Last Night in Soho Star Thomasin McKenzie Reveals Why She Dropped Out of Top Gun: Maverick

After a few significant delays — partially thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic — Top Gun: Maverick is officially set to debut in theaters next spring. The long-awaited sequel brings an impressive cast and crew to tell a multi-generational story, which at one point included Thomasin McKenzie. In 2018, McKenzie was listed among the members of the film’s cast, and was expected to portray Amelia, the daughter of Penny Benjamin (Jennifer Connelly). Later that same year, it was announced that McKenzie would no longer be appearing in the film, with Lyliana Wray ultimately taking on the part. McKenzie has since gone on to be a memorable performer in films such as Jojo Rabbit and Last Night in Soho, and in a recent interview with Collider, she revealed why she left the project — to join the 2020 true crime film Lost Girls.

“I think I really listen to my team because they’ve been in the industry for a lot longer than I have and so they have a lot more experience than I do,” McKenzie explained. “Also it just comes down to instincts. I was very lucky to have the option to do something else. I did Lost Girls instead. I was so honored to have been considered to be a part of Top Gun. That’s bloody amazing! It’s really, really cool. But I think Lost Girls was a story that I was really interested in telling that was a female director, basically the entire cast was female so I really wanted to be a part of that.”

In Top Gun: Maverick, after more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell (Tom Cruise) is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. When he finds himself training a detachment of Top Gun graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen, Maverick encounters Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), call sign: ‘Rooster,’ the son of Maverick’s late friend and Radar Intercept Officer Lt. Nick Bradshaw, aka ‘Goose.’ Facing an uncertain future and confronting the ghosts of his past, Maverick is drawn into a confrontation with his own deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who will be chosen to fly it.

The cast of Top Gun: Maverick also includes Val Kilmer, Glen Powell, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, and Lewis Pullman.

Top Gun: Maverick is set to be released in theaters on May 27, 2022.