00:00 I would be sad. He's been in my life for 17 years. I've watched him, I've been him growing up,
00:06 becoming an older, more mature agent, and they live a sort of a tragic life in a way.
00:27 I'm curious how this movie and working on this film in particular has personally affected how
00:32 you feel about the ongoing conversation about AI and how powerful it has the potential to become,
00:37 even in our own industry. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. When McHugh told me that the idea
00:42 for the adversary in this film, I was like, oh, that's great. That feels very Mission Impossible.
00:46 It's kind of out there, but it's really, you know, in keeping with Mission Impossible's kind of tech
00:50 narrative. And then while we were making the film, suddenly this issue came to the forefront
00:56 in such an accelerated way to the point where now the film feels precedent. This doesn't feel like
01:02 science fiction. This feels like a mirror up to nature, you know. I feel like AI could be a
01:07 fantastic thing. I think it could help us enormously in medicine, in space travel, in
01:13 ecological preservation. It has no place in art. It just doesn't belong in art. Art is a human
01:20 expression. It's a kind of interpretation of our emotions. Until it gets emotions of its own and
01:25 it can paint its own pictures, stay out of art. Well, I think what's so brilliant about this film
01:32 is it really taps into the cultural consciousness and the zeitgeist of things that are on a global
01:37 level that, you know, we contend with. And it does that within the story, but also does it in terms
01:43 of pushing its technological abilities. So, for example, when we see that famous, incredible
01:48 stunt, which is now the most dangerous stunt in movie history of Tom motorcycling off a cliff,
01:53 the cameras that were attached to the motorbike hadn't existed previously to the movie. They were
01:59 invented for that specific stunt. So you get a sense up close that they're always on the
02:05 cutting edge of movie making and what is possible. Yeah, I mean, we've obviously been talking a lot
02:10 about it today. And I think really what I think we all feel is that it's kind of remarkable that
02:15 this movie was developed years ago and the idea was conceived years ago. But as it's coming out
02:21 is when it's really part of the cultural conversation and global conversation, really.
02:26 And I think the best movies feel so specific, but so universal. And there's something this is
02:31 something that affects absolutely everybody in the whole world. And seeing as Tom and the crew
02:36 are trying to save the whole world from it seems more relevant than ever. I look at this film and
02:42 I enjoy the story that McHugh wrote, you know, about the film and whatnot. And it's a wonderful
02:49 journey to go on with him and his mastermind of crafting his craftsmanship as a writer,
02:55 as well as a director. I think it's interesting that he's able to put everything together,
02:59 because when we were filming it, it felt like discombobulated to us. But he saw the vision and
03:04 only a man like McHugh can do something like that. We let the city tell us the kind of chase
03:11 it was going to be. Traffic in the city is notorious and the cobblestone streets make
03:16 all of the driving unpredictable. Best part is Tom and Haley, they're handcuffed together.
03:23 People are chasing us. Yes, they are. You're driving. We're not about obsessively executing
03:30 a plan. We're about following the emotion of what it is we're playing with. So there was a lot of
03:35 experimentation between Tom and Haley, what their relationship was and how that relationship was
03:40 supposed to evolve over the course of that sequence. On top of that, when you got to roam
03:46 with that car, which we then and all the work we had done to increase its power,
03:53 which made it very unpredictable. And you were very fortunate in that you had somebody like
03:57 Tom Cruise behind the wheel, admittedly with one hand cuffed to somebody else. But Tom has so much
04:04 experience shooting car chases that he was able to safely navigate all that. Most of the car chase
04:09 sequence, if you see us, we're in a two shot, which is really it's remarkable that we're able
04:15 to do that. And it's, you know, take three would have been great for you, but take four was great
04:19 for that person. So it would have cut to singles. But if you notice, Tom and I are in a two shot
04:24 the whole time. And that's because of the the work that we did together as a team of going,
04:30 how do we stay present in the moment with each other where we know each other's characters
04:34 inside out, and we trust each other as actors to remain present so that we neither restruct the
04:40 ball so that I can react to anything that he is offering me and vice versa. And that is a,
04:46 it's such a small thing, seemingly, most people would never pick up on this. But to be able to
04:50 achieve that in a two shot within the context of a car chase sequence is a huge, huge achievement,
04:56 technologically as well as creatively and something I'm really proud of.
05:00 As intense as that sequence is, I got in that car for five minutes. I would never get in that car
05:05 again. And my hat is off to Haley Atwell for doing what she did in the passenger seat of that car,
05:15 and being able to maintain her composure and give the performance that she gave. And the fact that
05:22 it's the two of them in two shots together doing physical comedy, which is difficult.
05:28 But around a dining room table, they're doing it at 80 miles an hour in a tiny little car
05:35 on cobblestone streets in Rome. It's there. You can't really appreciate just what an amazing
05:42 performance those two actors are giving. His fate is written. Shall we write yours too?
05:49 If anything happens to them, there's no place that I won't go to kill you. That is written.
05:55 I got the impression that the members of the team are expendable. And I'm curious if you would be
06:00 okay with Benji one day getting iced in a mission movie. I think you're very right. And I think
06:07 that's something that has always been the case, but no more sort of clear is it in these stories
06:14 that we, as I think Luther says, we don't matter as much as the mission. And any one of us at any
06:23 time could face the end. And if that happened, I'd be sad. He's been in my life for 17 years. I've
06:30 watched him. I've been him growing up, becoming an older, more mature agent. And
06:36 they live a sort of a tragic life in a way. Simon, there's a scene where passports are
06:44 getting tossed around from Haley. And it made me realize just the number of places you've been able
06:48 to go to this franchise alone. What's the one that you had the best time spending time in that
06:53 location? That's a really hard question because I look back on all those different locations and
06:59 they're all a separate adventure. I mean, going back to Morocco on Rogue Nation, the car chase
07:05 in Morocco was enormous fun. But I think even back to Prague, my first location on Ghost Protocol.
07:11 And then with the pandemic being the way it was when we were shooting this one,
07:16 our time in Italy was incredible because we were all in these bubbles. We spent all our time with
07:20 each other, the new cast members. We all bonded so quickly and so sort of intensely. Having Venice to
07:26 ourselves, we were in Venice when it was virtually deserted to the point where myself and Pom
07:32 Clemente went off and made a little short film called Au Revoir Chris Hemsworth. It's on YouTube.
07:37 Check it out. Oh, cool. Yeah, because we just had this beautiful Italian city to just have fun. And
07:44 we got shut down for 10 days because we had a COVID case in the crew. So, yeah, I mean, so many
07:50 memories, so many stories. Boy, I'd waste your time with it. That's like asking me who's my
07:55 favorite kid. You know, it's truly each one. Each one truly offered something different. You know
08:04 what I mean? You start in Norway, which I'd never visited, and you start in a John Ford-esque
08:13 landscape, you know what I mean, on top of a train. And you have McHugh saying profound things like
08:20 this is one of the top three days I've ever filmed, you know, had the experience filming,
08:25 and we're part of that. And Tom, you know, lending, he's just a generous, you know, so you
08:32 start there and then your car chases in Rome, foot chases in Venice, you know, then you're in the
08:37 Middle East, you find yourself. It's, you know, and then to end in London, like it's, for us,
08:42 it's as good as it gets. You know what I mean? You can imagine how good it is, and it's even
08:47 better than that.
08:53 [Music]
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