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Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning star Hayley Atwell describes “the hairiest thing” that happened while filming — involving a real-life polar bear.
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Shooting in -40 degree temps in the Arctic taught her “a new level of resilience and discipline,” she says.
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Atwell also addresses whether this is the final Mission: Impossible film or Tom Cruise’s last time playing Ethan Hunt.
With its globetrotting set pieces and legendary stunt sequences, the Mission: Impossible franchise asks a lot of its cast and crew. But when it comes to the upcoming eighth film, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, one of the most nerve-wracking moments involved a real polar bear.
Hayley Atwell, who first played professional thief Grace in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning and reprises the role here, tells Entertainment Weekly over email, “The hairiest thing was coming into close proximity with a polar bear who visited the boat we were staying on. He was very curious, but thankfully for us, looked well fed. He looked majestic.”
That incident aside, Atwell says she “absolutely adored” her time working in the Arctic in -40 degree temperatures. She got to work with sled dogs, after all. “It’s the core part of Grace’s journey in the film,” she says of shooting in the tundra. “What she has to do under pressure and intensity forged in me a new level of resilience and discipline. We had an expert team of survivalists, and I learned a lot about how to be safe out there in extreme conditions.”
She adds, “It’s not lost on me that where we were able to go and how I was able to work there was a lifetime opportunity and only one that could have come through working with Tom Cruise.”
Final Reckoning is the follow-up to 2023’s Dead Reckoning, which saw Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and the rest of the IMF (a.k.a. the Impossible Missions Force) battle a mysterious, rogue A.I. cyberweapon known as the Entity, as well as the villainous Gabriel (Esai Morales), an assassin looking to control the weapon. Exact plot details for the sequel are being kept under wraps, but the film is expected to pick up where its predecessor left off.
Atwell teases that this time, Grace will become fully immersed in the IMF world after spending much of the previous film on her own.
“In Dead Reckoning, Grace was a lone wolf, out for herself and distrustful of others,” she explains. “It took her the whole movie to accept Ethan’s friendship and be part of a team. In this movie, she’s emotionally attached to her friends and has a purpose bigger than personal ambition. She’s begun her training in the IMF, and although she’s brave and competent, she’s in over her head, and this can get her into sticky situations.”
Paramount Pictures and Skydance
Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Tom Cruise, Rolf Saxon, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Greg Tarzan Davis, and Pom Klementieff in ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’
Directed once again by Christopher McQuarrie, with a screenplay by McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen, Final Reckoning also stars Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer, Nick Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman, Angela Bassett, Shea Whigham, and more.
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The logline for the film simply reads: “Our lives are the sum of our choices. Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.” That and the film’s title have done nothing to assuage rumors that it could be the concluding entry in the long-running franchise, or Cruise’s last time playing the character. When asked if this is indeed, you know, the final reckoning, Atwell laughed. “This is Tom Cruise we’re talking about… You gotta go see the movie and decide for yourself!”
Should you choose to accept this mission, you can do just that when the film hits theaters on May 23.
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