LOS ANGELES, Calif. --

Anthony Edwards famously played a fighter pilot in 1980s blockbuster “Top Gun,” opposite Tom Cruise, but the actor and star of ABC’s new mystery drama “Zero Hour” said he only recently learned how to fly.

“I finally got my pilot’s license after all these years,” Anthony told Billy Bush and Kit Hoover on Wednesday’s Access Hollywood Live. “I’ve always wanted to fly.”

And swooping into various airports comes with a reaction he enjoys hearing.

“When I was on ‘ER’ and I’d go to an emergency room or go to a hospital, it was great because I played Dr. Greene. And now when I fly into airports, they’re like, ‘Goose is here!’” Anthony laughed.

There were plenty of memorable scenes in “Top Gun,” but a fan favorite is the scene where Anthony’s Goose played Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire,” and the actor revealed how the classic movie moment came about.

“There was never a scene written where Goose plays the piano, but on the way to work [one day]. I got a call from Tony Scott, the great director, and he’s like, ‘You know how you always say ‘Great Balls of Fire’ in the script?’ – which I did for some reason – he said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if you sang ‘Great Balls of Fire’ at the piano?’” Anthony recounted. “And I was like, ‘Tony, A — I don’t play piano, I don’t sing and I don’t know the song.’ He said, ‘Great, we’ll meet you there with a piano teacher and voice guy.’ And we just dove in and by 10 o’clock we were shooting that scene.”

After a 10-year absence from series television, Anthony returned just last week with his new show, “Zero Hour.”

“It’s pretty epic and what’s fun about it is the writers’ knew where they were going,” Anthony said of his program, which airs before “Grey’s Anatomy” on Thursday nights, at 8/7c on ABC. “So they knew where Episode 13, or the last episode, where we were going to end up and solve this mystery.”

“This mystery is our first ‘Zero Hour’ mystery and we’re going to solve it this year,” Anthony continued. “You’re not gonna have a delay where you’re looking for my wife for five years on television.”

-- Jolie Lash

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