Hot Shots! director Jim Abrahams on Charlie Sheen, Lloyd Bridges and Tom Cruise
To celebrate the life and career of comedy icon Jim Abrahams, here's a throwback to an old conversation I had with him about the making of 1991's Top Gun spoof Hot Shots!
Earlier this week, the world lost comedy icon Jim Abrahams.
Alongside writing partners Jerry and David Zucker, Abrahams formed the ‘A’-bit of a comedy creative powerhouse known as ‘ZAZ’. Together, the trio changed the trajectory of modern comedy with 1980’s high-flying spoof Airplane!, a film that proved there’s nothing more effective than stupidity delivered with a straight face.
Soon after, fellow writer Pat Proft got in on the action, helping ZAZ create future seriously-silly features like the criminally short-lived series Police Squad! with Leslie Nielsen and its three movie spin-offs that formed The Naked Gun trilogy.
Simply put, you wouldn’t have many of today’s solid-gold comedy hits without Abrahams, the Zuckers and Proft.
I was lucky enough to speak to Abrahams about his career in comedy - specifically about how making 1991’s Top Gun satire Hot Shots! helped him to rediscover his groove after a creative period spent “wandering in the desert.”
The conversation ultimately made it into an 800-word Total Film article published in 2021. However, to celebrate Abrahams’ life and career, I’ve edited a longer version of our chat which can be read below.
Continue scrolling for Abrahams’ thoughts on working with Charlie Sheen, the real-life story behind Lloyd Bridges’ replaceable body parts and whether or not he ever heard from Tom Cruise after his Top Gun spoof became a comedy megahit.
You and your Hot Shots! co-writer Pat Proft had written some of the best comedies of all time. When did you start kicking around this idea and, Top Gun aside, what made you feel the genre was ripe for comedy?
It was Pat’s idea. I’d made a couple of stupid movies that weren’t parodies and struggled with tone so when Pat called and said ‘Why don’t we try doing a send-up of Top Gun?’ [I jumped at the idea].
We’d been good friends for a while. He had worked on The Naked Gun and with David, Jerry [Zucker] and me on Kentucky Fried Theatre, so we’d been friends for a while. There’s no better guy in the world to write a script with because he’s really funny. When we went in to pitch the script, I’d sit there like an old doll and say ‘Okay, in act one, Topper goes…” and Pat would say fifty funny jokes and everybody would be laughing. You can’t sit in a room with him and not laugh a million times.
They liked the idea at Fox. Joe Roth was running [the studio] at the time and he said ‘I like everything about it - except I think you should cast Charlie Sheen,’ so Charlie was actually Joe Roth’s idea. We got together with Charlie and talked about the script but it turned out he was 100% correct. Charlie was phenomenal.
Before Charlie did Hot Shots! he was working with Clint Eastwood and wasn’t exactly well known for comedy. Did he instantly gel with your brand of humour?
He was a fish in water and as perfect as Leslie Nielsen in Airplane! He just completely understood it. He’d been in a comedy called Major League about baseball and was really good in that too. He has a real sense of that kind of humour and [the importance of] playing it straight. All that comes very naturally to him.
A lot has been written about Charlie but he strikes me as the type of person who puts in the work and delivers when he’s on set. What are your fondest memories of working with him, day-to-day?
It was really enjoyable. I don’t know if it’s because his dad taught him the movie business but he’s one of those guys where, when he gets on set, he acknowledges the people on the crew. It’s like he just wants to be one of the guys and not like ‘Here comes the star’.
We screwed around a lot. One day, my assistant Jack’s Dad visited the set and we were doing a pretty big scene. Charlie and I were just about to roll the camera when all of a sudden we stopped and Charlie said ‘Is Jack here?’ Jack comes up from the crowd all mealy and Charlie says ‘So Jack, in this situation do you think I should…” his father’s jaw just dropped. All of a sudden, Charlie Sheen is leaning on his son for advice on how to play a scene.
It was a very fun relationship. Charlie knew I grew up in Milwaukee Wisconsin and was a big Milwaukee Greys and Green Bag Packers fan. He had a tonne of sports memorabilia so he’d give me autographed baseballs. He was a really good guy.
Charlie does a lot in this movie. He’s riding a bike, in the cockpit of planes, dressed as Superman… was he up for anything?
