'Mission: Impossible 7' Cast Interview With 'Mission: Impossible 7' Cast Interview With Hayley Atwell, Simon Peg, Vanessa Kirby & More
Director Christopher McQuarrie and the cast of “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One,” including Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff, Vanessa Kirby, Shea Whigham and Greg Tarzan Davis, sat down to discuss the making of the franchise's seventh installment. They tackle the debate on the use of A.I. in the moviemaking business, the incredible feats met while shooting a car chase with Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise handcuffed to one another, and more.
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00:00 I would be sad. He's been in my life for 17 years. I've watched him, I've been him growing up,
00:06 becoming an older, more mature agent, and they live a sort of a tragic life in a way.
00:27 I'm curious how this movie and working on this film in particular has personally affected how
00:32 you feel about the ongoing conversation about AI and how powerful it has the potential to become,
00:37 even in our own industry. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. When McHugh told me that the idea
00:42 for the adversary in this film, I was like, oh, that's great. That feels very Mission Impossible.
00:46 It's kind of out there, but it's really, you know, in keeping with Mission Impossible's kind of tech
00:50 narrative. And then while we were making the film, suddenly this issue came to the forefront
00:56 in such an accelerated way to the point where now the film feels precedent. This doesn't feel like
01:02 science fiction. This feels like a mirror up to nature, you know. I feel like AI could be a
01:07 fantastic thing. I think it could help us enormously in medicine, in space travel, in
01:13 ecological preservation. It has no place in art. It just doesn't belong in art. Art is a human
01:20 expression. It's a kind of interpretation of our emotions. Until it gets emotions of its own and
01:25 it can paint its own pictures, stay out of art. Well, I think what's so brilliant about this film
01:32 is it really taps into the cultural consciousness and the zeitgeist of things that are on a global
01:37 level that, you know, we contend with. And it does that within the story, but also does it in terms
01:43 of pushing its technological abilities. So, for example, when we see that famous, incredible
01:48 stunt, which is now the most dangerous stunt in movie history of Tom motorcycling off a cliff,
01:53 the cameras that were attached to the motorbike hadn't existed previously to the movie. They were
01:59 invented for that specific stunt. So you get a sense up close that they're always on the
02:05 cutting edge of movie making and what is possible. Yeah, I mean, we've obviously been talking a lot
02:10 about it today. And I think really what I think we all feel is that it's kind of remarkable that
02:15 this movie was developed years ago and the idea was conceived years ago. But as it's coming out
02:21 is when it's really part of the cultural conversation and global conversation, really.
02:26 And I think the best movies feel so specific, but so universal. And there's something this is
02:31 something that affects absolutely everybody in the whole world. And seeing as Tom and the crew
02:36 are trying to save the whole world from it seems more relevant than ever. I look at this film and
02:42 I enjoy the story that McHugh wrote, you know, about the film and whatnot. And it's a wonderful
02:49 journey to go on with him and his mastermind of crafting his craftsmanship as a writer,
02:55 as well as a director. I think it's interesting that he's able to put everything together,
02:59 because when we were filming it, it felt like discombobulated to us. But he saw the vision and
03:04 only a man like McHugh can do something like that. We let the city tell us the kind of chase
03:11 it was going to be. Traffic in the city is notorious and the cobblestone streets make
03:16 all of the driving unpredictable. Best part is Tom and Haley, they're handcuffed together.
