'Tom Cruise Is Writing for Tom Cruise': Manny Jacinto Shades 'Top Gun: Maverick' Producer for Cutting Nearly All of His Scenes

While Tom Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick pushed Miles Teller and Glen Powell's popularity to new heights, it did just about nothing for their costar Manny Jacinto's career.

While Jacinto filmed plenty of scenes for the film and even took flying lessons, all of his lines were cut from the 2022 movie.

"It’s flattering that there was a little bit of an outcry, but it wasn’t shocking to me," Jacinto, 36, spilled in a new interview of what it was like to see his fans' outrage about the snub.

"There was this sense of where the film was going [on set], like I can see them focusing the camera more on these [other] guys and not taking so much time on our scenes," he explained.

Nonetheless, the Canadian star is still grateful to have appeared in the film.

"Fortunately, it still was a great experience — you get to see this huge machine at work, see how Tom Cruise works, and you get to be a small part of this huge franchise," he shared.

Jacinto is choosing to see the silver lining in the situation, as he's now more dedicated than ever in his desire to represent his Filipino community on screen.

"It kind of fuels you, because at the end of the day, Tom Cruise is writing stories for Tom Cruise. It’s up to us — Asian Americans, people of color — to be that [for ourselves]," he stated. "We can’t wait for somebody else to do it. If we want bigger stories out there, we have to make them for ourselves."

The Good Place alum has said only good things about the exciting preparation work he went through to shoot the movie, noting, "The flight training was really intense."

"It was great, but once you do that, it's like: Oh, okay, we're not doing any CGI, no special effects, we’re doing it for real," he shared in the interview. "And it was just demanding, but it was the best experience I probably have been through in a movie."

GQ spoke to Jacinto on his scenes being cut.