As far as I'm concerned, Christopher McQuarrie absolutely knocked it out of the park with MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – ROGUE NATION and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT, so there's no better man for the job of tackling the upcoming back-to-back sequels. In addition to much of the regular ensemble cast returning, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7 & 8 will also feature a few new cast-members, including Hayley Atwell (AVENGERS: ENDGAME).
Details regarding Hayley Atwell's character are considered top-secret, but while speaking on the Light the Fuse podcast, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and Hayley Atwell dropped a few details about Atwell's character, who McQuarrie described as a "destructive force of nature" who will test the members of the IMF. Atwell hinted that the loyalties of her character seem to be somewhat ambiguous, even to her.
I’ve been living in an existential crisis since October, going ‘who am I? who am I?' An actor in search of a character… There’s ambiguity…the interesting thing we’re exploring is her resistance to a situation she finds herself in. How she starts off, where she becomes. The journey of what she comes into and what is asked of her and potentially where she ends up.
Christopher McQuarrie added that he wanted to make sure that Hayley Atwell's character stands apart from the franchise's other badass women. "For Hayley to exist in a franchise where other women had come and made statements, we said ‘well it can’t be like that.’ We don’t want Hayley to be a repeat of any character that’s come before," McQuarrie said. "What’s left? What’s unique and what’s new? We wrote a scene about what we imagined the spark of that character to be, and that’s what Hayley came in and read. What we discovered there is this energy that Hayley had, specifically an energy with Tom. It’s not a vibe, it’s literally a vibration. You felt it and you were like, 'I don’t know what to make of this person.'"
As is expected from the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE franchise, Atwell has been going through some rather rigorous physical training, including some killer knife work, which McQuarrie has been quite impressed by. "It is truly something to see," McQuarrie said, "the work that you’ve done, the dedication you’ve shown, the focus, and quite frankly, your frightening talent with a knife, are all stuff that I’m very, very, very excited for people to see. It’s a very different side of Hayley." Simon Pegg, who will be reprising his role of Benji Dunn, was also featured on the podcast, and chimed in on witnessing Atwell's stunt prowess. "[Stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood] showed me a video of you doing your training. You’re super fast. Proper Matrix shit going on," Pegg said.
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7 & 8 were originally slated to hit theaters on July 21, 2021 and August 5, 2022, but the COVID-19 shutdown has forced Paramount Pictures to push those dates back to November 19, 2021 and November 4, 2022.