By India McCarty
TOP GUN: MAVERICK and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE star Greg Tarzan Davis credits co-star Tom Cruise for jump-starting his Hollywood career.
“Since I was young, I’ve wanted to be an actor, but it was something that seemed impossible,” he told Fox News.
Instead, Davis became a teacher, but a conversation with one of his students convinced him to give acting a real try.
“I used to preach to my students that they can be whatever they want, to follow their dreams,” he shared. “One of my students asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, when I got older. I was like, ‘I wanted to be a teacher.’ And the student was like, ‘No you didn’t.’”
Davis gave himself two years to succeed as an actor, and his work clearly paid off. In 2022, he was cast in TOP GUN: MAVERICK, which led to another role in another iconic franchise.
“I got my first offer after TOP GUN from Tom [Cruise] and McQ [director Christopher McQuarrie] asking me to join MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE, and I’ve been working ever since,” Davis said.
In an interview with CBS, he revealed Cruise and McQuarrie created his MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE role with Davis in mind.
“‘We like what you did in TOP GUN: MAVERICK. We wanted to bring you in to this,’” Davis remembered Cruise telling him. “‘We wrote this character for you named Degas,’ because I’m from New Orleans, and it was a French heritage.”
Related: What This MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE STAR Learned From Tom Cruise
In an interview with Men’s Health, Davis shared that there isn’t any “pressure” to keep up with Cruise’s death-defying stunts, “But you’re always thinking, ‘What is he going to have me do next?’”
“But he’s so good at preparing you for what you’re about to take on,” the actor added. “So I’ve never been scared because I’ve been so prepared.”
Davis is now one of Hollywood’s most in-demand young action stars, but he hasn’t forgotten about his former students.
“I keep in contact with my students,” he told Fox News. “They graduate in two years and for each one of my films — TOP GUN: MAVERICK, DEAD RECKONING and for FINAL RECKONING — I take the movie back to New Orleans, and I have a screening for them and other students.”
Davis continued, “I spoke to some of their parents, and they [said], ‘You don’t understand how much this means to them to see you…follow your dreams, and they’re all excited to…do the same exact thing.”
Davis’ Hollywood story is a testament to working hard and never giving up on your dreams.
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