Kelly McGillis

After making her film debut in Reuben, Reuben[8] in 1983, McGillis' breakout role was that of an Amish mother in Witness (1985) with Harrison Ford, for which she received Golden Globe and BAFTA award nominations. Her next high-profile role was that of flight instructor Charlotte Blackwood (call sign "Charlie") in the 1986 fighter-pilot film Top Gun with Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer.[9]

In 1987, McGillis acted in the fantasy-comedy film Made in Heaven, directed by Alan Rudolph, which was produced by Lorimar Productions. The film also co-stars Oscar winner Timothy Hutton.[10]

McGillis played the part of caretaker for Miss Venable (Jessica Tandy) in 1988's The House on Carroll Street, which also starred Jeff Daniels. She overhears a suspicious conversation in the house next door and suspects that she's stumbled on a conspiracy to smuggle Nazi war criminals into the United States.

After 1988's The Accused, she appeared in Cat Chaser with Peter Weller, a film she despised and which discouraged her from pursuing an acting career.[11][12] McGillis appeared in dozens of television and film roles throughout the 1990s before taking a break from acting for a few years.

McGillis played the part of Babe Ruth's second wife, Claire Merritt Ruth, in The Babe (1992). From the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, McGillis appeared in Winter People (1989), and North (1994), her 2nd Amish part in television or film, as well as several made-for-TV films.

In 1999, McGillis co-starred with Val Kilmer (who plays Virgil, a blind man), for a second time as his over protective sister in At First Sight.[13]

She played the suspect in the disappearance of a young woman starring Susie Porter in The Monkey's Mask, an international lesbian cult film from 2000. The film is based on the verse novel of the same name by Australian poet Dorothy Porter.[14]

McGillis' early television roles included a part on the daytime soap One Life to Live in 1984.

She also starred in television movies with Alec Baldwin in 1984's Sweet Revenge, which was re-titled at some point.

Other television films during the 1980s included Private Sessions in 1985, and as a narrator in Santabear's First Christmas. She also narrated the documentary Out of Ireland for PBS in 1995.

While at Juilliard she performed in William Congreve's Love for Love, directed by John Bletchley.[15] She appeared in a couple of off-broadway and Broadway theater productions during the 1980s in New York City.

During the late 1980s[16] and through the mid 2000s, McGillis was a featured actress at the prestigious Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington DC.[17] Appeared in production of John Webber's play "The Duchess of Malfi" at the Shakespeare Theatre, Washington, DC. (2002)

In 2004, she appeared in the stage play The Graduate as Mrs. Robinson, touring the United States.[18] McGillis starred in a Pasadena Playhouse stage production of The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman in May 2009, co-starring with Julia Duffy.[19]

Her stage work includes: Don Juan (1982), The Sea Gull (1985), Peccadillo (1985), The Merchant Of Venice (1988), Twelfth Night (1989), Mary Stuart (1990), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1990), Hedda Gabler (1994), Mourning Becomes Electra (1997), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), Measure for Measure (1999) and The Graduate (2004). Additional roles in Love for Love, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Three Sisters and The Winter's Tale.

She also appeared in a production of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally, which toured the United Kingdom in 2010.[20]

• She began working in television again in 2006, then in 2007, she joined the cast of Showtime's The L Word for its fifth season.[21]
• She had a role in the 2010 vampire film Stake Land,[22] directed by Jim Mickle.[23] She stars alongside Nick Damici, Connor Paolo and Danielle Harris.[24]
• McGillis was featured in a breast cancer docu-drama titled 1 a Minute, released in 2010.[25]
• She starred in Ti West's 2011 thriller The Innkeepers.[26]
• We Are What We Are and Tio Papi in 2013
• Grand Street in 2014
• Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio in 2014, TV, (McGillis' 3rd Amish themed film)
• Z Nation in 2014, Sisters of Mercy, Season 1, Episode 11
• Blue in 2015
• An Uncommon Grace, on Hallmark Channel, (McGillis' 4th Amish themed film)[27]
• Lead role in Mother of All Secrets in 2017 as Rose Lewis[28]

McGillis has been cast in the lead in the biographical film Annie Cook,[29] and also filmed Mother of All Secrets in early 2017 in Bermuda, and that trailer has already been released.[30][31]

McGillis was left scratched and bruised after being reportedly assaulted by a woman who broke into her North Carolina home on June 17, 2016.[42] She said the attack, as well as others she has experienced in the past, led her to apply for a concealed carry gun permit to protect herself. Following the incident, a 38-year-old woman, Laurence Marie Dorn, was charged with second-degree burglary, misdemeanor larceny, misdemeanor stalking, assault and battery, and interfering with emergency communication.[42] Dorn was later convicted of misdemeanor breaking and entering.[43]