After being warmly received in many Marvel projects, actress Hayley Atwell stepped into the biggest role of her career when she participated in the blockbuster Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
In 2013, when Hayley Atwell met director Christopher McQuarrie, she had no idea that he was the future co-architect of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (Mission: Impossible 7).
McQuarrie was so fascinated by her performance that he invited the actress to dinner and said he planned to give her a role one day. In 2019, McQuarrie and Tom Cruise needed a new female lead to play Mission: Impossible 7, Hayley Atwell was mentioned first.
Atwell waited more than 17 years for such an opportunity in a blockbuster, even though she played the beloved Peggy Carter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But her previous big-screen opportunities have mostly been in service of other people’s stories.
In Mission: Impossible 7, Hayley Atwell is at the center of a blockbuster. That’s evident when her character Grace repeatedly “takes down” Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in the first half of the film.
“I was given the confidence to express myself with more emotional depth in a big-scale film, which I’ve never had before,” Hayley Atwell told The Hollywood Reporter.
“So I’m forever grateful to Tom and McQuarrie for giving me the opportunity, the support on set every day, to be able to do that. After 17 years in the business, I’m finally able to do something at a high level, with great filmmaking quality,” the British actress added.
In this film filled with unforgettable moments, Hayley Atwell always remembers a rainy day in Rome where a car chase scene was filmed, while Tom Cruise was handcuffed to her.
Atwell said: “There was about 20 minutes of filming where we were being chased. It was just repetitive. At that moment, Tom put his life in my hands and wouldn’t let me do anything if he didn’t feel safe. That was a moment I will never forget.
I also witnessed the engineers designing and building the road for the filming. Then I saw Tom jump out of a helicopter one morning while flying over a cliff to test the wind and I could hear him laughing instead of being scared. A man who would risk his life for a movie just to please his audience is no pushover.”
When asked if she could reveal more about filming in the Arctic for the final Mission: Impossible film, Hayley Atwell replied: “No movie has ever been shot in the Arctic except Mission: Impossible. People thought it was impossible, and luckily, the crew did it. The main focus was on the safety of the cast and crew. The Arctic is not owned by any country. It’s so majestic and pristine. Sometimes, at minus 55 degrees Celsius with freezing wind, having to do a dialogue or action there requires a lot of organization and concentration. How everyone put that together and made it happen for the story, I don’t know… But the Arctic is still the most extraordinary place I’ve ever been on this planet and I probably will never forget it.”