Manny Jacinto recently spoke about working with Tom Cruise and Miles Teller in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ in an interview. He talked about working with Tom and also revealed how his scenes from the film were removed from the final version. Manny played Lieutenant Billy ‘Fritz’ Avalon in the Joseph Kosinski-directed film.

In a candid conversation with GQ, Jacinto was disappointed to learn that his scenes were being edited out. He said, “It kind of excites you, because at the end of the day, Tom Cruise is writing stories for Tom Cruise.” He added, “It’s up to us — Asian Americans, people of color — to do that. We can’t wait for someone else to do it. If we want great stories out there, we have to make them for ourselves.”

Jacinto said the experience of working with a big star like Tom Cruise and working on the set of a film like ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ gave him the opportunity to closely analyze and understand the workings of a large-scale film production. “Luckily, it was still a great experience – you get to see this huge machine work, get to see how Tom Cruise works, and you get to be a small part of this huge franchise,” Jacinto said.

The actor said of his brief screen appearance, “It’s a good thing that there was a bit of backlash over it, but it wasn’t shocking to me. I felt that was the direction the film was going in (on set), like I could see they were focusing the camera more on these (other) people and not spending so much time on our scenes.”

On the work front, Manny Jacinto’s latest work includes ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’, an American science fiction series created by Leslye Headland. Set in the shadowy corners of the High Republic era, ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ delves into the mysteries of the Force within the vast Star Wars universe.

The Disney+ show also stars Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Charlie Barnett, Dafne Keen, and more.