Hayley Atwell Says Tom Cruise Inspired Her to Do All Her Own 'Mission: Impossible' Stunts Too

Hayley Atwell, The Captain America: The First Avenger and Howards End star, 41, joins the seventh film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Dead Reckoning Part One. Atwell stars as Grace, a new character who gets caught up in Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the IMF team’s search for a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity if it falls into the wrong hands.

Parade sat down to chat with Atwell about her new film, being a Marvel star and working with Tom Cruise.

Walter Scott: What was it like to join Tom Cruise and a cast that’s been together for several movies now? 

Hayley Atwell: I think when you walk into a franchise that’s so established already, has worked so well and is just getting better with each installment, there’s a feeling of safety. It’s not like an experimental movie and we’re all starting from scratch. You’re walking into something that already feels very safe.

Is it true that director Christopher McQuarrie saw you in a play and decided he wanted to work with you? 

I met McQ 10 years ago when he came to see me in a play in the West End in London. He took me out to dinner afterwards and he said, “I want to work with you. What you can do on that stage, I want to write it and I want to put it in a movie, I just don’t know which one yet.”

When the screen test came about, I met with Tom and they said, “We don’t have a script or a character. We’re looking for the actress we want to work with, who comes to understand our process of working, and thinks that it’s a creative environment that they’re going to thrive in. And then from that place, we will collaborate and create a character together.”

It was really important to me that my character was not going to be just one thing, that she wasn’t going to be an archetype of the femme fatale, the ice queen, the maiden, the victim, the damsel in distress. That she would have, like we all do, a real range of qualities. From that point of view, I felt like I was able to come in and really commit to the new opportunity that they were offering, how they saw the franchise moving forward and progressing. For those reasons, it instantly felt like a collaborative process.

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What is it like to work on the fly? 

Oh, it’s so liberating. Of course, the idea of it is terrifying, but I think when you’re working with people who, first of all, lead with [the notion that] everything is just an offering, a choice, an idea, there are no good or bad ideas, there are no stupid questions or clever questions. We’re just going to play and explore, which for me is the root of creativity.

As kids when we’re playing, we’re not like, “I didn’t really believe the nurse version of myself that I was this afternoon with my Legos.” You just don’t judge it. They very much encourage an environment where you can try things. You try and create an objectivity where your ego is at the door and you work out: “Did that land, does that belong in the world of this movie? Do we love it but feel like we need something different in the sequence of what the story is in the greater context?” You’re coming at it from those more specific questions. So, I always knew that whatever ultimately didn’t work was not going to be in the movie.

My background is in theater, where you’re in a rehearsal room for six weeks and you go left, you go right, you go up, you go down, you speed up, you slow down, you ask lots of questions and you think you’ve kind of understood the writer’s vision here, or you make a creative choice and then later on you might go, “It doesn’t really fit in with the final act.” You’re taking lots of different steps and it’s all about creative exploration. From that point of view, I didn’t see [not having a script] so much as a challenge but more very stimulating creatively.

McQ has described Grace as this “destructive force of nature,” and you’ve previously said that there’s a comic element to her but she can hold her own with Ethan. Tell us a little more about how you see her. 

Before we started filming, we were watching lots of movies together to have a running commentary of filmic language and a tone we were trying to create. So, we watched things like Broadcast News, What’s Up, Doc?, The Sting, Paper Moon, heist movies, like the original Thomas Crown Affair. We liked the idea that Grace was really competent, but she didn’t realize the extent to which she was out of her depth.

We loved the idea of Barbra Streisand’s character in What’s Up, Doc?, who is oblivious to the carnage she’s indirectly created behind her. She’s not calculating. We thought that for Grace that’s a great, dramatic place to be in because, if she is unintentionally exasperating Ethan, you can’t be angry at her for it. You’re like, “Oh, my God. This is so frustrating, will she just stand still, will she just trust him, will she just for once do what he says because it’s going to be advantageous to her?”

We created this idea that she’s not an agent but in terms of her character she’s an agent of chaos. From those moments, you can see that this is not someone who’s deliberately trying to pull the rug from under his feet, but inadvertently does so. And therein lies some of the comedy, but also some of the stakes get higher for it. So, it creates more suspense.

