When Top Gun came in 1986, the Tom Cruise-starring film saw instant success with an astonishing $357 million global box office collection at a production budget of just $15 million. Also, the movie was the highest-grossing domestic release of the year.
But before the production of the film, the producers were skeptical about Cruse’s co-star Kelly McGillis who previously worked in Sweet Revenge and Witness. The reason is rather insane, the producers felt that McGillis looked like Cruise’s mother.
Top Gun Producers Were Skeptical About Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis Chemistry
The producers of Top Gun were not so sure about Kelly McGillis’ starring opposite Tom Cruise. Recalling the hesitation of casting McGillis, the producer of the film David Paul Kirkpatrick wrote the details of the reason for it on the blogging platform Medium. “She was much too tall for Tom Cruise. She was 5’11’’. He was 5’7,’” he wrote.
“Besides, she was 27, and he was 24, and the difference was palpable. After I saw them together for a ‘chemistry meeting’ on the Paramount lot, I walked away conclusively uttering, ‘She looks like his mother,’” he added.
Further, the producer said that Paramount had previously starred McGillis in Witness and it was for their benefit to negotiate a fair deal with the actor. Kirkpatrick was the executive on Top Gun but “the producers, Tom Cruise, the director Tony Scott and the head of the studio, Ned Tanen would not consider screen testing Kelly and Tom to see how they ‘played’ on screen.” If the fiction of them “as a couple worked on screen, that was the ‘truth,’” nothing else mattered, the producer added. Finally, McGillis ended up playing Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s love interest and it worked just fine.
The Real Reason Why Kelly McGillis Was Absent in Top Gun: Maverick
McGillis is happily retired now. Also, the actor was diagnosed with ‘alpha one antitrypsin disorder,’ a condition affecting the lungs and liver, in 2014. “I am a home person. I’m really rooted in my home life. I can’t remember the last time I worked,” McGillis once revealed. Further, the actor shifted her priority, “I think just my priorities in life changed,” she revealed. “It wasn’t like a major decision that I made to leave; it was just that other things became more important.”
While speaking to Entertainment Tonight, The Cat Chaser actor revealed the reason for not returning to Top Gun: Maverick. “I’m old, and I’m fat, and I look age-appropriate for what my age is. 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,” she added.
In Top Gun: Maverick, the makers of the film replaced McGillis’ character with Jennifer Connelly’s Penny Benjamin who was referred to in the 1986 film as Maverick’s former lover.
The grand sequel of the 1986 film hits theaters in 2022 and it was again, the highest-grossing movie of the year grossing close to $1.5 billion at the global box office.
Source: ET.
