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. I feel like AI could be a fantastic thing.
01:08I think it could help us enormously in medicine, in space travel, in ecological preservation.
01:15It has no place in art. It just doesn't belong in art. Art is a human expression. It's a kind
01:21of interpretation of our emotions. Until it gets emotions of its own and it can paint its own
01:26pictures, stay out of art. Well, I think what's so brilliant about this film is it really taps
01:33into the cultural consciousness and the zeitgeist of things on a global level that, you know, we
01:38contend with. And it does that within the story, but also does it in terms of pushing its technological
01:45abilities. So, for example, when we see that famous incredible stunt, which is now the most
01:49dangerous stunt in movie history of Tom motorcycling off a cliff, the cameras that were attached to the
01:55motorbike hadn't existed previously to the movie. They were invented for that specific stunt. So you
02:03get a sense up close that 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. I look at this film and I enjoy the story that McHugh wrote, you know,
02:46about the film and whatnot. And it's a wonderful journey to go on with him and his mastermind of
02:52crafting his 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. We let the
03:09city tell us the kind of chase it was going to be. Traffic in the city is notorious and the
03:14cobblestone streets make all of the driving unpredictable. Best part is Tom and Haley,
03:22they're handcuffed together. People are chasing us. Yes, they are. You're driving. We're not about
03:28obsessively executing a plan. We're about following the emotion of what it is we're playing with.
03:34So there was a lot of experimentation between Tom and Haley, what their relationship was and how that
03:39relationship was supposed to evolve over the course of that sequence. On top of that, when you got to
03:46Rome with that car and all the work we had done to increase its power, which made it very
03:54unpredictable. And 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
04:05car chases that he was able to safely navigate all that. Most of the car chase sequence, if you see
04:10us, we're in a two shot, which is really, it's remarkable that we're able to do that. And it's,
04:16you know, take three would have been great for you, but take four was great for that person.
04:20So it would have cut to singles. But if you notice, Tom and I are in a two shot the whole time.
04:26And 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 has dropped 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. As intense as
05:01that sequence is, I got in that car for five minutes. I would never get in that car again.
05:06And my hat is off to Haley Atwell for doing what she did in the passenger seat of that car
05:16and being able to maintain her composure and give the performance that she gave.
05:21And the fact that it's the two of them in two shots together doing physical comedy,
05:27which is difficult around a dining room table. They're doing it at 80 miles an hour in a tiny
05:35little car on cobblestone streets in Rome. You can't really appreciate just what an amazing
05:42performance those two actors are giving. His fate is written. Shall we write yours too?
05:50If anything happens to them, there's no place that I won't go to kill you. That is written.
05:55I got the impression that the members of the team are expendable. And I'm curious if you would be
06:00okay with Benji one day getting iced in a mission movie. I think you're very right. And I think
06:07that's something that has always been the case, but no more sort of clear is it in these stories
06:15that we, as I think Luther says, we don't matter as much as the mission and any one of us at any
06:23time could face the end. And if that happened, I'd be sad. He's been in my life for 17 years.
06:30I've watched him and been him growing up, becoming an older, more mature agent. And
06:37you know, it's a kind of a, it's a, they live a sort of a tragic life in a way.
06:41Simon, there's a scene where passports are getting tossed around from Haley and it made me realize
06:46just the number of places you've been able to go due to this franchise alone. What's the one that
06:51you had the best time spending time in that location? That's a really hard question because I
06:56look back on all those different locations and they're all a separate adventure, you know?
07:01I mean, going back to Morocco on Rogue Nation, the car chase in Morocco was enormous fun.
07:07But I think even back to Prague, my first location on Ghost Protocol. And then with the pandemic
07:14being the way it was when we were shooting this one, our time in Italy was incredible because we
07:18were all in these bubbles. We spent all our time with each other, the new cast members. We all bonded
07:23so quickly and so sort of intensely. Having Venice to ourselves, we were in Venice when it was
07:29virtually deserted to the point where myself and Pom Clemente went off and made a little short film
07:35called Au Revoir Chris Hemsworth. It's on YouTube. Check it out. Oh, cool. Yeah. Because we just had
07:41this beautiful Italian city to just have fun in. And we got shut down for 10 days because we had
07:46a COVID case in the crew. So, yeah, I mean, so many memories, so many stories. I'd bore you.
07:51I'd waste your time with it. That's like asking me who's my favorite kid. You know what I mean?
07:57You know which one is your favorite kid. It's truly, each one truly offered something different.
08:04You know what I mean? You start in Norway, which I'd never visited, and you start in a John Ford-esque
08:14landscape, you know what I mean, on top of a train. And you have McHugh saying profound things like,
08:20this is one of the top three days I've ever filmed, you know, had the experience filming,
08:25and we're part of that. And Tom, you know, lending, he's just a generous, you know, so you start there
08:32and then your car chases in Rome, foot chases in Venice, you know, then you're in the Middle East,
08:38you find yourself, it's, you know, and then to end in London, like it's, for us, it's as
08:42good as it gets. You know what I mean? You can imagine how good it is, and it's even better than that.
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