Tom Cruise makes a triumphant return as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One and after taking the time to speak to each and every fan – some of whom had flown thousands of miles to see him – at the UK premiere, Tom joined HELLO! for an exclusive chat.
Reflecting on his favorite memories from the franchise, the A-lister confessed: "I have so many that's very difficult. This is the first film [1996's Mission: Impossible] I ever produced. So to be here doing this decades later, you know, to be here in Leicester Square doing this premiere, it's very special.
"And also with them – to be able to look at this cast and know how hard they worked…we're very excited to be able to share it with audiences."
Back in 2020, news broke of Tom's record-breaking stunt which features in the sequel. Billed as the "biggest stunt in cinema history", the high-octane sequence sees the actor ride a motorcycle off a cliff in Norway, before launching into a base jump.
Naturally, the 60-year-old was repeatedly questioned about the stunt, and his response may surprise fans. "The thing is I don't...it's not that I don't get scared," he explained to outlets. "It's that I don't mind being scared. I don't mind being a little nervous."
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While Tom is the resident action man on set, co-star Simon Pegg – aka Benji Dunn – joked that he'd much rather sit in an armchair watching the telly than leap off of motorcycles. Since joining the franchise in 2006, the 53-year-old has made some epic memories.
"My favorite little group is me, Rebecca [Ferguson], Tom and Ving [Rhames]," he explained to HELLO!
"When we get together as a little foursome and hang out because we've been in it for a while. All four of us, we know the score – hanging out with those guys on set is the best memory."
"We started, I think being in Venice and Venice was very quiet at the time," Simon continued.
"You know, there were very few positives about the lockdown, but one of them was that Venice, which is usually very crowded, was empty and Pom Klementieff and I made a little film in our spare time called Au Revoir Chris Hemsworth, which was part of the Avengers Fantasy Football team diss track thing.
"And so we went out into Venice. She flagged all these clothes from Miu Miu, we shot this beautiful little black-and-white movie. Tom's in it, Rebecca's in it. I directed it, wrote it with Tom and it's the third thing pinned on her Instagram. It's on my Instagram and it's really good, that was my favorite thing other than the film."
Giving a standout performance in the seventh instalment of Mission Impossible 7, Pom Klementieff portrays deadly assassin Paris in the movie – a far cry from her iconic role as Mantis in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise.
During production, the 37-year-old was involved in some extremely complex stuntwork, and it certainly paid off. "I have so many beautiful memories, you know, all the locations we shot at, but also getting to do this incredible fight scene with Tom and getting to unleash my inner tiger of some sort," she raved to HELLO!
Asked if she took any mementoes from the set, Pom teased: "I might have got something but I can't tell you because I'm not allowed to say!"