Actor Simon Pegg reflects on his extraordinary fortune in landmark film franchise Mission: Impossible
From supernerd to starring alongside stunt guru Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible franchise, Simon Pegg is counting his blessings.
It is almost 30 years since we first saw Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, the deep-cover field operative for the shadowy US government agency Impossible Mission Force, be betrayed and almost killed but assemble a team of disavowed agents to find the truth, restore his reputation and, of course, save the world.
Since Mission: Impossible (1996) rebooted the television series created by Bruce Geller (1966-73; 1988-90), it has grown to become one of the most profitable movie franchises in cinema history with a seventh – Dead Reckoning Part One – arriving this week and again combining a complex spy story with action, tension and mind-bending stunts.
From the moment a match is struck, sparks fly and the iconic theme music is played – “dun dun, dada, dun dun, da da” – audiences know what to expect. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it …” is to suspend belief and enjoy the thrill ride as Hunt again goes rogue on a mission that is, you guessed it, impossible. It is certain to involve peeling off a face mask.
In this film, Cruise drives a motorbike off a mountain and falls 4000 feet before opening his parachute just 500 feet above the ground. It is breathtaking. We are told it is the most dangerous stunt he has ever done. But we have previously seen him, in these movies, hang from a jagged cliff face, dangle from the world’s tallest building and cling to an aeroplane in mid-flight.
Simon Pegg, who returns as data analyst turned field agent Benji Dunn, tells me via Zoom that life and art tends to mirror each other when working with Cruise on these big budget action and adventure films that often leave audiences tighter in the chest and on the edge of their seat.
“Working with him is always just really, really fun,” Pegg, 53, says. “Often, we’ll find ourselves having very Tom Cruisey days when, you know, doing a scene where we’re being chased by a helicopter and then we all get into the helicopter and he flies us back to the beginning of the shot, and then we all clap, get back in the car, and then we go shark diving. It’s fun.”
“He’s just someone who devotes his life to cinema. It is massively important to him that the audience is entertained in the best possible way. There is never a time when he is not fully invested in every facet of the production. He gets on with everybody and he makes a point of having a relationship with everyone on set.”
The first Mission: Impossible film was directed by Brian De Palma, the second by John Woo (2000) and the third by JJ Abrams (2006). The series seemed to run out of steam, especially after the dreadful second instalment set largely in Australia, but Ghost Protocol (2011) directed by Brad Bird set a new standard for spy films. Christopher McQuarrie directed Rogue Nation (2015) and Fallout (2018), and raised the bar higher for thrills, elaborate plots, insane action sequences, set in stunning locations around the world, and to a fast pace that does not disappoint. McQuarrie has directed Dead Reckoning Parts One and Two. He also co-wrote Ghost Protocol.
“The moment when McQuarrie took over, things turned around in an interesting way because what Chris and Tom have been able to do since that point is really hone the story and the characters to create a real continuity,” Pegg says. “So, you have this very rare thing where a franchise series actually gets better rather than worse.”
In Dead Reckoning, Hunt must confront his past while, as ever, not knowing fully who to trust. The mission focuses on stopping an uncontrollable artificial intelligence being weaponised by a new type of enemy.
“We live and die in the shadows,” Hunt says. It is an interesting and timely film story.
This is Pegg’s fifth Mission: Impossible film. Other characters also return, including Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) and Alanna Mitsopolis (Vanessa Kirby). Henry Czerny reprises the legendary role of Eugene Kittridge from the very first film. There are terrific performances by Hayley Atwell (Grace), Esai Morales (Gabriel), Shea Whigham (Jasper) and Cary Elwes (Denlinger).
“I loved getting back together with Ving Rhames and Rebecca Ferguson,” Pegg says. “With Ving, you know, Pulp Fiction was the first film I went to see with Nick Frost. Our first cinema date together was to see Pulp Fiction! We loved Ving. And now I’ll get a text from him in the middle of the night saying, ‘Hey, brother.’ I get so excited. And Rebecca, she’s like my sister. We got really close with these movies.”
In the third Mission: Impossible film, we met Pegg’s character Benji who was a desk-bound analyst. He now has a number of missions to his credit, has been seasoned in the field, faced life or death moments, and defused the odd nuclear bomb. Pegg says his character does more than provide comic relief and is often used to explain complex information to the audience.
“He is quick to point out the absurdity of every situation they find themselves in,” Pegg laughs. “Benji is very much the audience’s way into this world and his reactions tend to mirror what ours would be, which is generally: what the hell’s going on? Why are we doing this?”
