00:00I would be sad. He's been in my life for 17 years. I've watched him, I've been him growing up,
00:06becoming an older, more mature agent, and they live a sort of a tragic life in a way.
00:11I'm curious how this movie and working on this film in particular has personally affected how
00:32you feel about the ongoing conversation about AI and how powerful it has the potential to become,
00:37even in our own industry. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. When McHugh told me the idea for
00:42the adversary in this film, I was like, oh, that's great. That feels very Mission Impossible. It's
00:46kind of out there, but it's really, you know, in keeping with Mission Impossible's kind of
00:50tech narrative. And then while we were making the film, suddenly this issue came to the forefront
00:56in such an accelerated way to the point where now the film feels precedent. This doesn't feel like
01:02science fiction. This feels like a mirror up to nature, you know. I feel like AI could be a
01:07fantastic thing. I think it could help us enormously in medicine, in space travel,
01:13in ecological preservation. It has no place in art. It just doesn't belong in art. Art is a
01:20human expression. It's a kind of interpretation of our emotions. Until it gets emotions of its own
01:25and it can paint its own pictures, stay out of art. Well, I think what's so brilliant about this
01:32film is it really taps into the cultural consciousness and the zeitgeist of things
01:36that are on a global level that, you know, we contend with. And it does that within the story,
01:42but also does it in terms of pushing its technological abilities. So, for example,
01:47when we see that famous incredible stunt, which is now the most dangerous stunt in movie history of
01:50Tom motorcycling off a cliff, the cameras that were attached to the motorbike hadn't existed
01:57previously to the movie. They were invented for that specific stunt. So you get a sense up close
02:04that they're always on the cutting edge of movie making and what is possible.
02:08Yeah, I mean, we've obviously been talking a lot about it today. And I think really what I think
02:14we all feel is that it's kind of remarkable that this movie was developed years ago and the idea
02:19was conceived years ago. But as it's coming out is when it's really part of the cultural conversation
02:24and global conversation, really. And I think the best movies feel so specific, but so universal.
02:30And there's something this is something that affects absolutely everybody in the whole world.
02:34And seeing as Tom and the crew are trying to save the whole world from it seems, yeah,
02:39more relevant than ever.
02:40I look at this film and I enjoy the story that McHugh wrote, you know, about the film and
02:47whatnot. And it's a wonderful journey to go on with him and his mastermind of crafting
02:53his craftsmanship as a writer, as well as a director. I think it's interesting that he's
02:58able to put everything together because when we were filming it, it felt like discombobulated to
03:03us. But he saw the vision and only a man like McHugh can do something like that.
03:09We let the city tell us the kind of chase it was going to be. Traffic in the city is notorious
03:14and the cobblestone streets make all of the driving unpredictable.
03:18The best part is Tom and Haley, they're handcuffed together.
03:24People are chasing us.
03:26Yes, they are. You're driving.
03:28We're not about obsessively executing a plan. We're about following the emotion
03:33of what it is we're playing with. So there was a lot of experimentation between Tom and Haley,
03:37what their relationship was and how that relationship was supposed to evolve over
03:41the course of that sequence. On top of that, when you got to roam with that car,
03:50and all the work we had done to increase its power, which made it very unpredictable,
03:55and you were very fortunate in that you had somebody like Tom Cruise behind the wheel,
03:59admittedly with one hand cuffed to somebody else. But Tom has so much experience shooting car
04:05chases that he was able to safely navigate all that.
04:08Most of the car chase sequence, if you see us, we're in a two shot,
04:12which is really, it's remarkable that we're able to do that. And it's, you know,
04:16take three would have been great for you, but take four was great for that person,
04:20so they would have cut to singles. But if you notice, Tom and I are in a two shot the whole
04:25time. And that's because of the work that we did together as a team of going, how do we stay
04:31present in the moment with each other, where we know each other's characters inside out,
04:35and we trust each other as actors to remain present, so that we neither of us drop the ball,
04:40so that I can react to anything that he is offering me and vice versa. And that is a,
04:46it's such a small thing, seemingly, most people would never pick up on this, but to be able to
04:50achieve that in a two shot within the context of a car chase sequence is a huge, huge achievement,
04:56technologically as well as creatively, and something I'm really proud of.
05:00As intense as that sequence is, I got in that car for five minutes.
05:04I would never get in that car again. And my hat is off to Hayley Atwell for doing what she did
05:14in the passenger seat of that car, and being able to maintain her composure and give the
05:20performance that she gave. And the fact that it's the two of them in two shots together,
05:25doing physical comedy, which is difficult around a dining room table. They're doing it at 80 miles
05:34an hour in a tiny little car on cobblestone streets in Rome. You can't really appreciate
05:41just what an amazing performance those two actors are giving. His fate is written.
05:48Shall we write yours too? If anything happens to them, there's no place that I won't go to
05:53kill you. That is written. I got the impression that the members of the team are expendable.
05:59And I'm curious if you would be okay with Benji one day getting iced in a mission movie.
06:05I think you're very right. And I think that's something that has always been the case, but
06:10no more clear is it in these stories that we, as I think Luther says, we don't matter as much
06:20as the mission. And any one of us at any time could face the end. And if that happened, I'd be
06:27sad. He's been in my life for 17 years. I've watched him. I've been him growing up, becoming
06:33an older, more mature agent. And they live a sort of a tragic life in a way.
06:42Simon, there's a scene where passports are getting tossed around from Haley,
06:45and it made me realize just the number of places you've been able to go to this
06:49franchise alone. What's the one that you had the best time spending time in that location?
06:54That's a really hard question because I look back on all those different locations and they're all
06:59a separate adventure, you know? I mean, going back to Morocco on Rogue Nation, the car chase in
07:05Morocco was enormous fun. But I think even back to Prague, my first location on Ghost Protocol.
07:12And then with the pandemic being the way it was when we were shooting this one, our time in Italy
07:17was incredible because we were all in these bubbles. We spent all our time with each other,
07:21the new cast members. We all bonded so quickly and so sort of intensely. Having Venice to
07:26ourselves, we were in Venice when it was virtually deserted to the point where myself and Pom
07:32Clemente went off and made a little short film called Au Revoir Chris Hemsworth. It's on YouTube.
07:37Check it out. Oh, cool. Yeah, because we just had this beautiful Italian city to just have fun in.
07:44And we got shut down for 10 days because we had a COVID case in the crew. So yeah, I mean, so many
07:50memories, so many stories. Boy, I'd waste your time with it. That's like asking me who's my
07:55favorite kid, you know? You know which one is your favorite kid. Each one truly offered something
08:04different, you know what I mean? You start in Norway, which I'd never visited, and you start
08:10in a John Ford-esque landscape, you know what I mean, on top of a train. And you have McHugh saying
08:18profound things like, this is one of the top three days I've ever filmed, you know, had the
08:24experience filming, and we're part of that. And Tom, you know, lending, he's just a generous,
08:31you know, so you start there, and then your car chases in Rome, foot chases in Venice, you know,
08:37then you're in the Middle East, you find yourself. It's, you know, and then to end in London, like
08:41it's, for us, it's as good as it gets, you know what I mean? You can imagine how good it is,
08:47and it's even better than that.
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