Yeah. As a matter of fact, on the second Hot Shots! we did a spoof of Rambo and he went off and got all buff. I think he went to Hawaii for two or three months with a trainer and got all pumped up and cut. He was pretty game.
Valeria Golino is brilliant in this movie. How tricky was it finding stars that gelled so seamlessly with your deadpan comedy style?
In the script, it said Ramada had real long legs and when we first met [Valeria], she came in and said ‘Why did you call me in? I really don’t have long legs…’ Then she read and was just a natural at it. There are some actors who have a feel for that kind of comedy; just playing it straight as though they were real characters in a real movie. She never got too big or over the top - and she’s beautiful too.
It’s great watching her share scenes with Charlie. The love scene is particularly memorable. How did you know how far to take that moment, was it a delicate balance?
It was fun. When Charlie was taking things out of the refrigerator and he takes the pizza and rolls it like a joint? He improvised that. Ther must have been other things that we shot like eggs and hashbrowns that we put on [Valeria]’s belly that didn’t make the final cut. We edited it for as long as it seemed to work. We screen these movies in front of audiences and they help our editing. If a joke’s going on too long, the first thing you do is run back to the editing room to cut it down to a playable length.
We can’t talk about Hot Shots! without mentioning Lloyd Bridges. His character Tug Benson steals every scene he’s in. He was familiar with the style from Airplane! Did he dive right in?
Lloyd was a trained actor so he looked for things that good actors look for, like character and motivation (laughs) - all that stuff was never our sort of thing. We just played it straight. We would have discussions about Tug’s character but he always rose to the occasion and was really fun to work with. We became very friendly.
One of Tug’s best running gags is his various body parts that have been replaced over the years. Did you and Pat have fun thinking up new parts of him to tweak?
Yeah. Actually, that came from one of the guys who helped us with the script. He personally had had a bunch of surgeries. Nothing serious - but that whole series of Lloyd’s missing body parts was inspired by him because he would talk about [it all the time]. One time, he was pottering around his basement and sawed off his thumb. It was terrible. They couldn’t find any device to replace his thumb so they cut off his big toe and grafted it onto where his thumb was. Well, that just led to so many jokes but it was the origin of Lloyd Bridges having all these body parts replaced.
Was Lloyd always your first choice for the role?
Initially, George C. Scott was going to play Tug and we based that on his role in Patton where he played a big general. He agreed to do it. Then, a month or two before we started shooting, he pulled out because he actually read the script and thought it was too irreverent.
Did you offer a role to Leslie Neilsen?
Not in Hot Shots! The second Naked Gun opened a week before the first Hot Shots! and because they’re basically the same brand of humour, there was a worry whether it was a good idea to open two movies like that between a week of each other. It worked out fine.
Did you have any trouble with people cracking up on set?
Yeah but everybody’s professional. The first time you run a scene people laugh but by the time it’s ready to shoot, everybody’s heard the joke so it’s easy not to laugh.
When the movie was released, I read that you claimed that Saddam Hussein played himself - and people believed it.
I don’t remember doing that - but I hope we did. I’d love it if you’d publish that because it’s such a good idea. Jerry Heleva played Saddam. He was actually in politics in Sacramento and there had been an article about him in People magazine because he looked so much like Saddam. We called him up and he was thrilled to do it.
I can debunk that rumour now… or keep it going, if you prefer.
I think it’s great. As a last-ditch marketing technique, Fox decided to publicise that Hot Shots! is the only American movie where Saddam played himself. Let’s leave that in!
Did you ever get any feedback from Tom Cruise?
Naa, I never did. The only guy we heard from was Sylvester Stallone on the second Hot Shots! Richard Crenna was actually in the Rambo movies and got permission from Stallone to play the same part [in Hot Shots! Part Deux]. We never heard from Tom Cruise.
Finally, you’ve made a lot of great movies that have withstood the test of time - but what personal significance does this one hold for you?
I look back on it fondly. After David, Jerry and I broke up, I sort of wandered in the desert and made some movies that partly worked. Getting back to this kind of stuff was my roots. It was a very positive experience for me. We all work our way through our careers and lives, have highs and lows and maybe learn things from the failures - but getting to do Hot Shots! was a very comfortable thing.