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Audio: Kelly McGillis talks Leeds and Top Gun
Twenty-five years after he first saw Top Gun, Grant Woodward's boyhood dream comes true as he finally gets to chat to its star Kelly McGillis
A couple of decades ago I would have killed for Kelly McGillis's phone number.
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It was Top Gun that was to blame of course. As sexy training instructor Charlotte 'Charlie' Blackwood she made my heart go pit-a-pat just as much as Maverick's.
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I even had a huge Top Gun poster plastered over my bedroom wall, just so I could gaze into her lovely blue eyes before I went to sleep every night.
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And it wasn't just me and Tom Cruise who found ourselves under Kelly's spell.
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For all its fast planes, male bonding and Kenny Loggins-heavy soundtrack, the feelings Charlie and her tight blue jeans stirred within a generation of adolescents goes a long way to explaining the movie's enduring appeal.
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It may have taken me nearly 25 years to get to speak to her but now that Kelly's coming to Leeds to appear in a play at West Yorkshire Playhouse I've finally got my chance.
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Sure enough when I call her up the sound of her warm American accent instantly whisks me back to the Autumn of 1986, when Berlin's Take My Breath Away blared out from every radio and that ruddy great poster adorned my wall.
"It was fun, it was like being at camp," she says when I ask what her memories are of shooting the smash hit movie.
"We had a great time, me and the guys (Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and Anthony Edwards). We all got along really well.
"I thought it would be a popular movie just because of the content, you know, a western in the skies is what I used to call it. The good guys and the bad guys were pretty clear.
"But I didn't have any clue it would have had the impact it did, and still does. I mean kids today even see that movie."
So is it nice to know there are millions of us out there who still hold a place for Charlie in our hearts? Or is it just a bit weird?
"Well, I think it can be both!" she laughs. "It depends on my attitude for the day.
"You know, some people will come up to me and say 'Oh my God, you've cut your hair' or 'Oh my God, you've gotten older' or 'Where's Tom Cruise?', like we're married. That's a bit weird for me.
"People who have an understanding that it was just a movie and it wasn't reality and who enjoyed it for the entertainment part of that, I think that's really flattering and nice that people remember that.
"There are some people who take it incredibly literally though and that's a little scary to me."
Kelly's male fans were sent into a tailspin last April when she came out as a lesbian, saying she had been trying to come to terms with her sexuality since the age of 12.
Unfortunately I've been told Kelly's private life is off-limits so that subject is not up for discussion today. Instead, let's talk about why she's coming to Leeds.
Later this month she will be starring in popular stage play Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune, a bittersweet romantic comedy in which she plays a hard-boiled waitress who embarks on a faltering relationship with a lovelorn chef.
"It's about people who are damaged or broken, and we're all broken in one way or another," she says.
"What I think is wonderful about these characters is that they're very open about their brokenness. It's about healing some of that."
The play is touring throughout the UK and Kelly says she is enjoying seeing different parts of the country.
"That's one of the reasons why I wanted to do it, because I've been to
England quite a few times but I've never seen the whole of it so this is a great way for me to do it.
"What's even more wonderful is that I get to live in each place and get to go to the grocery store and the post office. That's when you genuinely get to experience a place, a people and a culture. That's a cool thing."
In the Eighties, Kelly was the toast of Hollywood for her roles in films like Top Gun, The Accused and Witness, in which she starred alongside Harrison Ford.
She says she was surrounded by people telling her she was the 'greatest thing since sliced bread', only for the parts to slowly but surely dry up.
"You look at the majority of female parts in movies and they're all for people under 30. That's just reality. I think it's got better... but it's still predominantly a male-run industry."
Despite that she isn't bitter and still loves acting, with theatre being her greatest love.
Now 52 and about to become a grandmother (her daughter Kelsey is due to give birth to twins at the end of the month) she says she is content with her life and her achievements.
"I see today how things worked out exactly the way they were supposed to for me. I know that I have been incredibly blessed."
And if Top Gun comes on the TV does she sit down and watch it?
"When my kids were little I'd walk through the living room and they'd be watching Top Gun or something and I'd look at it and think, 'Oh my God, I used to be so young!'
"I don't like being reminded that I'm no longer 20 and I do have a lifespan like everyone else. So no, I don't watch it.
"I like to think I'm going to carry on for ever and I'm going to be the
one that doesn't end up underground!"
* Kelly McGillis will be appearing in Frankie & Johnny in the Clair De Lune at West Yorkshire Playhouse from February 15 to 20.
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
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