The audience can look forward to more daredevilry in Mission Impossible: Fallout. Faces are familiar though
It is not just the India connect that we can look forward to in Mission Impossible: Fallout. An extreme stunt sequence as well as the return of Michelle Monaghan who plays the character of Julia, wife of the super spy Ethan Hunt, are other spoilers.
Among the first few stunt sequences that were shot for Mission Impossible: Fallout was one their most extreme stunts called the “long-line.” It was shot in New Zealand and involved the leading man Tom Cruise, who climbed up a rope that was dangling from a helicopter flying at roughly 2,000 feet and then free-falling 40 feet onto a payload at the end of the rope and bouncing off of it.
According to Tom Cruise, the stunt was in the design and planning stages for two years. “It was definitely one of the most extreme things we did on this movie, but you can’t get this stuff on a green screen. It’s very technical: You have to figure out what the helicopter can hold, the payload, where you can put the cameras, what the angles can be. All the rigs have to check out, any little particle that comes off and hits the rotor blades is a real problem. It required great flying from the pilot and rigging from the stunt guys, who all did an incredible job.”
The sequence also required extensive physical preparation on Cruise’s part. “I’ve been training for this for a long time,” he says. “The climb was very difficult. It’s hard to catch your breath because there is less oxygen up there because of the low pressure under the rotor. It was bitter cold, and I was wearing a rig that cuts off the blood circulation so my legs were numb. Then it’s a 40-foot drop and you don’t know what’s going to happen. I was free-falling away from the camera, and there is that point when you’ve just got to let go. The first time my hands literally locked, it was like I couldn’t let go of the rope.”
Once he did let go, Cruise had to try to control his positioning as he fell. “I wanted to hit the bag on my back and roll,” he says. “I knew there was going to be an impact and it really knocked the wind out of me. If I hit my shoulder too hard or I went head first that wouldn’t have been good.”
Ask MI-6 co-star Henry Cavill about watching the man in action first-hand and he says, “To see Tom climbing up that long-line and then fall was quite amazing actually. All he was attached to was the helicopter. If there was a huge gust of wind or something went wrong it could have been extremely dangerous. This crew has seen many stunts before, but when he dropped there was an audible gasp from the crowd, and that’s exactly what we wanted.”
But there is more. The girl power in Mission Impossible: Fallout is on an all- time high as it features four powerful female characters played by four formidable actresses. These include Michelle Monaghan who returns to play the character of Julia, wife of the super spy Ethan Hunt. And it is believed that Julia’s return was courtesy none other than the man himself —Tom Cruise.
At the beginning of each of his collaborations with Tom Cruise, director Christopher McQuarrie poses a question. “I ask him, ‘What do you want from this storyIJ What’s one thing you want to doIJ’ This time Tom said, ‘I want to tie up the story of Julia. People are still asking me about Julia.’ So, we began with that.”
“Because this film is a culmination of all the Missions, we talked a lot about emotion, and you can’t have that emotion without bringing Julia back,” says Cruise when asked about bringing back Michelle as Julia. “There’s a yearning and a romantic notion that we play with. Michelle’s work is exceptional, and she is just a wonderful person.”
Monaghan was happily surprised to learn that her character would return in Mission Impossible: Fallout. “I had no idea there were plans to bring Julia back and I was so excited,” she recalls. “The character is wonderful, and their love story is something fans have latched onto. Ethan let her go to keep her safe and out of harm’s way. For me, that’s the ultimate expression of love. In this story, you see them back together, but in a much different way.”
(The film releases in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu on July 27)