Tom Cruise will have a new actress to take his breath away in Top Gun: Maverick. Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly is in talks to join the long-awaited Top Gun sequel.
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Connelly is reportedly in early talks to join the film as a single mom who runs a bar near the Navy base where most of the film’s action is set, reports Deadline.
Maverick will resume production in September in San Diego. Cruise confirming filming was starting on June 6, when he posted a photo of himself in full flight gear with the slogan “Feel the need.”
Cruise will once again play Navy pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, and Val Kilmer is returning as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. Miles Teller is joining the franchise to play the son of Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, who died in the first film.
Connelly joined the film a few days after Cruise shared his excitement to work with Kilmer again. According to Cruise, Kilmer is “doing really well” after a two-year battle with throat cancer.
Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the original film, is also producing the sequel. Harold Faltermeyer is returning to compose the score.
The plot for the new film will involve Maverick mentoring Goose’s son. In an interview with E! News, Cruise said the film is “about a guy who flies jets,” which is one way to get around spoiling it.
The new film was written by Peter Craig, Ashley Edward Miller, Justin Marks and Zack Stentz.
Connelly earned an Oscar for her supporting role in 2001’s Best Picture winner A Beautiful Mind. She recently worked with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski on the firefighter drama Only The Brave and appears in Fox’s upcoming Alita: Battle Angel. She is also appearing in the pilot for the Snowpiercer TV adaptation. She also voiced Karen, the artificial intelligence inside Spider-Man’s suit in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
The original film starred Kelly McGillis as Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood, Maverick’s love interest. There is no word on if McGillis plans to return.
According to PEOPLE, she is now living in North Carolina and left Hollywood behind for decades. She resurfaced in a 2013 horror movie called We Are What We Are, and has since appeared in a Hallmark movie and the 2017 thriller Mother Of All Secrets.
Top Gun: Maverick hits theaters on July 19, 2019. While you wait, you can check out Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, which opens on July 27.
Photo credit: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
