Angelique Jackson It’s 10 a.m. in Sydney, where Hayley Atwell is preparing to walk the red carpet as the “Mission: Impossible” crew’s newest member, joining producer and star Tom Cruise and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie’s ensemble of battle-hardened actors. “This is a pure cinematic experience.
It’s unadulterated entertainment, and of a huge scale,” Atwell says to Variety about “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” which finally hit theaters on July 12 following a two-year delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Flashy events like the Australia premiere (which featured a fireworks spectacle in honor of Cruise’s 61st birthday on July 3) mark the end of a four-year odyssey that pushed Atwell’s limits physically — leaving her hanging inside a train car that’s gone from horizontal to vertical, gripping anything nailed to the floor/wall/ceiling lest she fall to her death (or at least the safety rigging below) — and saw her creating a cunning character within the “M:I” universe. “I’m aware that this is entertainment,” Atwell adds. “But I’m also aware that my responsibility as an actor is to contribute in my own small way to the kind of characters I want to see represented.” Atwell plays Grace, a professional thief who becomes embroiled in Ethan Hunt’s (Cruise) latest impossible mission — tracking down a rogue artificial intelligence system.
Among its various plotlines, “Dead Reckoning Part One” chronicles Grace’s origins, explaining how the pickpocket becomes an integral part of the narrative.
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