UNITED KINGDOM: KELLY MCGILLIS STARS IN MOVIE "THE MONKEY'S MASK" WHICH OPENS THE 15TH LONDON LESBIAN AND GAY FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 391189

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: KELLY MCGILLIS STARS IN MOVIE "THE MONKEY'S MASK" WHICH OPENS THE 15TH LONDON LESBIAN AND GAY FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 28th March 2001
  • Summary: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (REUTERS) (MARCH 28, 2001) SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR SAMANTHA BOND SAYING "I was absolutely pleasantly surprised I mean the thing was that I never ever envisaged that she would say yes to the role so when she came back with an absolutely positive response I thought My God, I can't believe it, but at the same I think she's an incredibly inte
  • Embargoed: 12th April 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, UK
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVADUF7O2QK0HNPNXZN3T84WWFL8
  • Story Text: Kelly McGillis, the actress who shot to fame in the 1986 blockbuster "Top Gun", has stolen the show at the opening of the 15th London Lesbian and Gay Festival. Her new film is a far cry from the box office smashes that made her name like "The Accused" and "Witness". She's starring in "The Monkey's Mask", a steamy lesbian thriller, based on a "novel in poetry"
    by Dorothy Porter. McGillis, the mother of two in real life, told Reuters in a rare interview that it's one of her most challenging and frightening roles for years.
    Kelly McGillis, who shot to fame with "Top Gun" and "Witness", has opened the 15th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
    Her latest film is a low-budget Australian lesbian thriller - a far cry from the glossy blockbusters of the 1980s that shot her to the top of the box office ratings. In "The Monkey's Mask" Kelly, a mother of two in real life, plays a seductive poetry lecturer, Diana Franklin. She meets a hard-boiled, lesbian detective, Jill Fitzpatrick (played by Susie Porter, from "Better than Sex"). Jill is on the trail of one of Diana's female students who has gone missing. The two become sexually and emotionally involved, and the mystery of the girl's disappearance is unravelled through the intense extra-marital affair.
    Kelly McGillis has become something of a recluse. After Top Gun, she moved to southern Florida, to the Keys, and opened several restaurants. Even 1985's "Witness", the Amish country thriller in which she starred with Harrison Ford, was not seen widely enough to remove the enduring image of McGillis steaming off on the back of a motorbike to Take My Breath Away.
    McGillis says she cried during the filming of The Monkey's Mask because she had to do sex scenes with a woman 20 years her junior. "Every night I was on the phone to my husband, crying, 'Am I pretty?' I was scared to death. It's hard exposing yourself physically in front of millions of people when you've had two kids."
    The Monkey's Mask is on release at cinemas in London now.
    ***EDITORS NOTE - FILM CLIPS CONTAIN NUDITY***
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