of times along the way. “I think most of us could say that we were barfing quite a bit,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2022. “But I’ve never seen a group of people that puke and rally more than we do. We had a two-hour window to get the scene and so you realize that you can’t let whatever’s coming out of you prevent you from getting what you have to get.”

But, before he was sailing the not-so-friendly skies in Top Gun: Maverick, Ramirez made his MCU debut in the 2021 Disney+ series Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with his character Joaquin becoming a close ally of Sam’s over the course of the six-episode political thriller. He reprises his role on the big screen for the very first time in Captain America: Brave New World, alongside Mackie and Harrison Ford as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. 

Captain America: Brave New World is in theaters now.