Pegg is also known for writing and starring in classic films such as The World’s End (2013), Hot Fuzz (2007) and Shaun of the Dead (2004). Mission: Impossible, of course, began on television. Pegg is also renowned for roles in a trifecta of other famous reboots: Star Wars (2015), Star Trek (2009-16) and Doctor Who (2005). They are the three most popular science fiction films and television shows ever made. “To be a fan as a young person and then become part of it feels like a real kind of manifest destiny thing,” Pegg reflects.
“It’s an extraordinary privilege to be part of that … I always think about what it would be like to go back in time and take my younger self aside and say one day you will own the Millennium Falcon or you will be the engineer on the Starship Enterprise.”
Part two of Dead Reckoning is due to be released in mid-2024. These two films may not be the last in the long-running espionage series. “Tom will always want you to leave the cinema thinking there could be more,” says Pegg. “I just don’t know.”
In any event, Pegg says it is essential that people head to the cinema to watch this latest Mission: Impossible instalment. Cruise, over his long career, has been an advocate for seeing films on the big screen, as they were meant to be seen. But it is more than that.
“It is the act of joining a whole group of strangers and experiencing something together and having a shared emotional investment in something,” Pegg says. “The importance of that cannot be stressed enough. It can retire on to television, but it is born on the big screen. It unites us. It is a very important part of human existence.”
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is in cinemas now.
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The best Mission: Impossible stunt moments
By Elliot Power
The Mission: Impossible films have, since the first instalment in 1996, crashed into cinemas with some of the greatest stunts in film history. And at the centre of it all has been Tom Cruise, playing Ethan Hunt, the world-beating field agent and operative for the secretive Impossible Mission Force.
Cruise performs the stunts with minimal safety equipment and a whole lot of nerve. In an interview with British talkshow host Graham Norton, the actor revealed: “I feel that [when acting] you’re bringing everything, you know, physically and emotionally, to a character in a story. I’ve trained for 30 years doing [stunts], and it allows us to put cameras where you are normally not able to.” The question of whether Cruise is fit enough — he turned 61 on Monday — to continue his stunt work is comprehensively answered in the franchise’s latest offering. The real question is: what’s next? Below is a list of the actor’s most audacious performances.
1 THE LANGLEY HEIST
One of the best-known images from this franchise, this shot of the Langley Heist in the first MI film shows Cruise as Ethan Hunt suspended by two thin wires. Dropping through the ceiling to inches above the floor, Cruise’s Hunt had been sent to retrieve the NOC list – a detailed summary of covert operatives of the Impossible Missions Force while remaining undetected by heat sensors and alarms. Cruise makes it look easy.
2 FREE CLIMBING
Providing viewers with an exhilarating opening to the second film, Cruise displays one of his many physical talents – hanging from a precipice. While critically panned as one of the poorer films of the franchise, the exciting opening to this movie, filmed at Utah’s Dead Horse Point, is worth the price of admission. Featuring Cruise’s plucky protagonist first sliding down a sheer cliff face and then catching himself with ease, saving his life – and the world, naturally – in the process, it’s one for the diehard fans.
3 THE PLANE HANG
Once again opening a film with a riveting stunt scene, Rogue Nation – the fifth film – delivers vertigo in spades as we watch Cruise casually cling to the side of an ascending plane. Cruise was in a full-body harness and wired to the plane via a cable for the scene, which is still impressive almost a decade after it was filmed.
4 SCALING THE BURJ KHALIFA
If free climbing a near vertical cliff face or hanging from the side of a flying plane didn’t impress you, then this stunt hopefully should. Fitted with impressive spy attire, Cruise as Hunt climbs the side of the world’s tallest building, in Dubai, with ease as he is pursuing nuclear launch codes. The stunt was performed with only one safety rope attached to Tom Cruise, a mere 800m above the ground.
5 HALO JUMP
Arguably the most audacious stunt attempted across the series, the Halo Jump in Mission Imopssible Fallout – the sixth film – almost defies description.
The High Altitude, Low Open jump, a manoeuvre usually used only by military special forces, saw Cruise suit up and descend from a height of 7600m, opening his chute at 600m. The actor required a special oxygen mask due to the altitude.
6 MOTORCYCLE JUMP
This one is hard to top. It’s been touted as the biggest stunt in cinematic history, and it’s a difficult proposition with which to argue. Tom Cruise, as Hunt, speeds towards the edge of a mountain (it’s actually a ramp; the rocky precipice was added as CGI) and base jumps thousands of feet to the ground below. The actor reportedly did more than 500 skydives and some 13,000 motocross jumps ahead of the day of filming, during which he did the actual stunt six times. It’s the high point, literally and figuratively of the seventh and latest film in the franchise: Dead Reckoning –Part One.
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