This is obviously a big story because it is going to take two movies to tell. How do we begin? 

There’s an introduction to some brilliant new characters: Paris (Pom Klementieff), Degas (Greg Tarzan Davis) and Jasper Briggs (Shea Whigham). And at the same time, it reintroduces characters that we’ve seen before, without giving away any spoilers. It feels like it’s a step forward generationally in potential new team members or adversaries, but it’s still retaining the connection to all the characters that people have come to know and love. And it is so ambitious in its scale in terms of the action sequences and the stunts that it had to fit it too.

Tom and McQ were full of so many ideas about the progression of where Ethan is at the end of Fallout, and then what happens to him in seven, but also the scope of what is happening globally. We’re looking for the stakes to be as high as they possibly can, so we’re looking at how on a global scale this story has conflict. And so that became multiple locations to really span that.

I think because there are new characters introduced, it’s giving everyone their moment to show a change in the arc of their character. So, with Grace, when she arrives in seven, the shift of what she goes through, what she sees, how she’s changed by it, decisions that she makes towards the end of the movie and then takes into eight, are hugely different. It’s a huge arc. So is the case for some of the other characters, too. There was so much to pack in.

Tom is famous for doing his own stunts. How much did that inspire you to follow suit?

I do all my own stunts in the movie. The audition part of the screen test was for me to work with Wade Eastwood, the stunt choreographer. I worked with him for about two hours where he was testing my natural talent, fitness levels and coordination when it came to unarmed combat. He was also working out where my natural skills lay, whether I was more of a wrestler as a fighter or if there was a particular style of martial arts that he thought would suit the way that I naturally wanted to move.

At the end of the test, they came and watched me having learned and prepared a fight sequence. Then Wade went off with Tom and McQ and said in private, “This is what I’ve discovered about Hayley. This is how I see her abilities and the speed at which she can learn things and take direction physically.” And then he gave a realistic prediction of where he could get me up to with what amount of training.

We tested lots of different things and what we found was when I’m given a prop, I fight faster. That comes from my theater background. You can relay so much in the way that you handle a prop about how you think about someone. The way that you’re twiddling a paperclip will determine if you’re hiding a secret or if you plan to use it as a weapon. All this stuff. So, using knives became a natural part of my fight sequences.

The other things were doing a backflip off a bridge in Venice or moving backwards off a moving train. Tom is such a disciplined athlete. He’s very specific, he’s adamant about the health and safety protocols on set and making sure that there is a lot of communication and a lot of preparation that goes into these stunts so that they are done competently. And not only being able to do it once or twice, but multiple times from multiple angles, for multiple takes. And in different ways.

He was very inspiring in that way and so it meant that I was with a team of world-class trainers and athletes, real experts in their fields, from kickboxing champions to Olympic winners. That meant that I had the same discipline and work ethic that I saw he had, which is to educate yourself on as much as you want. To look strong, you’ve got to make sure that you understand mobility and injury prevention, and how the body can rest and the nutrition it needs to be able to work and live like an athlete.

So, that was five months of training. I would be taken on a [car] racecourse and learn how to drift. Drifting with Tom on the streets of Rome, you’ve got all these added pressures of you’re in this beautiful, ancient city that has cobbled streets, it’s slightly raining, and there were stunt cars around you, there’s crew around you, there are journalists, and fans out to see Tom. In the middle of that, you have to know how to calm your nervous system down so that you can drift competently, and donut-spin the car around while you’ve got three cameras rigged to the car—and that you can also take direction at the same time.

I knew that I just had to be ready for anything because if I’d arrived on set and hadn’t given it 100 percent, then I knew because there was no script that I’d be writing myself out of the story because I’d reached my limit of what I was willing to do and try. So, the more I trained, the more I had to offer, the more then they were able to use in the actual film. Incredible, yeah. I worked really hard for it. Really, really hard. Loved it.

Related: Hayley Atwell on Howards End, Advice from Emma Thompson and a Possible Return to the Marvel Universe

You’re also part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Do you think there’s more to do as Agent Carter?

It’s such an extraordinary franchise. In the first Captain America: The First Avenger, I would never in a million years think that you’d be asking me this question this many years later. Right?

