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What Tom Cruise And Kelly McGillis' Relationship Was Like On The Set Of Top Gun

Tom Cruise charmed his way into the hearts of many after he starred as Maverick in the 1986 film, "Top Gun." In the movie, the daring and adventurous bad boy sparked a relationship with one of his teachers, played by Kelly McGillis . The chemistry between the two radiated off the screen as their steamy romance had people convinced the two were a real-life couple.

Many even questioned the status of their relationship years after the movie was released. McGillis shared that she constantly interacts with "Top Gun" fans asking where Cruise is. She told The Guardian , "They come in asking, 'Where's Tom?' And I say, 'I don't know. I guess he's somewhere else.' And they say, 'Well, aren't you married?' I mean, these are adults, for Christ's sake. I have to say to them, 'That was a movie – it was fake.'" Clearly, their on-screen chemistry was out of this world, but was their relationship as strong off-screen? Apparently so.

McGillis has detailed how close the entire cast was and compared the experience to "being at camp," per Movie Talk (via Yahoo ). She said, "Well, we had a lot of partying going on after work. You can imagine -– yeah we just all hung out together and went to the driving range and did things...We just had a good time." And as for her relationship with Cruise, the actor has continuously shared how amazing the "Mission Impossible" actor was on set.

Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis' relationship soared

There have been plenty of instances where actors were totally repulsed by their co-stars , but Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis did not have that problem. Instead, their friendship soared on-set and on film, and McGillis would be the first to admit it. The actor has gushed about her "Top Gun" co-star on several occasions. In her interview with Movie Talk, she shared, "I think Tom is terrific. He's the sweetest guy. He is very genuine and sincere and respectful. And I just loved working with Tom. I think he is wonderful."

Cruise was even a part of some of McGillis' highlights on the set, especially when filming got frustrating. She told Entertainment Tonight , "We had to get this one shot by an airplane and it was at golden hour, and I remember going back to that friggin' tarmac about 120 times (laughs)...So I do remember that and I just remember working with Tom — he's such a kind and generous and respectful person, he was just lovely to work with."

While they didn't fight like their iconic scene in the film, some fans thought that the romantic plot line between Cruise and McGillis was unnecessary. Even though the "Mission Impossible" actor once agreed, in an interview with Roger Ebert , the star noted that he never blamed McGillis herself. Cruise only praised his co-star, calling her a "fantastic actor." Their friendship was stronger than ever on-set, but with the latest sequel, things might have changed.

Kelly McGillis wasn't asked to be in Top Gun: Maverick

You are truly a rarity if you are one of the few individuals who has not seen "Top Gun: Maverick." The sequel to the original 1986 film, "Top Gun," was a smash hit , despite it missing an important character. Fans of the original movie will notice that Kelly McGillis did not return as Tom Cruise's love interest in the sequel. Instead, she was replaced by Jennifer Connelly, who played Penny Benjamin and was briefly mentioned in the first film.

According to Insider , the director of the sequel, Joseph Kosinski, never considered bringing back McGillis. He shared, "Those weren't stories that we were throwing around. I didn't want every storyline to always be looking backwards. It was important to introduce some new characters." But, McGillis isn't convinced. The "Top Gun" actor revealed to Entertainment Tonight that she thinks she wasn't asked to return because of her looks. She said, "I'm old and I'm fat, and I look age-appropriate for what my age is. And that is not what that whole scene is about."

Not only did McGillis lose her iconic role in the sequel, but she also lost her friendship with Cruise. When asked if she keeps in touch with anyone from the film, she revealed, "Movies are odd things. I don't really keep in touch with anybody. I think I've spoken to a couple of people occasionally, but the truth is, movies are very odd work situations..."

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Why Kelly McGillis Isn’t in Top Gun: Maverick: “I’m Old and I’m Fat, and I Look Age-Appropriate”

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The post Why Kelly McGillis Isn’t in Top Gun : Maverick: “I’m Old and I’m Fat, and I Look Age-Appropriate” appeared first on Consequence .

Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer returned to the Navy for Top Gun: Maverick , but one familiar face missing from the sequel is Kelly McGillis , who played Cruise’s love interest in the 1986 original. According to McGillis, she wasn’t asked to join the film, and she matter-of-factly cited her appearance for her exclusion.

Entertainment Tonight asked McGillis way back in 2019 if the makers of Top Gun: Maverick had asked her to be in the film. “Oh my god no. They did not, nor do I think they would ever,” she replied, almost laughing at the idea. “I mean, I’m old and I’m fat, and I look age-appropriate for what my age is, and that is not what that whole scene is about.”

Fortunately, McGillis didn’t seem to be upset by her very realistic explanation. “I’d much rather feel absolutely secure in my skin and who and what I am at my age, as opposed to placing a value on all that other stuff,” she said. The 64-year-old actress told ET that she left Hollywood to get sober and focus on raising her family, and isn’t necessarily itching to see the sequel anyway.

“I guess it depends on what kind of reviews it gets,” she said. “I’m not racing to the theater, and I’m not racing away from the theater to see it.”

McGillis played astrophysicist and training school instructor Charlie Blackwood in the original Top Gun. In this iteration, Jennifer Connelly portrays Maverick’s new love interest, Penny Benjamin. The long-awaited sequel was directed by Joseph Kosinski and also stars Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, and Glen Powell.

Why Kelly McGillis Isn’t in Top Gun: Maverick: “I’m Old and I’m Fat, and I Look Age-Appropriate” Carys Anderson

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Top Gun's Kelly McGillis Confirms What We Suspected About Tom Cruise's On-Set Behavior

Fans are eagerly awaiting Tom Cruise's fighter to kick the tires and light the fires in the long-awaited sequel "Top Gun: Maverick," which, after many delays , is finally set to hit theaters in May. Cruise is indisputably one of Hollywood's biggest stars and, at times, a polarizing figure due to his personal life. The three-time Oscar nominee has starred in over 50 movies and is also a successful producer (via IMDb ).

Cruise is known for his work in well-known films like "Risky Business," "The Outsiders," "Legend," and "All the Right Moves," but his performance as daredevil Navy aviator Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in 1986's "Top Gun" is remembered as the one that made him a full-fledged movie star. The action flick, directed by the late Tony Scott, also stars Anthony Edwards, Kelly McGillis , Val Kilmer, and Meg Ryan. In this year's "Top Gun: Maverick," Cruise is poised to return to the Naval Fighter Weapons School as an instructor who will train the latest crop of hotshot pilots.

McGillis, who played Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood in the original film, revealed to Entertainment Tonight in 2019 that she wasn't asked to reprise her role in the "Top Gun" sequel. Instead, Cruise's character has a new lady in his life, Penny Benjamin, played by Jennifer Connelly ("A Beautiful Mind"). According to CinemaBlend , Benjamin owns a bar near the famous flight school.

Due to some high-profile off-screen hijinks and a long association with the controversial Church of Scientology, Cruise has earned a bit of a mixed public reputation. With that in mind, you might expect that his on-set behavior matches his eccentric tabloid headlines. Not so, reports McGillis, who has only nice things to say about her former on-screen love interest, confirming our long-held belief that Cruise might be a little more down-to-Earth than his reputation suggests.

Kelly McGillis called her Top Gun co-star 'wonderful'

In a 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Times , Kelly McGillis recalled that, except for Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, the "Top Gun" cast stayed at the same hotel during the shoot and had a lot of time to bond. "There was definitely a big ensemble group camaraderie," she said.

She went on to say that Cruise was "incredibly respectful, polite, and very honest." Similarly, she had nothing but good things to say about the actor in a 2013 interview with Yahoo! Movies . "I think Tom is terrific. He's the sweetest guy," said McGillis. "He is very genuine and sincere and respectful. And I just loved working with Tom. I think he is wonderful."

Although the upcoming sequel has thrust McGillis back into the spotlight, the actress doesn't appear much interested in fame these days. In 2019, McGillis told ET, "To me, my relationships to other people became far more important than my relationship to fame."

McGillis also admitted that she hasn't kept in touch with her former co-stars, and at the time, she hadn't seen the trailer for "Top Gun: Maverick" and appeared somewhat ambivalent about watching the finished product.

Notably, "Top Gun: Maverick" actress Jennifer Connelly appears to share her predecessor's high opinion of Cruise , particularly when it comes to his professionalism and unparalleled work ethic on set.

"I've never seen anyone work harder, be more committed to his work," Connelly told CinemaBlend in 2020. "Every moment is an opportunity to do all that he can do to deliver the best thing that he can possibly deliver."

McGillis compared filming Top Gun to being at summer camp

In addition to enjoying her time working alongside Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis told Yahoo! Movies that the entire "Top Gun" cast was close. She recalled that, after shooting, they would throw parties and play sports to unwind.

"We just had a good time. We all hung out and we would play tennis and basketball and it was just fun," she told the outlet. McGillis went on to say that it was like being at a summer camp where everyone worked together and played together afterward.

In 2019, she told ET that movies create unique relationships because they bring people so close for brief moments in their lives. "I think I've spoken to a couple of people occasionally, but the truth is, movies are very odd work situations because you have a lot of people who come together from all different parts of the world," she said.

Despite her positive memories of being on set and her appreciation for the life-changing role, McGillis has been honest about why she wasn't brought back for a sequel. Back in 2013, she speculated that she wouldn't be invited back because of her age and appearance.

"You hear women of my age talk about this all the time," she told the Los Angeles Times. "I think this industry is not particularly kind to women who are over 50. I am not into the coloring of my hair, doing the Botox and getting a facelift."

While she isn't involved with the upcoming sequel, McGill told ET that she's happy for Connelly to have the part.

"Top Gun: Maverick" begins playing in theaters on May 27.

