With Mission Impossible now on release and proving a crucial and commercial success lead actress Hatley Atwell reveals her most memorable moment shooting Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One……
‘It would be drifting in Rome with Tom in the passenger seat, handcuffed to me, with three cameras attached to the windscreen, which impaired my vision. And then it started to rain and the ground was getting wet, which obviously affected the drift. There were stunt cars, and we were beside these very old important monuments. People had come out to watch, and obviously, the crew was watching. I also had to work out whether Tom was speaking to Hayley or Ethan was talking to Grace, when he would say, “Slow down or take a left.” If it was Ethan talking to Grace, she can rebel against exactly what he’s saying and do the opposite. He would also come up with suggestions that he wanted me to try and say, and then we did it. So there’s about 20 minutes of footage of us doing it over and over again, and then stopping to get out and go, “Well, I hope we got some good stuff.”
And then Tom led a round of applause from the crew, and McQ said, “Tom put his life in your hands just then and he wouldn’t have allowed you to do that had he not believed that you could look after him, too.” And I thought, “Wow, that’s generosity and trust from Tom and how hard he’s seen me work to make sure I can do this for him and for the movie.” It was a beautiful surprise to me, because I just thought, “Well, you told me to train really hard to be able to do it. So I did it.” It was a validation because they know what it takes technically, physically, mentally, emotionally to have done that and executed it well. So they’re never short on their praise for when actors come in and deliver for them. That’s a moment I’ll never forget.’
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