The truth of the matter is that the Kelly McGillis of 1986 that used to look like this:

No longer does in 2025, thirty-nine years later. She now looks like this:

In other words, she’s no longer a smoke show, she’s no longer hot and, by many guys, she would be called Grandma. She aged like normal women do and weighs sixty to eighty pounds more than she used to back in the day. The sixty-seven year old McGillis, who teaches acting in North Carolina, mentioned that she is not surprised or hurt that she wasn’t offered to return. She realizes she can’t keep up with the younger women of Hollywood and that she can understand why Tom Cruise didn’t reach out to her.

It’s a double standard that has been around forever. Cruise is about sixty-three, and has had some obvious work done, but because he’s a man, he can fight Father Time a lot better than a woman his age could. Nobody sees him as Gramps even though he’s of that age to have grand kids of his own. I guess it sort of helps when you’re still flying around in fighter jets and climbing buildings.

Because in the original, she looked like this

and now she looks like this

Tom Cruise in the 1986 original

and Tom Cruise in 2022

Putting McGillis in the movie with Cruise would have simply been cruel.