It ultimately didn’t stand a chance against the likes of Barbie or Oppenheimer, but we’d be remiss to dismiss the contributions of Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One to the summer blockbuster game of 2023. Indeed, with some audiences getting fed up with superhero films and more audiences pretending to be fed up with superhero films for the sake of having a popular opinion, Dead Reckoning Part One proved to be an important piece of high-octane, action-drenched escapism that will surely have audiences coming back for Part Two.
We’re sure Dead Reckoning Part One‘s surrender from the box office race did nothing to crush the spirits of leading man Tom Cruise, however; be it Ethan Hunt, Pete Mitchell, or whoever’s shoes he happens to be in at any given moment, the man loves to make movies, as evidenced by his death-defying commitment to each and every scene he appears in.
And it seems the Cruise effect has begun to rub off on his fellow Mission: Impossible regulars, albeit to a far less extreme degree. In a recent (but prior to the ongoing strikes in the entertainment industry) interview with DiscussingFilm, Simon Pegg – the man behind Ethan’s trusted ally Benji Dunn in the Mission: Impossible franchise – divulged the words of wisdom Cruise once offered him, specifically how doing one’s own stunts means you never become detached from your character for even a moment.
Well, I’m always happy to do anything that’s asked of me. One thing that Tom has taught me is that if you do your stunts, then you don’t ever have to hand over [the role] to a stunt professional who can’t play the character like you can. If a stunt performer never jumps in, then you are 100% always in character.
He would go on to point out, however, that even if he somehow became as gung-ho as Cruise, the nature of his Mission: Impossible character would only ever allow him to indulge that urge under very specific circumstances.
If Benji suddenly became like Ethan, it just wouldn’t ring true. Benji’s involvement in that kind of thing would have to be very accidental. It couldn’t be as proactive as Ethan because Benji is not Ethan. And one thing you don’t want to do with your characters is to have them all sort of start to bleed into each other.
It’s a curious philosophy, and perhaps a contentious one as well; resident journeyman Danny Trejo, for instance, has been vocal about the importance of actors not doing their own stunts, due in part to the fact that he doesn’t want stunt performers to be out of a job for the sake of boosting one’s ego. And say what you will about this discourse, but it’s hard to deny that the words “Tom Cruise” and “ego” aren’t the strangest of bedmates.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is now playing in theaters.