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Everything Kelly McGillis Has Said About ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ Jennifer Connelly as Tom Cruise’s New Love Interest

In the second film, Tom Cruise ’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell returns to train younger Top Gun graduates — including his late best friend Goose’s son, Rooster ( Miles Teller ) — for a special mission. Played by Anthony Edwards in 1986, Goose and wife Carole Bradshaw ( Meg Ryan ) appear in flashbacks in the 2022 movie.

Ryan wasn’t the only actor who wasn’t asked back for Top Gun: Maverick, however. Kelly McGillis — Maverick’s love interest, Charlie, in Top Gun — isn’t part of the second movie. Instead, the pilot reconnects with Penny Benjamin ( Jennifer Connelly ), who is referenced — but not seen — as the admiral’s daughter with a past with Maverick in the original film.

“[Goose] told me all about the time you went ballistic with Penny Benjamin,” Carole said to Goose, Maverick and Charlie in the 1986 movie.

While McGillis implied to Entertainment Tonight in 2019 (when production on Top Gun: Maverick was underway) that aging is why she wasn’t asked back, director Joseph Kosinski told Insider that McGillis and Ryan aren’t part of the sequel because of how their characters would impact the new stories.

“Those weren’t stories that we were throwing around. I didn’t want every story line to always be looking backwards. It was important to introduce some new characters,” Kosinski said in May 2022. “Penny Benjamin, a character we have heard mentioned but never seen before, that was an amazing opportunity to bring Jennifer Connelly’s character into this film.”

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Connelly, for her part, gushed about the “exceptional” Cruise in an interview with Variety ahead of Top Gun: Maverick’s May 27, 2022 release.

“Spending time with him, you understand how someone has been such a movie star for so many years. It was clear to me what the franchise means to him, so I felt beholden to him, [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer and the audiences who love the film so much,” Connelly said. “We focused on the intimacy of how they fit into each other’s lives. I think those characters have a really tender relationship, the way she understands him. They share a moment in bed chatting, and it tells as much about their relationship as the scene that is the preamble to that. Clearly, they have some unresolved business between them, and she navigates that with humor and playfulness. I feel like she’s someone who is positive and is moving toward happiness.”

Scroll through for more from McGillis on how she feels about being excluded from Top Gun: Maverick:

Credit: Shutterstock (3)

Everything Kelly McGillis Has Said About 'Top Gun: Maverick,' Jennifer Connelly as Tom Cruise's New Love Interest

Alexa, play “Take My Breath Away.” While the nostalgia is overwhelming for Top Gun fans in the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick , not everything is the same for the title character 30 years after the original film. In the second film, Tom Cruise ’s Pete “Maverick” Mitchell returns to train younger Top Gun graduates — including his late best friend Goose’s son, Rooster ( Miles Teller ) — for a special mission. Played by Anthony Edwards in 1986, Goose and wife Carole Bradshaw ( Meg Ryan ) appear in flashbacks in the 2022 movie. Ryan wasn’t the only actor who wasn’t asked back for Top Gun: Maverick, however. Kelly McGillis — Maverick’s love interest, Charlie, in Top Gun — isn’t part of the second movie. Instead, the pilot reconnects with Penny Benjamin ( Jennifer Connelly ), who is referenced — but not seen — as the admiral's daughter with a past with Maverick in the original film. “[Goose] told me all about the time you went ballistic with Penny Benjamin,” Carole said to Goose, Maverick and Charlie in the 1986 movie. While McGillis implied to Entertainment Tonight in 2019 (when production on Top Gun: Maverick was underway) that aging is why she wasn’t asked back, director Joseph Kosinski told Insider that McGillis and Ryan aren’t part of the sequel because of how their characters would impact the new stories. [sendtonews type="float" key="it7rpNVhFW-3117344-14453"] “Those weren’t stories that we were throwing around. I didn’t want every story line to always be looking backwards. It was important to introduce some new characters,” Kosinski said in May 2022. “Penny Benjamin, a character we have heard mentioned but never seen before, that was an amazing opportunity to bring Jennifer Connelly’s character into this film.” Connelly, for her part, gushed about the “exceptional” Cruise in an interview with Variety ahead of Top Gun: Maverick’s May 27, 2022 release. “Spending time with him, you understand how someone has been such a movie star for so many years. It was clear to me what the franchise means to him, so I felt beholden to him, [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer and the audiences who love the film so much,” Connelly said. “We focused on the intimacy of how they fit into each other’s lives. I think those characters have a really tender relationship, the way she understands him. They share a moment in bed chatting, and it tells as much about their relationship as the scene that is the preamble to that. Clearly, they have some unresolved business between them, and she navigates that with humor and playfulness. I feel like she’s someone who is positive and is moving toward happiness.” Scroll through for more from McGillis on how she feels about being excluded from Top Gun: Maverick:

Credit: Jim Smeal/BEI/Shutterstock

Why Wasn’t Kelly McGillis Asked to Return for 'Top Gun: Maverick'?

“I’m old, and I’m fat, and I look age-appropriate for what my age is,” McGillis told Entertainment Tonight in 2019. “And that is not what that whole scene is about. To me, I’d much rather feel absolutely in my skin and who I am at my age as opposed to placing a value on all that other stuff.”

Credit: Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock

Does Kelly McGillis in Touch With the ‘Top Gun’ Cast?

"Movies are odd things. I don't really keep in touch with anybody," the actress told ET in 2019, noting she hadn’t watched the trailer at that point. "I think I've spoken to a couple of people occasionally, but the truth is, movies are very odd work situations because you have a lot of people who come together from all different parts of the world."

Credit: Shutterstock (2)

How Does Kelly McGillis Feel About Jennifer Connelly Taking Over?

"I'm glad for her," McGillis said of Connelly.

Credit: Stephen Vaughan/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock

Where Is Kelly McGillis Now?

The actress most recently appeared on screen in the 2018 TV movie Maternal Secrets , telling ET that she made the choice to step back from Hollywood.

"I think just my priorities in life changed," she said. "It wasn't like a major decision that I made to leave, it was just that other things became more important. I love acting, I love what I do, I love doing theater, but I don't know. To me, my relationships to other people became far more important than my relationship to fame."

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Kelly McGillis Says She Wasn't Asked to Be Part of 'Top Gun' Sequel (Exclusive)

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Kelly McGillis won't be making an appearance in Top Gun: Maverick .

When ET exclusively chatted with the 62-year-old actress over the phone on Friday, she told us that she was not asked to be a part of the upcoming Joseph Kosinski-directed sequel.

In the original Top Gun , released in 1986 and directed by Tony Scott, McGillis portrayed the role of Charlie, the bombshell love interest of Maverick, played by Tom Cruise .

"You know what, I don't know how to answer that because one, it hasn't happened," McGillis said when asked if she would attend any of the promotional events surrounding the new film. "Two, if and when it did happen, I would have to assess where I am, what I'm doing, what's going on ... I can't project what I would or wouldn't do in the future. I have no idea because I don't know where I'll be."

"Movies are odd things. I don't really keep in touch with anybody," she continued, adding that she has yet to see the trailer for the sequel. "I think I've spoken to a couple of people occasionally, but the truth is, movies are very odd work situations because you have a lot of people who come together from all different parts of the world."

Cruise confirmed to ET last July that Jennifer Connelly was officially joining the star-studded Top Gun: Maverick cast. "Look, she's a great actress, obviously ... [and] when you see the film, you'll see why she's perfect for it," he said at the time. "We're just going to have a great cast. Gonna be a lot of fun."

When asked what she thinks about Connelly stepping in as Maverick's love interest , McGillis told us that although she doesn't know the 48-year-old actress, she is "so glad that she got that opportunity."

"I'm glad for her," she added.

McGillis, who has been out of the spotlight for years, now resides in North Carolina and enjoys spending her time with her two children, daughters Sonora and Kelsey Tillman. Explaining why she left Hollywood, McGills said she "got sober" and was "on a journey to figure out who the hell" she was.

"It was very challenging for me to have any kind of sense of self or self-identity or real self-worth other than what I did for a living," she admitted. "And it just -- it didn't become a priority; what became the priority initially was raising my girls and being the best sober parent I could be."

"I think just my priorities in life changed," she continued. "It wasn't like a major decision that I made to leave, it was just that other things became more important. I love acting, I love what I do, I love doing theater, but I don't know. To me, my relationships to other people became far more important than my relationship to fame."

McGillis told ET that she's currently "in transition, moving into a different phase of life" and hopes her next adventure will consist of lots of traveling.

"I am a home person. I'm really rooted in my home life ... I can't remember the last time I worked," she said, telling ET that she was diagnosed with alpha one antitrypsin disorder about five years ago. "I feel really blessed that I don't have to work, you know? But I get the option to work, so I'm really blessed in that way. Not many people get that option later in life, so I feel very lucky."

Top Gun: Maverick hits theaters June 26, 2020. In the meantime, watch the video below to hear what the cast shared with ET at Comic-Con earlier this month.

Reporting by Brendon Geoffrion.

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35 Years On, Why I've Never Lost That Loving Feeling For 'Top Gun'

Tom Cruise in "Top Gun." (Courtesy Paramount Pictures)

I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that the film I’d been most looking forward to seeing on a big screen post-vax was the extraordinarily belated sequel “ Top Gun: Maverick ,” which after three decades of anticipation and two years of release date delays had finally been scheduled to open this coming Fourth of July weekend. After all, what could be a more symbolically appropriate way to rally back from quarantine than an Independence Day IMAX screening of a gaudy, all-American extravaganza that takes place in an alternate universe where the Navy lets 58-year-old men fly fighter jets? Alas, citing concerns with international vaccine rollouts, Paramount moved the movie once again, this time to the week before Thanksgiving — as if anyone wants to watch people play beach volleyball in November.

