Top Gun: Maverick star got in shape with Manchester's celebrity fitness boss

Hollywood and Manchester meet yet again - this time in the form of a local CEO and a big screen actor starring in blockbuster reboot Top Gun: Maverick. American actor Glen Powell appears in the film as Lt. Jake 'Hangman' Seresin, having previous starred in comedy-horror series Scream Queens, and the films Hidden Figures and Set It Up.

Shooting for Top Gun: Maverick began in 2018, and Glen, 33, had just seven weeks to get into incredible shape for a sequence in which he is seen with his shirt off playing American football - in homage to the iconic volleyball scene in the original Tom Cruise blockbuster.

So Glen teamed up with Ultimate Performance, who train Greater Manchester soap stars including Gemma Atkinson, Cath Tyldesley, Shayne Ward, Brooke Vincent, and Katie McGlynn. Despite being retired from personal training, the firm's CEO, Nick Mitchell, returned to a hands on role for the film star.

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The actor wanted to reduce his body fat, build broad shoulders, a muscular chest and sport a chiselled six-pack for the sequence, and so turned to Nick. Nick founded U.P. in 2009, expanding to the point where it has 20 gyms operating in nine countries on four continents.

"The brief was to get Glen to look as good, and as lean, as possible in a very short space of time," Nick said. "We analysed what the ‘money shot’ would be. What would make Glen pop on camera. So, we concentrated on his ‘mirror muscles’ – chest, shoulders, traps, abs.

"We couldn’t build massive muscles in just seven weeks. But, what we could do is make Glen look leaner, sharper, crisper, and give him a look of strength and power. We didn’t do any kind of