Jennifer Connelly had a 'crippling fear of flying' before Top Gun Dailymail.com Reporter Jennifer Connelly was scared of airplanes before filming Top Gun: Maverick. The 50-year-old actress admitted she was afraid to tell her co-star Tom Cruise about her fear of flying and only signed on to the movie at first because her character was not supposed to have any flight scenes. Jennifer - who plays the sequel's female lead, a single mother who runs a local bar near the Navy base - told chat show host Graham Norton: 'I was actually afraid to tell Tom at the time that I had only just recently talked myself out of a crippling fear of flying.'