In the meantime we’ll have to make do with the original, I guess. That’s right, “Top Gun” is roaring back to your local AMC theaters this weekend to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the film’s release, as well as something called “ Top Gun Day ,” which is one of those meaningless memetic holidays people invent as an excuse to talk about stuff they like on the internet. (Hilariously enough, “Top Gun Day” falls a few days before the film’s actual May 16 release date because the guys who came up with it made a typo on their merchandise designs.) Remastered in Dolby Vision and Atmos for this reissue, the 1986 movie was also recently made available in a new 4K UltraHD Blu-ray edition, which of course I ran out and bought right away because I find “Top Gun” to be politically repellant, logically incomprehensible and aesthetically irresistible. It’s a big, dumb movie that was probably bad for the world, and it’s also totally awesome.

Released six months after Rocky Balboa won the Cold War by defeating Ivan Drago in the ring, “Top Gun” offered an even more ecstatic escape into triumphalist, Reagan-era revisionism, removing all the blood, death and despair from combat — replaced by backlit beefcake shots and rah-rah aspirational recruiting mottos about being the best of the best. These clean-cut, freshly scrubbed flyboys weren’t haunted war criminals like John Rambo , they’re upbeat athletes aspiring to excellence. “Top Gun” might be framed around the military, but it’s a sports movie through and through. The screenwriters even invented a fake trophy competition and added a locker room to the Navy’s elite Fighter Weapons School as a way of reassuring audiences that all this war stuff is just fun and games.

Kelly McGillis (center) in "Top Gun." (Courtesy Paramount Pictures)

Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were hot off of “Flashdance” and “Beverly Hills Cop,” but their stroke of genius here was hiring brash British ad man Tony Scott to direct. A Royal College of Art graduate who’d crashed and burned in Hollywood a few years earlier with his inscrutably esoteric lesbian vampire movie “The Hunger,” Scott scored the “Top Gun” gig thanks to a car commercial he’d helmed in which a jet plane races a Saab. The kind of blustery, larger-than-life figure one rarely finds in the film industry anymore, Tony Scott was almost always attired in short shorts and a safari vest, puffing on a cigar beneath an omnipresent pink baseball cap. Few filmmakers from the era were so adept at exulting in their own ridiculousness, which made him the ideal director for “Top Gun.”

Scott supposedly threw a book of Bruce Weber photographs onto Bruckheimer’s desk and announced that’s what the movie was going to look like. To call “Top Gun” over-stylized would be an egregious understatement, as every angle is finessed with smoke machines and soft gel lights to a degree of giddy absurdity. Witness instructor Kelly McGillis’ entrance into the cadets’ class, filmed low and from behind to show off her seamed stockings and stiletto pumps. The Navy made their actual academy classrooms available for filming, but of course, Scott found them dreadfully boring and instead staged the lessons in a sunlit hangar in front of an F-15 and a gargantuan American flag. (I love the lonely chalkboard shunted off to the side.) Also, her lipstick.

Every scene of “Top Gun” is shot and cut like a commercial — all shimmering sunsets and golden magic hours with cool motorcycles and vintage cars. People wear heavy leather bomber jackets in the San Diego summer simply because they look so great in them. Everyone in this movie is always glistening for some reason, and any given frame could be put on a poster. Characters speak almost exclusively in catch-phrases and slogans they repeat back to each other later for applause cues and the soundtrack is wall-to-wall chart toppers and classic oldies. (Note the mercenary brilliance of the monologue during which Maverick talks about his mother’s favorite song, never mentioning the title nor the artist to give the filmmakers maximum leeway when negotiating the movie's music rights.) “Top Gun” looks and sounds like the longest advertisement you’ve ever seen, but what exactly is it supposed to be selling?

The Navy famously set up recruiting tables in theater lobbies, no doubt enlisting an entire generation of cadets disappointed to discover that their classes were taught indoors and never by Kelly McGillis. It’s an aesthetically jingoistic film according to the flattering photography of flags and uniforms, with still unparalleled aerial footage of these majestic silver phallic symbols whizzing around at the speed of sound. Yet the screenplay is clear as mud when it comes to cryptically exonerating Maverick’s deceased dad for I think maybe bombing Cambodia, and nobody’s ever been really sure if it ends with our boys starting World War III. “Top Gun” clearly hasn’t the slightest interest in — nor any ideas about — the problematic geopolitics it keeps stumbling over, because the movie is really just selling swagger, sunglasses and speed. Well, all those things and also Tom Cruise, who in the span of these 109 minutes went from a promising young dork dancing in his underwear in “Risky Business” to an instant American icon.

I’ve always considered Cruise one of our most underrated actors, but between us, he’s not very good in “Top Gun.” He still hadn’t learned how to modulate his voice yet and falls back on that jerky smirk far too often, especially in the chemistry-free scenes he spends sexually harassing Kelly McGillis. Of course, none of this matters because Scott and cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball frame and light Tom Cruise as a modern-day deity, embodying all the cocky aspirations of America’s recently restored confidence whenever he's putting on a pair of aviators. His physicality is extraordinary, a diminutive god among taller, lesser men. Characters are constantly telling Maverick how amazing he is, and even when Maverick isn’t in a scene people only talk about Maverick. I saw “Top Gun” in the theater when I was 11 years old — one of the neighborhood kids and I were thwarted in our efforts to sneak into Sylvester Stallone’s grisly vigilante cop movie “Cobra” so we had to settle for this PG alternative — and even though the film hadn’t been our first choice for that particular afternoon, when it was over we both wanted to be Maverick.

“Top Gun” didn’t have a massive opening the way blockbusters do today, and it actually got clobbered that Memorial Day weekend by competitors “Cobra” and “Poltergeist II: The Other Side.” But the movie stuck around all summer, thanks to repeat viewings and rapturous word of mouth, not to mention a smash soundtrack album that kept cranking out hits. The film’s Oscar-winning love theme “ Take My Breath Away ” remains composer Giorgio Moroder's towering masterpiece, with Berlin vocalist Terri Nunn cooing over billowy synth bubbles that make the world feel like it’s moving in dreamy slow-motion every time you hear it. 1980s soundtrack staple Kenny Loggins was a last-minute replacement for the group Toto on the Moroder-penned kickoff track “ Danger Zone ,” and the singer later confessed that his bizarre enunciation of the title’s two words was a feeble attempt to mimic the inimitable accent of his musical hero, Tina Turner. (This is one of those things that once you notice, you will never be able to unhear it. You're welcome.) Even Harold Faltermeyer’s instrumental “ Top Gun Anthem ” got radio airplay, as this summer movie lingered in the box office top 10 until almost Thanksgiving, when it finally began to fade from theaters, presumably because nobody wants to watch people play beach volleyball in November.

Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise in "Top Gun." (Courtesy Paramount Pictures)

Ah yes, about that volleyball scene. Every generation thinks they’re the first to discover the hilarious homoeroticism of “Top Gun,” a subject dissected at amusing length by Quentin Tarantino in the otherwise forgotten 1994 rom-com “Sleep With Me.” It’s no stretch to say that Cruise has considerably less chemistry with Kelly McGillis than he does with flyboy rival Val Kilmer, the two literally snapping at each other half-naked in their fictitious locker room. (When I spoke to Kilmer before the Boston Film Festival screening of "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" back in 2005, he laughed and acknowledged "it was recently pointed out to me that I'm really f---ing gay in that movie." Then he jokingly accused Tom Cruise of intentionally sabotaging all the volleyball shots in which Val looked hotter.) During an amusing archival interview during one of the new Blu-ray’s generous supplements, Scott admits he “had no vision” for the volleyball game, which was requested by the producers to once again emphasize that this was a sports movie and not a war film. So Scott shrugged and “slicked the boys up with baby oil "and "shot it like a softcore porno.”

None of this went unremarked upon at the time. Critic J. Hoberman’s Village Voice review was titled “Phallus in Wonderland,” and he drew angry letters from regular readers after writing, “the screen is so packed with streamlined planes and heat-seeking missiles, wagging forefingers and upright thumbs that, had Freud lived to see it, he might be excused for thinking ‘Top Gun’ an avant-garde representation of Saturday night at the Saint Marks Baths.” (Well, the movie was designed to look like a book of Bruce Weber photographs, after all.) At an early screening for midwestern exhibitors, it was sheepishly suggested that maybe they should beef up the hetero love story a little bit?

Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise in "Top Gun." (Courtesy Paramount Pictures)

So two new scenes were hastily shot scant days before the release, while the film was already being mixed. In that bit with Maverick and McGillis in the elevator, the actress is wearing a baseball cap because it was now months later and her hair no longer matched the character’s. Meanwhile, Cruise’s coiffure is all slicked down and soaking wet because by then he was busy shooting Scorsese’s “The Color of Money,” for which he’d grown out a formidable pompadour. Scott was savvy enough to know we’d never stop to ask why Maverick might be stepping into a crowded elevator after just getting out of the shower, much as he knew we wouldn’t care about these characters’ mismatched haircuts and bad wigs during their later sex scene that, to preserve a PG rating, was restricted to the memorably acrobatic intertwining of backlit tongues. (“We only had time to set up one light,” cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball sighs defensively on the DVD.)

Ever-underrated, Tony Scott went on to helm meathead masterpieces like “The Last Boy Scout,” “True Romance,” “Crimson Tide” and his fantastic final film, “Unstoppable.” Scott was for so long a lowbrow pariah in critical circles, it’s been enormously gratifying in recent years to watch young writers latching onto his work, citing Scott’s formal innovations as the trailblazer in a school that’s come to be called “vulgar auteurism.” His big brother Ridley might have been more respectable and won Oscars for his visionary science-fiction pictures and humorless historical epics, but I always preferred Tony’s lowbrow laughs and his sense of what fun, silly things these big blockbusters could be. (To my knowledge, he's still the only director who has his entire filmography engraved upon his headstone .)