03:23 People are chasing us. Yes, they are. You're driving. We're not about obsessively executing
03:30 a plan. We're about following the emotion of what it is we're playing with. So there was a lot of
03:35 experimentation between Tom and Haley, what their relationship was and how that relationship was
03:40 supposed to evolve over the course of that sequence. On top of that, when you got to roam
03:46 with that car, which we then and all the work we had done to increase its power,
03:53 which made it very unpredictable. And you were very fortunate in that you had somebody like
03:57 Tom Cruise behind the wheel, admittedly with one hand cuffed to somebody else. But Tom has so much
04:04 experience shooting car chases that he was able to safely navigate all that. Most of the car chase
04:09 sequence, if you see us, we're in a two shot, which is really it's remarkable that we're able
04:15 to do that. And it's, you know, take three would have been great for you, but take four was great
04:19 for that person. So it would have cut to singles. But if you notice, Tom and I are in a two shot
04:24 the whole time. And that's because of the the work that we did together as a team of going,
04:30 how do we stay present in the moment with each other where we know each other's characters
04:34 inside out, and we trust each other as actors to remain present so that we neither restruct the
04:40 ball so that I can react to anything that he is offering me and vice versa. And that is a,
04:46 it's such a small thing, seemingly, most people would never pick up on this. But to be able to
04:50 achieve that in a two shot within the context of a car chase sequence is a huge, huge achievement,
04:56 technologically as well as creatively and something I'm really proud of.
05:00 As intense as that sequence is, I got in that car for five minutes. I would never get in that car
05:05 again. And my hat is off to Haley Atwell for doing what she did in the passenger seat of that car,
05:15 and being able to maintain her composure and give the performance that she gave. And the fact that
05:22 it's the two of them in two shots together doing physical comedy, which is difficult.
05:28 But around a dining room table, they're doing it at 80 miles an hour in a tiny little car
05:35 on cobblestone streets in Rome. It's there. You can't really appreciate just what an amazing
05:42 performance those two actors are giving. His fate is written. Shall we write yours too?
05:49 If anything happens to them, there's no place that I won't go to kill you. That is written.
05:55 I got the impression that the members of the team are expendable. And I'm curious if you would be
06:00 okay with Benji one day getting iced in a mission movie. I think you're very right. And I think
06:07 that's something that has always been the case, but no more sort of clear is it in these stories
06:14 that we, as I think Luther says, we don't matter as much as the mission. And any one of us at any
06:23 time could face the end. And if that happened, I'd be sad. He's been in my life for 17 years. I've
06:30 watched him. I've been him growing up, becoming an older, more mature agent. And
06:36 they live a sort of a tragic life in a way. Simon, there's a scene where passports are
06:44 getting tossed around from Haley. And it made me realize just the number of places you've been able
06:48 to go to this franchise alone. What's the one that you had the best time spending time in that
06:53 location? That's a really hard question because I look back on all those different locations and
06:59 they're all a separate adventure. I mean, going back to Morocco on Rogue Nation, the car chase
07:05 in Morocco was enormous fun. But I think even back to Prague, my first location on Ghost Protocol.
07:11 And then with the pandemic being the way it was when we were shooting this one,
07:16 our time in Italy was incredible because we were all in these bubbles. We spent all our time with
07:20 each other, the new cast members. We all bonded so quickly and so sort of intensely. Having Venice to
07:26 ourselves, we were in Venice when it was virtually deserted to the point where myself and Pom
07:32 Clemente went off and made a little short film called Au Revoir Chris Hemsworth. It's on YouTube.
07:37 Check it out. Oh, cool. Yeah, because we just had this beautiful Italian city to just have fun. And
07:44 we got shut down for 10 days because we had a COVID case in the crew. So, yeah, I mean, so many
07:50 memories, so many stories. Boy, I'd waste your time with it. That's like asking me who's my
07:55 favorite kid. You know, it's truly each one. Each one truly offered something different. You know
08:04 what I mean? You start in Norway, which I'd never visited, and you start in a John Ford-esque
08:13 landscape, you know what I mean, on top of a train. And you have McHugh saying profound things like
08:20 this is one of the top three days I've ever filmed, you know, had the experience filming,
08:25 and we're part of that. And Tom, you know, lending, he's just a generous, you know, so you
08:32 start there and then your car chases in Rome, foot chases in Venice, you know, then you're in the
08:37 Middle East, you find yourself. It's, you know, and then to end in London, like it's, for us,
08:42 it's as good as it gets. You know what I mean? You can imagine how good it is, and it's even
08:47 better than that.
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