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McGillis dropped out of high school to pursue a career as an actor and eventually attended Juilliard in Manhattan. She understudied the role of Dona Elvire in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of "Don Juan" but had little other professional experience when director Robert Ellis Miller "discovered" her and cast her opposite Tom Conti in "Reuben, Reuben". Notices were good, and McGillis then moved to "Witness" and "Top Gun." (In the latter, her 5'10" height was quite evident as she stood next to the shorter Tom Cruise.) Attempts to put her in the position to carry a picture resulted in "Made in Heaven" (1986), in which McGillis was matched with Timothy Hutton as the as-yet-unborn beauty he meets in heaven, who is yet unborn, and "The House on Carroll Street" (1988), in which McGillis was a blacklisting victim who stumbles on an espionage plot. Both films were box office disappointments. "The Accused" (1988) had McGillis as the assistant district attorney who is moved to put three rapists behind bars by the pathos of Jodie Foster, but it was Foster who got the reviews-and the Oscar. McGillis then did "Winter People" (1989), an Ozark-based Sturm und Drang, which also flopped. In 1991, she produced the film "The Awakening", which did not receive wide-spread release, and the following year played the woman who marries and tries to tame John Goodman's "The Babe". McGillis joined "Witness" co-star Alexander Godunov in reprising their characters in a brief, amusing cameo for "North" (1994).
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– Claims to have been a lonely, overweight adolescent who found an escape from her misery through acting.
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– Had originally secured the female lead in BACHELOR PARTY (1984), but was fired early in the shoot because she wasn't considered to be pretty or sexy enough.
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– Was nominated for BAFTA Film Award for Best Actress in 1986 for WITNESS and Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture in 1986 for WITNESS.
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– Mother Joan is a Theatre Director
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– Owner of restaurant Kelly's in Key West, Florida.
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– Listed as one of twelve Promising New Actors of 1984 in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 36.
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