Manny Jacinto was not shocked by the fact his dialogue was cut from the blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick.”

The actor spent months doing double shifts at the gym and taking fighter pilot training to play Lieutenant Billy “Fritz” Avalone, so when the high-octane sequel premiered in May 2022, Jacinto’s fans were disappointed to see that his speaking parts had vanished, save for a few background appearances.

“It’s flattering that there was a little bit of an outcry, but it wasn’t shocking to me,” the actor said in a GQ interview that came out Wednesday.

“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,” Jacinto said of the movie, which also stars Glen Powell and Miles Teller.

Mike Marsland via Getty Images

Still, the star of “The Good Place” said that working on “Top Gun: Maverick” was something special.

“Fortunately, it still was a great experience,” he said of the Cruise-produced action hit. “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.”

According to Jacinto, being edited out of much of the movie actually inspired him to spend more time on projects that put actors with diverse backgrounds in the spotlight.

“It kind of fuels you,” explained Jacinto, who is of Filipino-Chinese descent. “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]. We can’t wait for somebody else to do it. If we want bigger stories out there, we have to make them for ourselves.”

Read Jacinto’s full GQ interview here.

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