Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two: Hayley Atwell teases chilly experience filming the sequel

Hayley Atwell joined the Mission: Impossible franchise for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. She plays Grace, a professional thief who crosses paths with Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise). Atwell will be returning for Dead Reckoning Part Two and teased her experience shooting in the Arctic while speaking with THR.

“Nothing has ever been filmed in the Arctic for a movie of this scale,” Hayley Atwell said of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two. “People thought that it would be impossible, and luckily, Team Mission just came in and totally invalidated that belief system. I can say that the main focus was the safety of the cast and the crew,  but also the respect of the landscape out there. The territory feels unowned in a way because it’s so majestic and raw. At times, in minus 55 with a wind chill, having to get action dialogue in that takes a tremendous amount of organization and focus. So how they put that together and weave that into the story, I don’t know, but it will remain the most extraordinary place I’ve ever been on this planet and will probably ever go.“

Hayley Atwell also spoke of her most memorable experience on the set of Dead Reckoning Part One.

It would be drifting in Rome with Tom in the passenger seat, handcuffed to me, with three cameras attached to the windscreen, which impaired my vision. And then it started to rain and the ground was getting wet, which obviously affected the drift. There were stunt cars, and we were beside these very old important monuments. People had come out to watch, and obviously, the crew was watching. I also had to work out whether Tom was speaking to Hayley or Ethan was talking to Grace, when he would say, “Slow down or take a left.” If it was Ethan talking to Grace, she can rebel against exactly what he’s saying and do the opposite. He would also come up with suggestions that he wanted me to try and say, and then we did it. So there’s about 20 minutes of footage of us doing it over and over again, and then stopping to get out and go, “Well, I hope we got some good stuff.”

Atwell continued, “And then Tom led a round of applause from the crew, and McQ said, ‘Tom put his life in your hands just then and he wouldn’t have allowed you to do that had he not believed that you could look after him, too.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s generosity and trust from Tom and how hard he’s seen me work to make sure I can do this for him and for the movie.’ It was a beautiful surprise to me, because I just thought, ‘Well, you told me to train really hard to be able to do it. So I did it.’ It was a validation because they know what it takes technically, physically, mentally, emotionally to have done that and executed it well. So they’re never short on their praise for when actors come in and deliver for them. That’s a moment I’ll never forget.“

Production on the Dead Reckoning Part Two was recently halted due to the ongoing WGA and SAG strikes, but is (so far) still on track for release on June 28, 2024. You can check out a review of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One from our own Chris Bumbray right here, and be sure to let us know what you thought of the film as well.