Ryan Gosling missed Tom Cruise visiting set of Star Wars: Starfighter

Ryan Gosling has revealed that he wasn't on the set of Star Wars: Starfighter on the day Tom Cruise came to visit.

Director Shawn Levy revealed to The New York Times in January that the famed action star flew from London to the film's nearby set via helicopter one day in November to watch the team shoot a lightsaber duel set in water.

However, the Deadpool & Wolverine filmmaker jokingly suggested that Cruise could jump on one of the cameras, and he happily got involved, operating the camera while up to his ankles in muddy pond water.

During an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the upcoming film's leading man Gosling revealed that Cruise came to visit during one of his rare days off.

"I wasn't there, it was the one day I'm not there! I worked on that movie the whole time, I get one day off," he said. "And Shawn sends me a picture of him, and Tom Cruise, and Flynn (Gray, his co-star). They're like in the mud. I was like, 'What?' And they were like, 'Yeah, Tom Cruise flew his helicopter onto set.'"

He continued, "They were just shooting, and they heard a helicopter, and they had to cut. And it's just Tom Cruise, he lands in the middle of set, he takes a camera, and just starts shooting the action scene."

The Barbie star then quipped, "I don't know why he waited for the one day I wasn't there. I hope that was an accident."

Starfighter is the first Star Wars movie to not be a sequel, prequel, or spin-off since the 1977 original, and is set five years after the events of 2019's The Rise of Skywalker. It revolves around a father-son dynamic, brought to life by Gosling and Gray.

The sci-fi movie also stars Amy Adams, Mia Goth, Matt Smith and Aaron Pierre. Their characters and details of the plot are being kept under wraps.

Filming wrapped in December, and the movie is set to be released in cinemas in May 2027.