One of my dearest moviegoing memories was watching “Top Gun” at the Somerville Theatre’s 70mm festival back in 2017 , with a six-track magnetic soundtrack that shook the bloody walls and a loud, rowdy crowd that was the exact, perfect level of drunk for the occasion. Everybody was halfway between mocking the movie and adoring it — applauding every iconically absurd line. Seen up close and so massively large, there’s no mistaking “Top Gun” is the work of a disgruntled British art student having a bit of a laugh about all this admittedly awesome American nonsense. What makes the film so much fun is that you’re invited to share it with him.

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Why isn’t Kelly McGillis in Top Gun: Maverick? What actress has said about not joining cast of the sequel

Kelly mcgillis says her priorities in life changed after leaving the film industry and jennifer connelly now plays cruise's love interest in the sequel.

This image released by Paramount Pictures shows Tom Cruise portraying Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in a scene from "Top Gun: Maverick." (Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures via AP)

Tom Cruise has returned to the big screen in retro-blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick , which released across UK cinemas today.

The 59-year-old has reprised his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell , 36 years after the original Top Gun was released.

But the absence of two stars from the original has left fans scratching their heads. Meg Ryan’s Carole Bradshaw is missing, along with Kelly McGillis, who played Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood.

Here’s what we know.

Why isn’t Kelly McGillis in Top Gun: Maverick?

Kelly McGillis, 64, told Entertainment Tonight in 2019 that, despite being Cruise’s love interest in the first film, she was never approached about returning for the reboot.

She told the American TV programme she no longer fits the expectation of how a Hollywood love lead should look.

“I’m old, and I’m fat, and I look age-appropriate for what my age is,” McGillis said.

Reflecting on how her life has progressed as she moved out of the film industry , she said: “It was very challenging for me to have any kind of sense of self or self-identity or real self-worth other than what I did for a living [as an actress].

“I think just my priorities in life changed.

“It wasn’t like a major decision that I made to leave, it was just that other things became more important… To me, my relationships to other people became far more important than my relationship to fame.”

Jennifer Connelly, who at 51, plays Cruise’s love interest in the sequel, released on Memorial Day weekend in the US.

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What can we expect from the new Top Gun ?

Pete “Maverick” Mitchell is back and is still feeling the need for speed. His bosses have him in their line of fire, but he remains the best navy test pilot around and commands respect from his flying colleagues.

There is a seemingly impossible mission to blow up an Iranian uranium enrichment plant and Maverick is dispatched to train up an elite team of graduates for the task.

Expect some breathtaking aerobatic displays which, judging by the critics and not entirely surprisingly, outstrip those of the original.

Geoffrey Macnab, writing in i , said “the aerial photography is every bit as spectacular as you would expect”.

The sequel, he adds, “defies cynicism and confirms Tom Cruise’s status as Hollywood’s ‘mission leader’ when it comes to blockbusters ”.

Deadline Hollywood praised the film saying it “tops the original in every way imaginable” adding it is “an example of Hollywood filmmaking at its zenith”.

The original Top Gun was released on 16 May, 1986 and went on to become one of the most famous films of the 80s.

In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, deeming it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Why does Tom Cruise do his own stunts? ‘No one asked Gene Kelly, ‘Why do you dance?’’

Cruise spoke at the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick.”

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By Kyle Buchanan

May 18, 2022

CANNES, France — It has been 30 years since Tom Cruise attended the Cannes Film Festival, and it’s evident the festival would like to make up for lost time.

Perhaps that’s why, in advance of a conversation with the actor billed as a “Rendezvous with Tom Cruise” — which was itself happening in advance of the evening premiere of Cruise’s sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” — the festival played a nearly 15-minute-long clip reel of Cruise’s filmography, hyperbolically scored to Richard Strauss’s “Also sprach Zarathustra.” As the actor and audience watched from their seats, the reel touched on Cruise the action star, Cruise the dramatic thespian and Cruise the romantic, though the latter section, which featured him pitching woo at a bevy of leading ladies, notably left out Cruise’s ex-wife and three-time co-star Nicole Kidman.

“It’s wild seeing this reel,” Cruise said after taking the stage. “It’s like your life in ten minutes — very trippy.”

Cruise was speaking in front of a mostly unmasked crowd in the Salle Claude Debussy, which included hundreds of journalists and a team from Cruise’s agent, CAA. “After everything we’ve been through, it’s such a privilege to see your faces,” he said. He noted that “Top Gun: Maverick” had been held for two years because of the pandemic, though he refused to show it on a streaming service in the meantime. “Not gonna happen!” Cruise said to applause.

The 59-year-old star is insistent that his movies receive a lengthy theatrical window, a mandate that has sometimes put him in conflict with studio heads, who are eager to fill their streaming services with star-driven content. And in an era where big names like Leonardo DiCaprio and Sandra Bullock have no problem appearing in films for Netflix, Cruise remains a rare holdout.

“There’s a very specific way to make a movie for cinema, and I make movies for the big screen,” said Cruise. “I know where they go after that and that’s fine.” He said he even called theater owners during the pandemic to reassure them: “Just know we are making ‘Mission: Impossible.’ ‘Top Gun’ is coming out.”

Cruise is a discursive speaker who will leap out of one anecdote before it’s done to land in another, then another. (Perhaps that would make for an esoteric set piece in one of his action films?) But it was striking how often he returned to his formative experience shooting the 1981 movie “Taps,” in which he acted opposite George C. Scott and found himself fascinated by the way the filmmaking worked. Cruise said that while shooting, he thought, “Please, if I could just do this for the rest of my life, I will never take it for granted.”

And in the absence of any challenging questions from his interlocutor, the French journalist Didier Allouch — who was mostly content to burble blandishments like “You're absolutely extraordinary” to his interview subject — Cruise had the freedom to basically spin his own narrative of being a determined student of cinema and his fellow man. (And “Taps,” of course.)

“I was the kind of kid who always wrote goals on the wall of what kind of movies I liked or what I wanted my life to be, and I worked toward those goals,” Cruise said.

Though the conversation increasingly leaned toward bland generalities — “I’m interested in people, cultures, and adventure,” Cruise said more than once — it did provide one major laugh line when Allouch asked why he was so determined to do his own stunts in the “Mission: Impossible” movies, which will soon be receiving seventh and eighth installments shot back-to-back.

“No one asked Gene Kelly ‘Why do you dance?’” replied the star.

Kyle Buchanan , a Los Angeles-based pop culture reporter, writes The Projectionist column. He was previously a senior editor at Vulture, New York Magazine's entertainment website, where he covered the movie industry. More about Kyle Buchanan

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Despite her absence in "Top Gun: Maverick," Kelly McGillis has had a successful career in film since the original "Top Gun" and has continued to act in various genres, particularly in the horror genre.
In 2009, McGillis publicly came out as a lesbian, reflecting on her struggles with self-acceptance and embracing her sexuality.
In recent years, McGillis has shifted her focus to raising her daughters, committing to her sobriety, and teaching acting at the New York Studio for Stage and Screen, while also managing her genetic condition, alpha one antitrypsin disorder.

Fans of the original Top Gun might be wondering what happened to Kelly McGillis, especially since she didn't return for the blockbuster sequel, 2022's Top Gun: Maverick . Although McGillis continued to nab parts in big-name Hollywood films post- Top Gun , nothing quite topped her back-to-back successes in the mid-80s. A year before 1986's Top Gun , she starred in the neo-noir crime thriller Witness alongside Harrison Ford. McGillis' breakout role in Witness earned her Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, and helped her land roles in a spate of memorable, late-'80s flicks, including Made in Heaven , The House on Carroll Street , and The Accused .

Throughout the '80s and '90s, McGillis continued to work in film, television, and theater. In 1999, she starred in At First Sight , opposite Val Kilmer, proving that she still had the star power to sell films and command audiences. After appearing in queer cult film The Monkey's Mask and the Billy Zane-led direct-to-TV crime drama Morgan's Ferry , McGillis vanished from Hollywood for several years. While she'd eventually return to the screen, the actor ended a solid run in indelible genre-spanning movies. This gap in her filmography has pushed audiences who admire Kelly McGillis' work to wonder what she's been up to over the last several decades.

Kelly McGillis Returned To Acting In 2006 After 5 Year Break

For those wondering what Kelly McGillis has done since Top Gun , the list is long — perhaps surprisingly so. Apart from Witness , Top Gun is the movie most cinephiles associate her with, but she's had successes since the '80s blockbuster. After her stint in 2001's Morgan's Ferry , McGillis took a five-year break from acting. In 2007, she appeared on the screen again in the documentary feature Girl 27 , but, when it came to acting roles, McGillis returned to the craft in 2006, shooting a B-horror movie, Supergator , that would be released the following year.

While Supergator seems like quite the pivot, the monster movie marked a new chapter in McGillis' career. After the flick, she landed roles in several other sub-genre-spanning horror movies, from the post-apocalyptic vampire horror film Stake Land to supernatural horror flick The Innkeepers to the Sundance Film Festival-selected We Are What We Are . While the actor largely took a break from silver-screen projects, she appeared in archival footage for the documentary Val in 2021 and had bit parts in made-for-TV films and shows, including Showtime's The L Word and Syfy's Z Nation .

