CHICAGO — In “Top Gun: Maverick” starring Tom Cruise back in the cockpit as a fighter pilot, Bashir Salahuddin plays a chief warrant officer named Hondo. “In layman’s terms, he’s a super expert in multiple fields,” Salahuddin said. “And he’s kind of Mav’s right-hand man — he’s the guy who, whenever Mav looks around the room, he’s the guy who is always in his corner.”
He’s also a character who brings moments of levity. And Salahuddin has plenty of experience with that. The Chicago native is the co-creator and star of two TV comedies: The Chicago-set “South Side” on HBO Max (the third season begins filming this summer) and the “Soul Train” homage “Sherman’s Showcase” on IFC.
“One of the things that was really surprising about Tom Cruise is that he’s a big fan of Chicago,” said Salahuddin. “It’s where he shot ‘The Color of Money’ and he was telling me stories about Paul Newman and the places they would go. So we were talking on set one day and he asked about what else I do, and I told him I have a show about the South Side, and he was like, ‘Aw, you gotta send me that show.’ And I’m like, OK, whatever, this is just Hollywoodspeak — that thing where they say stuff but it doesn’t mean anything. And lo and behold, a couple weeks later he emailed me and was like, ‘Yo, what’s up with that show? I thought you were going to send it!’ So I sent him the first season and he watched it and he called me a month or so later and I happened to be in the writers room with the show’s writers and he was telling me his favorite jokes and how much he liked the writing.”
