Unfortunately, despite being one of the summer’s most anticipated releases, McGillis did not return as Tom Cruise’s on-screen flame in the 2022 reboot of Top Gun: Maverick.

Even though she isn’t in the new Top Gun film, a photo of the actress next to Tom Cruise has been going viral this week, and people can’t stop talking about it.

Some have speculated about how old Kelly McGillis was when filming Top Gun based on a photo that shows the two actors in 1986 and now. Let’s check it out…

How old was Kelly McGillis in Top Gun?

Top Gun’s filming season kicked off the summer before the film’s June 1985 release. The event lasted for another six months, concluding in December of that year.

The picture premiered in New York and Los Angeles in May 1986, the summer after it was released.

McGillis would have turned 28 a month into filming had she been born on July 9, 1957, the first day of production.

At the time of the film’s premiere in May of 1986, two months before she turned 29, she would have been the same age as she is now.

McGillis is older than Cruise by five years. There was a five-year age gap between the actress who played Charlie and Tom Cruise, who played Maverick, but that didn’t stop them from working together on set.

Cruise, who was born on July 3, 1962, would have been 22 at the time filming began on the 1980s blockbuster.

Cruise, like McGillis, would have turned 23 a month into filming, making him the same age as McGillis during most of the production and at the time of the premiere.

The current remake of the 1980s blockbuster included Cruise reprising his role as Maverick, although McGillis was not involved.

McGillis, then 62 years old, said Entertainment Tonight she had not been approached to star in the upcoming Top Gun picture, implying that her age may have been a factor.

She stated, “That is not what that whole team is about. I’m old, and I’m overweight, and I look age appropriate for what my age is.”

Where is Kelly McGillis, star of Top Gun, presently?

A traumatic event that occurred in her home before her rise to prominence in the 1980s as a result of Top Gun left the now-65-year-old actress deeply affected.

She was allegedly sexually attacked by two men who broke into her flat in 1982 and held her at knifepoint.

This trauma followed McGillis throughout her acting career and, according to People, eventually led to her developing an alcohol dependence.

The Reading Eagle reports that the actress has been clean since 2001; at the same period, she also temporarily left the Hollywood scene.

McGillis avoided the spotlight for about six years before making an appearance in the 2008 television drama The L Word.

Since returning to the entertainment industry 14 years ago, the actress has appeared in a number of films and television series, the most recent of which being the anthology series Dirty John, in which she appeared alongside Christian Slater, Connie Britton, and Julia Garner.