Kelly McGillis Came Out In 2009

Kelly McGillis has had two high-profile marriages to men — Boyd Black and Fred Tillman — that ended in divorce. After splitting from Tillman in 2002, McGillis left the spotlight for a bit. In 2008, she guest starred on The L Word , Ilene Chaiken's drama series that centered on lesbian, bi, and queer women living in Los Angeles. In the show, McGillis played Colonel Gillian Davis, an army officer who's unwilling to live openly in light of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." To make matters worse, Colonel Davis seems eager to out one of the series' central characters, Tasha (Rose Rollins), after discovering Tasha's queerness.

Just a year after her appearances in several episodes of The L Word , the then-51-year-old actor came out as a lesbian in an interview with SheWired (via The Advocate ). In the interview, McGillis reflected on her life-long struggle to be open about her sexuality, noting that, as a young kid, she felt God would punish her for her queerness. Since 2009, McGillis has been able to live openly, noting that life is all about " growing and changing, and coming to terms with who and what you are, and loving who and what you are. "

Why Kelly McGillis Didn't Return In Top Gun: Maverick (Is She Retired?)

For those wondering where Kelly McGillis is in Top Gun 2 , look no further. Despite appearing in some of Top Gun: Maverick 's archival footage, McGillis isn't in the sequel. Director Joseph Kosinski has stated that the Maverick team was meticulous when it came to including legacy characters in the sequel: instead of leaning too much on pre-established characters, the movie aimed to set up new personalities. While the absence of Top Gun 's Charlie doesn't necessarily hurt Top Gun: Maverick , it's still a shame, especially considering that McGillis feels she was " look[s] age-appropriate for what my age is, and that is not what that whole scene is about. "

Kelly McGillis' Illness & Personal Life

Raising her two daughters and committing to her sobriety have been the central focuses in Kelly McGillis' life since she made the decision to leave Hollywood behind and settle in Hendersonville, North Carolina. In a 2019 interview, McGillis opened up about being diagnosed with a genetic condition called alpha one antitrypsin disorder (via Everything Zoomer ). Prior to settling in North Carolina, McGillis, understanding the importance of self-care and sobriety, committed to helping others who live with substance-use disorder at a New Jersey rehabilitation center. In 2013, Kelly McGillis became an acting teacher at New York Studio for Stage and Screen, proving her appreciation for the art form endures.

Sources: The Advocate , Everything Zoomer

Top Gun (1986)

Kelly McGillis stood tall in 'Top Gun'

His hot shot jet pilot character may have soared thousands of feet in the air on-screen, but in reality Tom Cruise's “Top Gun” leading lady towered over him on the ground.

Kelly McGillis — who played “Charlie,” the beautiful civilian flight instructor opposite Cruise's cocky but talented Navy flyer nicknamed “Maverick” — stood a good three inches taller than her male co-star.

Cruise is reportedly 5 feet, 7 inches tall. McGillis says she stands at 5 feet, 10 inches in her stocking feet. And that's how she had to play her character in “Top Gun.”

“Well first off, Tom and (director) Tony (Scott) and I really weren't bothered by the height difference, but apparently Paramount was, so I acted the whole time in my stocking feet,” McGillis said in a phone interview Monday from her home in Edneyville, N.C.

“And when I see the film now I see myself trying to shrink, you know? I see myself as the film goes on trying to reduce myself.”

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A remastered IMAX 3-D version of the 1986 action-drama opens in theaters nationwide Friday for a six-day engagement and is set for release as a Blu-ray 3-D/Blu-ray combo package on Feb. 19.

“It doesn't seem that long,” said McGillis, 55, who was just shy of 30 when “Top Gun” was originally released.

The film also starred Val Kilmer as “Iceman,” Anthony Edwards as “Goose,” Tom Skerritt as “Viper,” Barry Tubb as “Wolfman” and Meg Ryan as Carole. Most of the locations were in and around the San Diego area and its Naval Training Center.

“The film was just a really enjoyable experience,” McGillis said. “I mean working with everybody was really wonderful. All of us hung out together after hours, except for Val and Tom. They lived in a different place. But all of the rest of us, we lived in kind of the same hotel complex, and we all hung out and went to the beach together, went to dinner, you know, it was nice. There was quite a lot of camaraderie on that set, which was nice.”

And McGillis had nothing but praise for her leading man, even though he didn't hang out with everyone else at the beach.

“He is such a nice guy and he's very kind and generous and respectful,” McGillis said. “It was just fun. It was really fun working with Tom. I enjoyed it a lot.”

And, she added, “There've been a lot of men that I've worked with that I don't wear shoes with.”

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Tom Cruise at an event for Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

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Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

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Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Vanessa Kirby, and Mariela Garriga in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

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Tom Cruise and Pom Klementieff in Au Revoir, Chris Hemsworth (2020)

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Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Henry Cavill, Rebecca Ferguson, and Simon Pegg in Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

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Tomu Kurûzu
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July 3 , 1962
Syracuse, New York, USA
Spouses Katie Holmes November 18, 2006 - August 20, 2012 (divorced, 1 child)
Children Isabella Jane Cruise
Parents Thomas Mapother III
Relatives William Mapother (Cousin)
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Trivia His acting idol is Paul Newman . Much to the delight of Cruise, they became good friends during work on The Color of Money (1986) . Newman got him into racing, and Cruise ultimately raced on his team.
Quotes The thing about filmmaking is I give it everything, that's why I work so hard. I always tell young actors to take charge. It's not that hard. Sign your own checks, be responsible.
Trademarks Often plays romantic leading men with an edge
Salaries Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two ( 2025 ) $13,000,000 + % of back end
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Kelly Preston in ‘Jerry Maguire’: Furiously Good, in a Role That Should Have Opened More Doors

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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Editorial use only. No book cover usage.Mandatory Credit: Photo by Andrew Cooper/Columbia Tri Star/Kobal/Shutterstock (5884614k)Kelly PrestonJerry Maguire - 1996Director: Cameron CroweColumbia Tri StarUSAScene StillComedy/Drama

As an actress, Kelly Preston , who died Sunday at 57 , was the soul of likability, and that’s no small thing. When she showed up in a movie, she lit it up; she also grounded it. (She had an earthly radiance.) Just think of the scene in “For Love of the Game” where she meets Kevin Costner’s aw-shucks baseball pitcher. Her rental car is stalled by the side of the road, and he stops to help her, all shaggy jockish gallantry. It’s a meet-cute moment, though the offhand way that Preston bristles at being rescued lends it a contemporary vivacity. Then, this being a traditional (and actually rather good) Hollywood movie, he melts her resistance. Just as she has already melted his. The audience melts too.

In “Twins” and “SpaceCamp” and “Mischief” and Alexander Payne’s first film, “Citizen Ruth,” and a great many others (even her middling ones, like “The Cat in the Hat”), Kelly Preston had scenes like that one, where her no-nonsense beam was a gift to the audience. But that’s why her showpiece fury in “ Jerry Maguire ” remains so singular, dramatic, and revealing. By the time she was cast as Tom Cruise ’s fiancée in Cameron Crowe’s classic 1996 sports-agent drama, we felt, more or less, that we’d come to know Kelly Preston. So this was like seeing a born-again actress, with her softness ripped asunder.

She’s introduced in a comical sex scene, though the joke comes from something witty on Preston’s part: Even in the heat of passion, her character, Avery, is perhaps doing a bit of acting, hyping her pleasure to seal the deal of a relationship. Her major moment arrives a bit later, after Jerry has been fired for writing a midnight manifesto preaching that his agency should try to be a little less profit hungry. The world has been knocked out from under him, so what he wants from Avery, his supposed life partner, is sympathy, loyalty and understanding. What he gets instead is…rage.

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In a scene that lasts a little under three minutes, she does more than rip Jerry a new one — she tears through a set of emotions as real as they are raw. Walking around a mostly empty gymnasium as she hands out folders before an NFL event, Avery looks Jerry in the eye and gives him a cold hard reality check. “You and I are sales people,” she says with defiance. “We sell .” In other words: Why would you pretend to be something you’re not? It’s a question the movie very much needs to ask, since Jerry, at this point, is still trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He wants to be the king of the sports agents… and a nice guy.

It’s at that moment Preston’s acting takes off into a zone of anger so simultaneously hypnotic, horrifying and humane that you can’t tear yourself away from it. The words pour out with operatic ferocity, as she recalls how she and Jerry always said they would tell each other the “brutal truth.” (In her case that means: “I don’t cry at movies. I don’t gush over babies…” ) Her truth represents honesty without empathy. And that’s terrifying. But then Avery delivers the coup de grâce— that she really does love him. And as it hits her that she’s being dumped, we get a quick glimpse of that Kelly Preston open heart. For a moment, she’s wrecked. And then the savage is loose again. (The stage is now fully set for Renée Zellweger.)

We live in an age of free-fall capitalist ruthlessness, and “Jerry Maguire” was one of the first movies to capture it. It came out at a time when people were still congratulating themselves for having called the 1980s “the Greed Decade.” We were still waking up to the fact that our society, in the 10 years since the 1987 stock-market crash, had only gotten greedier. (The Internet, launched around the time that “Jerry Maguire” came out, would only make it more so.)

Preston, in “Jerry Maguire,” is the one who speaks that brutal truth by putting an honest face on it. And she enacts the entire mini-drama of Avery and Jerry’s relationship as if we were seeing the breakup equivalent of speed-dating: two people who maybe loved each other, who grounded their romance in salesmanship, who are honest except when they’re not, all driven by a woman who is sad in a way she’d scarcely admit and angry in a way that seemed bold at the time and that just seems forthright now. All of that is power-packed into Kelly Preston’s performance.

She never had another scene like it. Which may have resulted from choices she made, but also related to the absence of the more abundant opportunities she should have had. Yet she remained a presence to bask in. And in “Jerry Maguire,” she was on fire.

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‘There was something lovable about his pure energy and lack of cynicism’ … Tom Cruise in Cannes.

