No one asked Kelly McGillis to return for the Top Gun sequel, apparently.
McGillis, who plays Maverick’s love interest Charlie in the 1986 film, told Entertainment Tonight that she was not asked to reprise her role in Top Gun: Maverick, which comes out next year.
“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,” McGillis said. “But…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.”
Kelly McGillis is 62 years old, while Tom Cruise is 57 and Jennifer Connelly, Maverick’s new love interest, is just 48.
There could be other reasons why McGillis was not slated to return, as she hasn’t acted much since 2008, but Hollywood has a history of passing over age-appropriate actresses for much younger ones.
“The age thing is insane,” Emma Thompson told Vulture a few years back. “It was ever thus. I remember saying years and years ago, when I was 35, that they’d have to exhume somebody to play my leading man … Nothing’s changed in that regard. If anything, it’s got worse.”
Anne Hathaway, who is 36 years old, says she’s already been passed up for younger roles.
“I can’t complain about it because I benefited from it. When I was in my early twenties, parts would be written for women in their fifties and I would get them,” she told Glamour UK in 2015. “And now I’m in my early thirties and I’m like, ‘Why did that 24 year old get that part?’”
Disappointment over Charlie’s absence aside, ageism isn’t the only thing holding Top Gun: Maverick back. Like so many others in Hollywood, the new film appears to be changing its content to pander to China. Per National Review:
“The culprits were soon pretty obvious. The Hollywood Reporter found that the Chinese company Tencent is co-financing the sequel. Co-producing the film along with Paramount Pictures is Skydance, which is partially owned by Tencent.”
This isn’t to say Top Gun: Maverick is necessarily doomed, but these two unrelated pieces of news represent an unfortunate shift. More than 30 years later, the franchise values fresh faces and appeasing a foreign sponsor more than staying true to the original. Maybe this is further evidence that Hollywood needs to create new content, rather than getting stuck on sequels.
At the very least, it’s disappointing to see the film cave to industry trends and big business, leaving previous winners in the dust. As Slider said in the original, there are “no points for second place.”
