“I don’t know what to do with that,” the “Running Man” actor told the host.

Drew Barrymore tells Glen Powell Top Gun: Maverick’s beach football scene was ‘many people’s sexual awakening’

"I don't know what to do with that," the "Running Man" actor told the host.

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and *NME*.

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on November 13, 2025 2:26 p.m. ET

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Drew Barrymore on 'The Drew Barrymore Show'; Glen Powell in 'Top Gun: Maverick'. Credit:

CBS; Paramount Pictures

Drew Barrymore felt the need — the need to let Glen Powell know that she and many others still think fondly of that iconic *Top Gun: Maverick *beach football scene. **

The actress flustered the *Running Man* star when she credited the sporty sequence with being “many people’s sexual awakening” on Thursday’s episode of *The Drew Barrymore Show*. The scene came up as part of a discussion about how Powell received running tips from his *Maverick* costar, Tom Cruise.**

“When we shot *Top Gun: Maverick*, there’s like a beach football scene,” Powell began. **

“Oh yeah, we don’t remember that at all,” Barrymore bluntly replied as Powell laughed. “That was probably many people’s sexual awakening, slash we all play that on repeat rent free in our minds!”

Drew Barrymore and Glen Powell on 'The Drew Barrymore Show'.

The Drew Barrymore Show/Ash Bean

Her admission appeared to surprise Powell, who struggled to get back on topic. “All right, well, I don’t know what to do with that,” he confessed. **

A successor to the original* Top Gun*’s beach volleyball montage, the aforementioned *Maverick* scene sees Cruise’s character invite all of his young and mostly shirtless trainees — including Powell — to play a game of beach football as part of a team-building exercise.

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The moment went viral when the film touched down in theaters in 2022, with so many people talking about it on social media that Paramount created a three-hour-long version just for thirsty fans who wanted to see Powell, Miles Teller, Manny Jacinto, Danny Ramirez, and more show off their, uh, football skills on a San Diego beach. **

Powell explained to Barrymore that it was during the process of shooting that sequence that he realized Cruise’s running capabilities were no joke. **

“We were in that scene and there’s a bit where Tom literally takes off down the beach,” he recalled. “And everybody hears about Tom Cruise’s run — he is the fastest guy on the planet when you’re next to him. You’re like, ‘Oh, that guy can run.’”

And if they're lucky, *Top Gun* fans may get the chance Powell and his fellow Daggers take to the beach once again for another sport outing in a future film. Last July, the 37-year-old confirmed that he had a start date to begin shooting the franchise's forthcoming threequel, but declined to share any further details at the time.

*Mission: Impossible* writer-director Christopher McQuarrie teased in May that the third film’s story is “already in the bag” and that it “wasn’t hard” to put it together.**

“I thought it would be, and that’s a good place to go from as you walk into the room going, ‘Come on, what are we going to do?’” McQuarrie said on the *Happy Sad Confused* podcast. “And [*Maverick* co-writer] Ehren Kruger pitched something, and I went, ‘Mmm actually,’ and we had one conversation about it, and the framework is there.” **

He continued, “So, no, it’s not hard to crack. The truth of the matter is, none of these are hard to crack.”

A sequel to the 1986 classic, *Top Gun: Maverick *was the summer blockbuster that the world needed when it cruised into theaters in May 2022. The film earned a whopping $1.48 billion at the global box office, and it currently stands as the 14th highest-grossing film of all time. It was also nominated for six Oscars, receiving the award for Best Sound at the 95th Academy Awards.

*The Drew Barrymore Show *airs weekdays on CBS.

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Movies”