Kelly McGillis Today: Why Isn’t She in Top Gun 2?

Why isn’t Kelly McGillis in Top Gun 2? Where is she today? That’s what a lot of fans of the long-awaited sequel are wondering.

Be forewarned, there will be a few spoilers for the new movie in this article.

The movie focuses on the brotherhood and warrior ethic, although it does give Tom Cruise a new love interest, Jennifer Connelly’s Penny Benjamin. Benjamin was referenced as a past girlfriend of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s in the first movie, although it was a passing mention (she is described as an admiral’s daughter he briefly dated). The sequel makes no mention of McGillis’s iconic character, Charlie, at all.

The other actress who did not reprise her role: Meg Ryan, who played the wife of Maverick’s best friend, Goose. The sequel is technically called, “Top Gun: Maverick.”

Here’s what you need to know:

McGillis Says She Looks ‘Age-Appropriate for What My Age Is’

In 2019, McGillis told Entertainment Tonight that she was not asked to appear in the sequel.

“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,” she told the site, which said she was 62 years old at that time, five years older than Tom Cruise.

Entertainment Tonight reported that the decision did not upset McGillis because she was basically retired from acting and focusing on her two daughters and family. “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,” McGillis told Entertainment Tonight.

AS for Connelly, McGillis said that she was “so glad she got that opportunity.”

McGillis also told Entertainment Tonight that she didn’t really keep in touch with anyone else from the first movie, saying, “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 because you have a lot of people who come together from all different parts of the world.”

Director Joseph Kosinski explained to Insider why he did not ask Ryan or McGillis to appear in the sequal.

In an interview with Insider, he said: “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.”

McGillis Has Been Married Three Times

McGillis has been married three times, according to the Bellevue Herald Leader. Her first marriage was to acting student Boyd Black, to whom she was married from 1979 to 1981.

In 1989, she married Fred Tillman and had daughters Kelsey and Sonora with him before divorcing in 2002, the site reported.

According to the Herald Leader, in 2009, McGillis “came out as a lesbian,” revealing she was dating Melanie Lies, a sales executive working at McGillis’s restaurant in Florida. They married in 2010 but broke up. Learn more about their wedding here.

“I have no secrets anymore, and in some ways it’s a relief,” McGillis said when she married Lies, according to Daily Mail.

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