‘Would you ask Gene Kelly that?’: defiant Tom Cruise dazzles Cannes

A hero’s welcome met the star of two Top Guns and countless Mission: Impossible movies as he took part in a toothless Q&A carried by that mega-watt grin

Cannes is the only place that loves Hollywood more than Hollywood loves itself; it certainly loves to showcase colossal personal appearances by the iconic names, linked to a big, unjudgemental screening of his or her latest innocent-pleasure movie.

That certainly applies to this year’s live Q&A event with Tom Cruise, ahead of his latest extravaganza Top Gun: Maverick . Mr Cruise took the stage to a rock-star reception after an epic sizzle-reel recap of the great man’s greatest moments – thousands of cinephiles abandoned their cool cynicism and jumped ecstatically to their feet, your correspondent among them.

Cruise was slim, focused and understatedly athletic in dark sweater and trousers; he submitted to good-natured softball questioning from French journalist and Cruise superfan Didier Allouch.

Tom Cruise and Jennifer Connelly at the Top Gun: Maverick photocall.

Cruise was very serious about cinema and there were no racy and indiscreet anecdotes. Questions about romance or religion were clearly off the table. But there was something lovable about Cruise’s pure energy and lack of cynicism. He told us about shooting the same particular erotically charged scene with Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut for Stanley Kubrick dozens of times. “Really, Kubrick made you do it again and again?” asked Allouch, unwisely attempting ironic humour on the theme of Kubrick’s legendary perfectionism. “Oh yes,” said Tom, not getting this attempted joke at all.

He was asked if there was any pressure from the suits and the bean-counters to take Top Gun: Maverick straight to small-screen streaming. “Let me tell you,” said Tom, “that’s NOT GONNA HAPPEN!” Screaming and cheering from all of us.

Tom Cruise at his Rendez-Vous with Tom Cruise Q&A session.

He also told us how it was his habit to have meetings with everyone on a film set to learn about their work and ask: “What’s your job? How can I help you?” Only a lunatic would tell Cruise to go away and let him or her get on with, say, the location catering - because there’s a worryingly good chance that Cruise would actually know a lot about it.

Allouch asked him why in recent Mission: Impossible films, it’s the supporting cast and not Cruise himself who get to do the latex-unmasking-thing. “What can I tell you?” Cruise replied. “Simon Pegg REALLY wanted to do the mask! How can you say no to Simon, right?” We whooped.

Then Allouch became serious and asked him about doing all his own super-dangerous stunts. “You are a family man with children! Why do it?” Tom was ready for this one: “Would you ASK GENE KELLY WHY HE DOES ALL HIS OWN DANCING?”

This reply brought us to our feet all over again.

Cannes 2022
Top Gun: Maverick

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Tom Cruise Poses For Photo With Kids Bella and Connor for First Time in Nearly 15 Years

Tom cruise was seen spending some quality time with kids isabella “bella” kidman and connor cruise, whom he shares with ex-wife nicole kidman. it’s the trio’s first public outing in 14 years..

This family moment will take your breath away.

Tom Cruise made his first outing with his eldest children Isabella "Bella" Kidman Cruise , 31, and Connor Cruise , 29, in nearly 15 years last December when the trio saw the Tampa Bay Lightning face off against the Florida Panthers.

And in true pics or it didn't happen fashion, they commemorated the NHL game by posing for a group photo, which also included former NFL player Derrick Brooks .

It's a rare glimpse into Tom's family's time as both Bella and Connor—whom he shares with ex-wife Nicole Kidman —prefer to remain out of the public eye. In fact, the last time the three were seen publicly together was in 2009 when they attended a soccer game in Los Angeles.

Both Connor and Bella also tend to keep a low profile on social media, with the artist sharing an occasional selfie amid her work. As for Connor, he last shared a selfie in June while with his pals in Florida.

However, over the years, Tom—who is also dad to Suri Cruise , 18, whom he shares with ex-wife Katie Holmes —and Connor have attended sporting events together, cheering on Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Dodgers and Maryland Terrapins.

But it's no surprise that Connor and Bella prefer to stay out of the limelight, as Nicole and Tom agreed it was best for the kids since they were young.

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How Suri Cruise's estrangement from dad Tom Cruise would have affected her growing up

The teenager was six when her parents tom cruise and katie holmes split.

Suri Cruise has not been publicly seen with her father Tom Cruise since she was a little girl. The pair have been reportedly estranged for well over a decade .

Suri, who has a very close bond with her mother Katie Holmes , with whom she lives in New York City, was six when her parents divorced.

As a young girl, she did appear to have a close relationship with the Top Gun actor and was very much part of his spotlight.

Suri Cruise's lifestyle has changed dramatically since her childhood

So how will this estrangement have affected Suri growing up, going from having a constant connection to her dad, to a non-existent one in a flash?

Suri's absent father growing up

"Suri may well have felt quite confused at the time as to why her dad left," Lindsay George , BACP-registered counsellor and psychotherapist, told HELLO!

Describing children's attachment styles in layman's terms, Lindsay explained that Suri and Tom may have had a secure attachment up until the point of their estrangement.

"We can speculate that he was present and an emotionally available dad. Obviously, she's got her mum too, so potentially, Suri's attachment style is secure because she's had two parents emotionally and physically available in those early years of her life , which is super important."

Tom holding hands with ex-wife katie holmes and daughter Suri

However, the difference is stark when that security is suddenly taken away.

"Children develop coping mechanisms if their needs aren't met, for example, their dad doesn't come back," said Lindsay. "So Suri will have found a way of coping with that level of anxiety, because that will have manifested as anxiety at that age. It would have made her feel unsafe and insecure despite reassurance from her mum ."

This can present itself in an anxious attachment style, where we seek reassurance from whatever or whoever, Lindsay explained. Or it could also translate into an ambivalent attachment style. " In other words, we emotionally abandon our needs, and we find a way of detaching from big things. "

katie holmes tom cruise with daughter suri as a baby

Her close relationship with mother Katie

While a sudden change in family dynamic can provoke anxiety in a child, one positive to come out of such a situation is the child becoming more resilient – not to mention a strengthened bond with the remaining parent or caregiver.

"Suri will have developed a very secure, reliable, and consistent attachment style, which means that she feels safe and secure in relation to her mum," said Lindsay.

" Katie will have reinforced these feelings of safety and security and encouraged her daughter to develop a sense of self , which may be, 'Actually, I'm okay and I don't need my dad. I don't need a man to do things for me.'

"So, it's a reinforcement for girls to feel good about themselves if they get to that point. Suri is 18 so she's done the hard groundwork. She's got to this point where she can almost take the control back in her own hands ."

Suri Cruise and Katie Holmes at basketball game

Turning 18 and becoming an adult

Suri celebrated her milestone 18th birthday last month. She was spotted in New York City on the eve of her birthday, carrying an array of gifts as she walked with friends.

She has kept largely out of the spotlight since her parents' divorce in 2012 and was raised in Los Angeles before relocating with her mother Katie to the Big Apple.

The Dawson's Creek alum has always spoken about their close relationship, telling Glamour last year: "What has been really important for me with my daughter, because she was so visible at a young age, is I really like to protect her. I'm very grateful to be a parent, to be her parent. She's an incredible person."

All about Suri

Developing suri's talent.

Speaking to InStyle in 2022, Katie also said: "I love her so much. My biggest goal has always been to nurture her into her individuality. To make sure she is 100 per cent herself and strong, confident, and able. And to know it."

It's clear that Suri has developed her parents' talents for performing and showcased her incredible singing voice back in 2022. She sang the opening credits of Katie's film, Alone Together , when she was just 15.

When asked why she chose Suri for the job, the actress and director sweetly told Yahoo! Entertainment : "I always want the highest level of talent, so I asked her."

This feature about Suri and Tom's estrangement originally appeared on Apple News+ . Subscribe to read the full interview and find out whether Tom is playing the long game.

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An A-List Guest Just Spilled a New Detail About Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes' 2006 Wedding

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes may be divorced for over 12 years but their brief marriage is still one of Hollywood's most high-profile pairings. Given the public fascination, its no surprise that some A-listers are still dropping information about their 2006 Italian wedding.

Brooke Shields is the latest to weigh in with a never-before-heard detail, though actress Leah Remini is who we've come to expect these tidbits from ! Shields dropped new information in an interview with Entertainment Weekly ahead of her new movie Mother of the Bride.

Shields revealed just couldn't turn down an invite to the high-profile wedding, which came after Cruise apologized for publicly criticizing the Pretty Baby star after she bravely revealed she took anti-depressants to treat her postpartum depression.

"Of course, I was gonna say yes to that," Shields told Entertainment Weekly . "I was like, ‘Yes. I will - as long as I'm not the something old!'"

The star revealed that Holmes rather hilariously agreed and asked her to be in charge of bringing a gift to fit the "something old" tradition. "She goes, ‘Oh, will you?' And I said, ‘What? Bring myself as the something old?'"

"I had to, like, hunt antique places," Shields said, "to find the perfect, you know, gift to give her." The actress eventually settled on what sounds like a beautiful gift!

"It was a little compact that you put a ring…, " Shields said. "So you're supposed to be able to look at their reflection in it and have it around their finger."

While were not sure when exactly this invite was extended, Shields did reveal i n a September 2006 interview (just two months before the wedding) that Cruise came to her house in person to apologize after he advanced Scientology's stance against anti-depressants.

"He came over to my house, and he gave me a heartfelt apology," Shields said during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno . "And he apologized for bringing me into the whole thing and for everything that happened."

"And through it all, I was so impressed with how heartfelt it was. And I didn't feel at any time that I had to defend myself, nor did I feel that he was trying to convince me of anything other than the fact that he was deeply sorry. And I accepted it."