I think it’s a beloved character, but I wouldn’t want to go over any old ground and I wouldn’t want her to have remained the same. I think that if there was an opportunity to bring her into the world of it, she would have to have had a huge promotion. I’m just so capable of doing so much more as an actor than I have previously done, so I would want to feel like I was offering the audience that much more because it’s not about You like her, so we’ll just show you more of what you like. I want to challenge people’s comfort zone into who she could become and what she could evolve into. I think Marvel is such a huge universe that anything could happen. I would just have to make sure that, for me, it felt like it was right.

(Editor's note: This interview took place before the SAG-AFTRA strike began. Some of Atwell's comments on the return to filming may be dated.)

You’ve been working on Mission: Impossible for four years now. Do you miss getting your theater fix? 

There hasn’t been enough time to miss anything else because it’s such an intense, full-on experience. We were in the Arctic recently for eight [Part Two], and as soon as we finish the press tour, we’re straight back into the studio and then we’ll be doing this until probably early next year. And because it asks all of me, it’s a deep sense of satisfaction. I think that’s also because in addition to what my character is doing in the movie, Tom and McQ have demystified the moviemaking process by being very inclusive about how to make a movie.

So, I’ve been into production meetings and the editing suite, and they have educated me on lenses and framing and lighting in a way that people just don’t get the opportunity to participate in. Because often the actor comes in with their lines ready, finds their mark, and creates their own performance. But with Tom and McQ, if we’re not watching other movies together and I’m getting a master class in their running commentary of moviemaking history, then they’re in the editing suite showing me the difference between take one that I did and take 10 that I did. And showing why they decided that for the sake of the story, Grace needed to take a left rather than a right.

That makes me feel like I’ve been part of it for such a long time. Yes, I love theater deeply. It’s such an all-encompassing experience. And I do miss the connection with the audience that you feel on a nightly basis. It’s a dialogue where the audience tells you what’s landing and what’s not. I love that. I learn as much about acting from the audiences as I do watching other people’s performances. So, I’ll for sure do more when the opportunity arises.

As you’ve said, you have this master class now in filmmaking. Any plans to do anything with that? 

I’m in the industry now 17 years. I’ve worked solidly in that time. It would just be natural that as time went on my understanding of other departments was an actual byproduct of being around them and asking questions. People have said, “You don’t sound like an actor a lot of the time on set, you sound like a producer.” Or I’m not talking about my psychology, my character all the time; I’m looking at the whole collective and the bigger context of the story from technical points of view.

Also, it’s such an exciting time because I’m seeing so many of my colleagues start production companies, executive producing material as well as starring in it. That seems to be the norm nowadays working at a certain level. So, yeah, if the right project came along and I felt like there was enough for me to really sink my teeth into in terms of either producing or directing, then I would take it. It’s less about “I want to be a director,” and more what is the project that makes me just start directing naturally.

When you started your career, you were doing theater and films like Howards End. Did you ever imagine that you would be in these huge blockbuster movies? 

If you mean, did I imagine that I’d end up in two of the biggest Hollywood franchises? Absolutely not. I’m so pleased that I am because variety is an important value for me as a person. I like new challenges, new environments and new ideas because it means that I get a chance to expand and grow. And, weirdly, there is a common denominator throughout all of these—whether it’s an audiobook, or a play, or Howards End, a period drama, or a book adaptation, or a franchise—which is story structure. It’s the heart of the story. Is there some aspect of this that I feel relates to our common humanity? And, also, my approach to my work, the work ethic remains the same.

With Howards End, I was thinking of Margaret Schlegel as someone who is autodidactic, very well-read and engaged in lots of current affairs. A lot of my prep then was going, Those are the things that are on offer for me to understand this role a little bit more, so I was more active in that kind of world. Then you take Mission and, again, it’s like, What is this particular story asking of me? For me, it was to do with a lot of physical gestures and behavior, working with someone like Tom and his work ethic, and what I could learn from that as a master of his craft. If I choose to accept the opportunity and if I’m lucky enough to get the opportunity, then what is it asking of me that it needs and how can I challenge myself to meet those needs? That’s just across the board, whatever the job is.

Watch Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One only in theaters starting July 12.

Next, Everything to Know about 'Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One'