‘Mayday’ interview: Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein on ‘Top Gun’ nostalgia and working with an ICBM

Ahead of their latest Apple TV Cold War thriller ‘Mayday’, filmmaking duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein talk about why the ’80s still have a grip on them and the logistics of wrangling a nuclear missile

Published - September 02, 2026 03:20 pm IST

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein | Photo Credit: Apple TV

It was slightly surreal to watch John Francis Daley, who played little Sam Weir from Freaks & Geeks, all grown up and firmly ensconced in the movie business. To imagine that same dorky Sam and his nerdy friends hunched around a basement playing D&D, now as one half of a filmmaking partnership with Jonathan Goldstein that has taken them from Horrible Bosses and Spider-Man: Homecoming to directing Game Night and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, made me unexpectedly well up with nostalgia.

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein | Photo Credit: Apple TV

The filmmakers’ latest film, Mayday, takes their genre-fluent sensibilities into the Cold War. Written and directed by the duo for Apple Original Films, the action-comedy stars Ryan Reynolds as Troy Kelly, a hotshot U.S. Navy pilot stranded behind enemy lines after a covert mission goes awry, and Kenneth Branagh as Nikolai ‘Nick’ Ustinov, an eccentric former KGB agent who becomes his unlikely ally.

Largely set in Soviet Russia and steeped in ’80s pop-cultural iconography, with an unmistakable affection for Top Gun, Mayday finds the two filmmakers leaning into the decade’s particular blend of Cold War paranoia and pop-cultural excess. Goldstein and Daley spoke to The Hindu about their latest collaboration.

Mayday pays close attention to the nuts and bolts of Cold War espionage, from period-specific technology to KGB tradecraft, and for Goldstein, some of the groundwork began with the spy films that first drew him to the genre.

“I was a big fan of the James Bond movies as a kid, still am,” he says. “I love the notion of a seemingly ordinary person who is not quite a superhero, but almost one. And that’s what Kenneth Branagh is in this movie.”

The filmmakers also wanted the period details to hold up under scrutiny. “We did do a lot of research in terms of what technology might have been available to them during the time,” Goldstein says. “The Altai satellite phone that they go find, was a real thing. So we try to be as true to life and reality in that period as we could be.”

That attention to period detail extends to the film’s contrasting visions of America and the Soviet Union, which Daley experienced through both personal memory and research. Having grown up in the ‘80s, he found himself drawing on the pop culture of the period while shaping Troy’s perspective.

John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein. Kenneth Branagh and Ryan Reynolds on the set of ‘Mayday | Photo Credit: Apple TV

“I showed Kenneth the show Freaks & Geeks and told him to act exactly like I did when I was 14 years old,” Daley jokes, before quickly adding, “No, not really.” He did, however, draw heavily from the decade’s visual language. “I did draw a lot of inspiration from the aesthetic and the clothes and the pop culture of the 80s while making this film.” The connection runs even deeper through costume designer Debra McGuire, who worked with Daley on Freaks & Geeks, and later reunited with him for Game Night and now Mayday.

The period also offered them a useful visual contrast. “I think the ‘80s is such a vibrant and interesting period of time in our history,” Daley says. “One that we got to sort of explore from both lenses — through the American lens when our guys are walking through the Gaslamp District in San Diego, with the hair and the music; but then also a look at the ‘80s in Soviet Russia, which looks very different and recalls a little bit more of the sort of that ‘50s aesthetic. It was really fun to play with that contrast.”

Turning ‘Top Gun’ on its head

That contrast is especially sharp in the film’s relationship with Top Gun, where the mythology of the American action hero becomes something Goldstein and Daley can poke at. Goldstein sees Tom Cruise’s Maverick as the perfect archetype to turn upside down.

“Top Gun is a seminal film for Americans in particular, because I think they look at Maverick as both, the iconic American hero, and a rebel at the same time,” he says.

That idea became the blueprint for Reynolds’ Troy. “That’s what partly drew us to this notion when we started coming up with the idea of Mayday: how do you take that iconic figure and turn it on its head a little bit by putting him in a situation where he can’t solve every problem, where he actually needs the enemy, ‘to save his butt’.”