Cruise and Holmes married in an elaborate ceremony in an Italian castle in an event that reportedly cost over 3 million dollars. In addition to Shields, other celebrity guests included Jennifer Lopez, David and Victoria Beckham, Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith, and more.

Holmes filed for divorce six years later, in a filing that is largely suspected to have been an attempt to save the couple's daughter, Suri Cruise , from being swept up in Scientology, the controversial church that Cruise is famously a member of.

Before you go, click here to see Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes entire relationship timeline:

Tom Cruise’s Kids: Everything to Know About His Mysterious Relationships With Connor, Isabella & Suri

Tom Cruise may be the biggest movie star, but he's also a family man! We've got all the details on Tom Cruise's relationships with his son Connor and daughters Isabella and Suri.

Tom Cruise is an iconic actor, but more importantly, he’s a father. The Top Gun star, who has been married three times , shares two adopted kids — Connor Cruise and Isabella ‘Bella’ Cruise — with his ex-wife, Academy Award-winning actress Nicole Kidman . He also has one biological child, a daughter named Suri with his other ex-wife, Katie Holmes .

Tom lives an extremely private life, despite being a major movie star. While he may hit the occasional red carpet if he has a movie premiering, the actor is rarely photographed anywhere else, or with his kids. Though, he does have a relationship with all three. Tom was most recently seen in a photo in December 2023 with his and Nicole’s children, Connor and Bella, after athlete Derrick Brooks shared a group shot to Instagram .

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Derrick Brooks (@officialdbrooks55)

Want to know more? Learn more about Tom’s family dynamic with his son and two daughters below.

Isabella Cruise

Tom and Nicole adopted Connor and Isabella during their decade-long marriage in the ’90s. Isabella, who was born on December 22, 1992, took a page out of her father’s book by adopting a lifestyle away from the spotlight, however, she recently resurfaced on her Instagram with a selfie on August 25, and fans went wild. The new photo came four months after she last shared a photo of her face online, so her followers were elated to see her sharing a new picture of herself.

The London-based artist owns a company with the title of her namesake, “Bella Kidman Cruise,” which sells phone cases, tote bags, and more. As far as her personal life is concerned, Bella married Max Parker , an IT consultant, in an intimate ceremony in London in September of 2015. Neither Bella’s nor Max’s parents attended, which led to speculation that she was estranged from her parents. Though, that was later proven not to be the case .

“Of course [we talk], they’re my parents. Anyone who says otherwise is full of sh-t,” Isabella told Daily Mail in March of 2016. When asked if it was hard not to have Tom walk Isabella down the aisle to give her away, Max admitted, “Yeah. It is what it is.” Isabella also has a good relationship with her mother, whose last name is included in her company’s name. And, she’s close with her brother, Connor, which is evidenced by various social media posts.

Isabella caused a slight stir in July 2021 when she and brother Connor both posted a selfie – a rare thing from these private kids – on the same day. Bella’s selfie was taken during the Euro Championship when England took on Denmark. “My face during extra time. Fingers crossed,” she captioned the shot. It clearly worked, as England prevailed. Earlier in the year, Bella posted another selfie – a black and white photo advertising prints in her shop. When Isabella shared a snap in September 2021 , fans thought she looked amazing.

Connor Cruise

Just like his sister, Connor, who was born on January 17, 1995, also enjoys living a private life. Though, he was very much in the spotlight in the past. Connor briefly followed in his parents’ footsteps and starred in two films — 2008’s Seven Pounds and 2012’s Red Dawn remake. The well-accomplished DJ eventually pursued his passion for deep-sea fishing, though, and now spends a lot of time in Clearwater, Florida, as seen on his Instagram page. Connor is very close with his sister, which was further proven by a cute throwback photo he shared to his Instagram in August 2019.

Connor appears to be quite close with his dad, too, as the two were most recently spotted together in October 2019. The father and son bonded over the actor’s love for helicopters, according to People — which reported that Tom took Connor on a chopper in London to show him “some aviation basics.” In 2012, Connor tweeted a black and white baby photo of himself, along with Isabella, in the arms of Tom.

While on a fishing trip in Costa Rica in February 2021, Connor showed off a catch that was almost bigger than him. “ Yellowfin were chewing today ,” he captioned the shot. He became an “ influencer ” in March of that year, launching the @connorsmeatshack IG account with his friend, Kim Joyce . The BBQ-themed account featured Connor’s love of grilling, and the man knows his way around a “rolled cap of ribeye and some lobstah tails,” as he put it . When the summer months rolled around, Connor decided to shave off his hair. “ New face, who dis? ” he captioned a June 8 IG story.

While on an August 2022 fishing trip with friends, Connor showed off his catch – a massive fish he hauled in from the ocean. In his most recent post, Connor revealed that he and his fishing buddies donated a large portion of their catch — “108 pounds of grouper” to be exact — to a charity. “I know it was tough to fit that in the truck but glad the fish was able to go and help those in need of it!!,” he wrote. Overall, Connor is enjoying a life of fishing, grilling, and living in the great outdoors.

Suri Cruise

Following his 2001 divorce from Nicole, Tom went on to marry Katie Holmes in 2006. They welcomed their only biological child, a daughter named Suri, that same year on April 18. Suri made her magazine debut on the October 2006 cover of Vanity Fair with her then-married parents. The accompanying photoshoot showed the family smiling while cuddled up together. Unfortunately, the trio didn’t have a happily ever after. Tom and Katie eventually divorced in 2012, and the actor has rarely been seen out with his daughter since the split. Believe it or not, one of their last photographs together was at Disneyland on January 25, 2012.

Tom’s relationship with Suri is a tumultuous one , multiple sources have expressed to Hollywood Life . “As challenging as things have become for him and his daughter, he still loves her,” an insider told us in April 2019. “Tom never intended to be estranged from his daughter when he decided to have a family with Katie, and he looks forward to repairing their relationship one day,” the source said. Tom and Katie have never spoken publicly about his estranged relationship with Suri. And it’s unclear when the actor and his now teenage daughter last saw one another. Suri resides with her mother in New York City, where she attends school.

While Tom and Suri’s relationship has remained strained, she has continued to have a positive connection with her mother. Suri and Katie are often seen together on the streets of New York City. Suri turned 18 in 2024.

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2024 ACM Awards: Check Out the List of Performers and Presenters for This Year’s Show

Randy Travis and the widow and son of country legend Charley Pride are set as presenters.

By Paul Grein

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The line-up of performers and presenters for the 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards is just about set, and the key word is collaboration. Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan will team up for a performance, as will Blake Shelton and wife Gwen Stefani and also Nate Smith featuring Avril Lavigne . In addition, Post Malone is booked for the show. He is expected to perform “I Had Some Help,” his new single featuring Morgan Wallen , though that has not yet been announced.

Raj Kapoor and Patrick Menton on Producing 2024 ACM Awards: ‘This Is Such a Global Genre Now…

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Hosted by 16-time ACM Award-winner Reba McEntire , the ACM Awards will stream live for a global audience on Prime Video from Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas on Thursday (May 16) at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT. A Prime membership will not be required to watch live. The full rebroadcast will be available directly following the stream on Prime Video and available the next day for free on Amazon Freevee and the Amazon Music app.

The ACM Awards will kick off with the Official ACM Awards Red Carpet Show hosted by Amber Anderson and Kelly Sutton (co-hosts, Country Heat Weekly podcast), Makho Ndlovu (host, Amazon Live ), and Elaina D. Smith (host, Nights With Elaina ), with Katie Neal (host, Katie & Company ) serving as a correspondent from the carpet. Presented by Prime Video and Amazon Music, the Red Carpet Show will also feature a performance by Megan Moroney (this year’s most nominated female artist with six nods), and air on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch starting at 7 p.m. ET.

Plus, Bobby Bones, five-time ACM Awards winner for national on-air personality of the year, will be featured throughout the night. His segment, “Backstage with Bobby Bones,” will showcase intimate artist interviews and special moments of the show.

On Wednesday (May 15) at 9 p.m. ET, fans will be able to stream Live from the ACM Awards: Backstage with Kelly & Amber. Amber and Kelly will also release three ACM-themed Country Heat Weekly podcasts on Thursdays, starting on May 9 with the duo’s interview with McEntire.

Fans can also stream the Official ACM Awards playlist available now on Amazon Music in celebration of this year’s nominees. Fans can listen to Country Music’s biggest stars directly on the Amazon Music app.

The 59th Academy of Country Music Awards is produced by Dick Clark Productions. Raj Kapoor is executive producer and showrunner, with Patrick Menton as co-executive producer. Damon Whiteside serves as executive producer for the Academy of Country Music, and Barry Adelman serves as executive producer for DCP. John Saade continues to serve as consulting producer for Amazon MGM Studios.

Here are the performers and presenters for the 2024 ACM Awards. Any additional performers will be added to the list as they are announced.

Jason Aldean

Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan

Cody Johnson

Miranda Lambert

Post Malone

Parker McCollum

Reba McEntire

Thomas Rhett

Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani

Nate Smith featuring Avril Lavigne

Chris Stapleton

Lainey Wilson

Tyler Cameron

Jordan Davis

Carin León

Little Big Town

Ashley McBryde

Dion and Rozene Pride

Richard Sherman

Charissa Thompson

Randy Travis

Clay Walker

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Emily Blunt Introduces Kelly Clarkson to Her Favorite Candy of All Time: ‘Light as Air’

“You might not have heard of them, but they’re called Maltesers,” Blunt said on 'The Kelly Clarkson Show'

Emily Blunt is very protective of her favorite candy.

During the May 8 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show , Kelly Clarkson asked the Oppenheimer actress what her favorite theater snack is — and her answer is likely surprising to most Americans.

