Kelly McGillis is know for her appearances in Top Gun and The Accused...
Kelly McGillis
With a healthy outlook in rural digs, the “Top Gun” star is hitting the
big screen again and starting over on her terms.
January 2014
By Allan Richter
Kelly McGillis was one of Hollywood’s hottest leading ladies when she starred opposite Tom Cruise in the blockbuster “Top Gun.” Staring out from the movie’s poster, she and Cruise, in leather bomber jackets—hers pushed up at the sleeves and her arms draped around her leading man—stood against the backdrop of an F-14A Tomcat fighter jet in an image that embodied American might and sex appeal.
By then, the classically trained actress had starred opposite Harrison Ford in the Amish-themed drama “Witness” and a few years later would play Jodie Foster’s lawyer in “The Accused.” The “Top Gun” tagline “Up there with the best of the best” seemed as fitting for McGillis’ acting career as it was for the elite Navy fighter pilots portrayed in the film.
McGillis stepped back from acting in the 1990s to raise her children. When her daughters Kelsey and Sonora, now 23 and 20, respectively, moved out of the house in 2010, she resumed her career with fervor, appearing in a wave of back-to-back independent films that showcase her wholesome beauty and acting chops buoyed by the experience of middle age.
“I love her because she’s gone through so much in her life that I think she’s at a point where she’s got no mask on, she’s got no shield. She’s incapable of lying off screen and onscreen, and that’s a rare quality,” says Jim Mickle, who directed McGillis in two independent films, “Stake Land” (2010) and “We Are What We Are” (2013). Bill Sage, star of “We Are What We Are,” agrees. “That’s a sweet spot for an actor, and she’s in that zone,” Sage says. “She doesn’t make a false move.”
Nick Damici, a writer and actor on both films, recalled a “Stake Land” scene with McGillis in a cornfield. With McGillis taking her turn in front of the cameras, Damici and another actor were to prepare for an upcoming scene but wanted to remain on set to give McGillis live actors to play against. “Jim was being very polite about it as a director, and he said, ‘No, no they’re going to stay,’” Damici recounts. “Kelly looked at Jim, and said, ‘Jim, I can act to a postage stamp.’ And she meant it.”
McGillis, 56, sees her newest film work not as a comeback, but as a new beginning. “And I’m starting over as a middle-aged woman,” she says, “so I guess maybe it will take some time for me to start again.” There isn’t a hint of regret in her words, though. McGillis has happily settled into a remote rural spot on a North Carolina hilltop, where she lives far from the film industry’s urban epicenters with her partner, two cats and a dog, and where she teaches scene study.
“People spent their time with me and helped me along,” McGillis says, “and it’s a way to give back, and I really like that—passing on the love, baby! I like my little life the way it is.”
Energy Times: What are some of the ups and downs of starting over in middle age?
Kelly McGillis: There are a few obstacles I’ve created. I’m not willing to live in New York or Los Angeles at this point in my life. I love the quality of the life I have today and I don’t want to give that up for work. It makes it difficult for me because I can’t go on meetings, I can’t go on auditions,
so I’ve really limited myself in that respect. But it’s something I’m willing to do because I really love my quiet life.
I’m also not willing to dye my hair, and I’m not willing to have plastic surgery and Botox. I want to be an older character actress. I just saw “Philomena” this weekend, and I was so struck by how beautiful and full of life Judi Dench is. That is what I aspire to be. I want to be able to be who I am and to be at peace with that. I don’t want to be in a world where I have to feel less than or not good enough because I am not willing to alter my appearance. Quite honestly I’m afraid of it; I’ve seen a lot of plastic surgeries go horribly wrong.
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