“You might not have heard of them, but they’re called Maltesers,” Blunt revealed.

“That’s a dog. That’s an actual dog,” Clarkson hilariously responded, confusing the chocolates for the Maltese dog breed.

Blunt stood by her go-to sweets choice by telling Clarkson, “It’s not a dog. It’s basically the better version of a Whopper. You’ve got to try them.”

The talk show host’s production team then actually brought out a big bowl of the candy — and Blunt looked stunned. “Bring them in!” she said, telling Clarkson, “Try one! You’re going to be converted to the church of ‘tesers”

Clarkson then admitted she wasn’t really a Whoppers fan either. “I’m a Milk Duds girl," she added.

Blunt took a bite of one and made a loud noise of satisfaction while Clarkson had lots of trouble swallowing it. “Go with it. They’re lighter than air,” Blunt said.

The "Because Of You" singer likened the flavor to “a malt,” which prompted the Devil Wears Prada actress to reiterate the name. “A Malteser,” she said with emphasis on the three syllables. Clarkson came to realize the context clues and got up laughing.

“I’m going to say that’s probably the only one I’m ever going to have,” Clarkson admitted as the audience roared with laughter.

The show’s clip, which was posted to TikTok, garnered some mixed reviews about the candy from fans in the comments. One user wrote, “Love me a malteser,” while another person wrote, “Maltesers with popcorn.. game changer.”

There were fans who took Clarkson’s side when it comes to the bite-sized confection. “Very chalky,” one user commented. “I love Kelly!! I’m a milk dude fan too!! Never a whopper fan🥰😂😂🥰," wrote another.

The Kelly Clarkson Show

In 2023, during LADbible's Agree to Disagree series, Blunt once again defended British food — this time up against Oppenheimer costar Matt Damon . "Have you ever had a lovely roast, a Sunday roast?" she asked him.

"Do you know you're known for having horrible food?" Damon replied. "It's like a thing."

After Blunt then proclaimed that she's not a fan of eating "cheeseburgers and nuggets all the time," the Departed actor wouldn't back down.

"That's all we have in America? You know what's great about America? We are a melting pot of all the other countries," he said. "So all the best food..."

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Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise in Top Gun (1986)
Tom Cruise Reveals the Title of ‘Top Gun’ Sequel
Top Gun: Por onde anda o par romântico de Tom Cruise do primeiro filme?
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Kelly McGillis

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What Tom Cruise And Kelly McGillis' Relationship Was Like On The Set Of
By Kaitlyn Carrera / May 14, 2023 6:00 pm EST. Tom Cruise charmed his way into the hearts of many after he starred as Maverick in the 1986 film, "Top Gun." In the movie, the daring and adventurous ...
Why Kelly McGillis Isn't in Top Gun: Maverick: "I'm Old ...
Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer returned to the Navy for Top Gun: Maverick, but one familiar face missing from the sequel is Kelly McGillis, who played Cruise's love interest in the 1986 original ...
Top Gun's Kelly McGillis Confirms What We Suspected About Tom Cruise's
Paramount Pictures. In a 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Kelly McGillis recalled that, except for Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, the "Top Gun" cast stayed at the same hotel during the shoot ...
Why Isn't Kelly McGillis in 'Top Gun: Maverick' With Tom Cruise?
Kelly McGillis — Maverick's love interest, Charlie, in Top Gun — isn't part of the second movie. Instead, the pilot reconnects with Penny Benjamin ( Jennifer Connelly ), who is referenced ...
Top Gun (1986)
Top Gun: Directed by Tony Scott. With Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards. As students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school compete to be best in the class, one daring young pilot learns a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom.
Top Gun's vanishing act: whatever happened to Kelly McGillis?
Helen O'Hara 25 May 2022 • 5:00am. Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise in Top Gun, 1986 Credit: Getty. Anyone with fond memories of Tom Cruise's first foray into the danger zone will find many ...
Top Gun: Maverick Rejected Kelly McGillis: Actress Not Asked ...
Cruise recently told Entertainment Tonight that he "rallied hard" for Kilmer to return for the sequel. Instead of McGillis, "Top Gun: Maverick" features Jennifer Connelly as the romantic ...
Top Gun's Kelly McGillis Gets Refreshingly Candid About Not Being
Kelly McGillis, who memorably played love-interest Charlie opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun, doesn't seem to mind that she's not involved in the upcoming sequel to the '80s classic.
Kelly McGillis Says She Wasn't Asked to Be Part of 'Top Gun' Sequel
In the original Top Gun, released in 1986 and directed by Tony Scott, McGillis portrayed the role of Charlie, the bombshell love interest of Maverick, played by Tom Cruise. "You know what, I don't ...
35 Years On, Why I've Never Lost That Loving Feeling For 'Top Gun'
Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise in "Top Gun." (Courtesy Paramount Pictures) So two new scenes were hastily shot scant days before the release, while the film was already being mixed.
Does Kelly McGillis Still Keep In Touch With Tom Cruise After ...
Kelly McGillis boasts a remarkable acting portfolio that spans film, television, and Broadway, but for most fans, her defining role remains Charlotte 'Charlie' Blackwood, Tom Cruise 's love ...
Why Isn't Kelly McGillis in 'Top Gun Maverick'?
Charlie, played by Kelly McGillis in the original film, is notably absent in the sequel without any explanation. ... Tom Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2022.
Why isn't Kelly McGillis in Top Gun: Maverick? What actress has said
Kelly McGillis, 64, told Entertainment Tonight in 2019 that, despite being Cruise's love interest in the first film, she was never approached about returning for the reboot.
Tom Cruise on 'Top Gun: Maverick' and Doing His Own Stunts
Why does Tom Cruise do his own stunts? 'No one asked Gene Kelly, 'Why do you dance?'' Cruise spoke at the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of "Top Gun: Maverick."
Kelly McGillis' Brutally Honest Take On Her Top Gun: Maverick ...
More than thirty years after the first "Top Gun" took the world by storm, "Top Gun: Maverick" is taking Tom Cruise back to the skies - and he's not alone.Whi...
What Happened To Kelly McGillis?
Kelly McGillis has had two high-profile marriages to men — Boyd Black and Fred Tillman — that ended in divorce. After splitting from Tillman in 2002, McGillis left the spotlight for a bit. In 2008 , she guest starred on The L Word, Ilene Chaiken's drama series that centered on lesbian, bi, and queer women living in Los Angeles.
Kelly McGillis
Kelly Ann McGillis (born July 9, 1957) is an American actress. She is known for her film roles such as Rachel Lapp in Witness (1985), for which she received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations; Charlie in Top Gun (1986); Made in Heaven (1987); The House on Carroll Street (1988); and as Katheryn Murphy in The Accused (1988). In her later career, she has starred in horror films such as Stake Land ...
Tom Cruise Wore Shoe Lifts in 'Top Gun' to Mitigate Height ...
According to Medium, it was necessary for Cruise to sport shoe lifts to counterbalance a noticeable height difference on set. Cruise's co-star, Kelly McGillis, stands just shy of six feet, while ...
Tom Cruise & Kelly McGillis Iconic Fight & Kiss Scene
An entire generation was dreaming about this scene while listening to "Take my breath away" from Berlin. 🔥 Buy or rent the movie NOW https://www.amazon.c...
Kelly McGillis stood tall in 'Top Gun'
Kelly McGillis — who played "Charlie," the beautiful civilian flight instructor opposite Cruise's cocky but talented Navy flyer nicknamed "Maverick" — stood a good three inches taller than her male co-star. Cruise is reportedly 5 feet, 7 inches tall. McGillis says she stands at 5 feet, 10 inches in her stocking feet.
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise. Actor: Top Gun. In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born ...
Why Kelly Preston Was Great Opposite Tom Cruise in 'Jerry Maguire'
Andrew Cooper/Columbia Tri Star/. As an actress, Kelly Preston, who died Sunday at 57, was the soul of likability, and that's no small thing. When she showed up in a movie, she lit it up; she ...
'Would you ask Gene Kelly that?': defiant Tom Cruise dazzles Cannes
Then Allouch became serious and asked him about doing all his own super-dangerous stunts. "You are a family man with children! Why do it?". Tom was ready for this one: "Would you ASK GENE ...
Tom Cruise Poses With Kids Bella & Connor for First Time in 14 Years
Tom Cruise was seen spending some quality time with kids Isabella "Bella" Kidman and Connor Cruise, whom he shares with ex-wife Nicole Kidman. It's the trio's first public outing in 14 years.
How Suri Cruise's estrangement from dad Tom Cruise affected her growing
The pair have been reportedly estranged for well over a decade. Suri, who has a very close bond with her mother Katie Holmes, with whom she lives in New York City, was six when her parents ...
An A-List Guest Just Spilled a New Detail About Tom Cruise ...
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes may be divorced for over 12 years but their brief marriage is still one of Hollywood's most high-profile pairings. Given the public fascination, its no surprise that ...
Tom Cruise's Kids: His Relationships With Connor, Isabella & Suri
Isabella Cruise. Tom Cruise, center, his son, Connor, left, and his daughter Isabella, right, at the MLS soccer match between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Chivas USA in Carson, CA on April 26, 2008 ...
2024 ACM Awards: Performers and Presenters List
The ACM Awards will kick off with the Official ACM Awards Red Carpet Show hosted by Amber Anderson and Kelly Sutton (co-hosts ... A Rare Photo of Tom Cruise With His 2 Oldest Kids Gives a Glimpse ...
Emily Blunt Introduces Kelly Clarkson to Her Favorite Candy of All Time
Photo: Getty (2) Emily Blunt is very protective of her favorite candy. During the May 8 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show, Kelly Clarkson asked the Oppenheimer actress what her favorite theater ...