Todd Gilchrist editor Since “Mission: Impossible III” in 2006, Simon Pegg has been part of the core ensemble of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, playing hacker and sometime field agent Benji Dunn opposite its stalwart star Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. Pegg was never going to be the actor risking life and limb on screen — “it’s Benji’s job to be the one that actually says, ‘what the fuck are we doing here?’,” he observes. But over five installments of the indefatigable series, his character has shifted from questioning what Ethan is doing in the moment to believing absolutely in why he’s doing it, thanks in no small part to the writing and directing of Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie came onto “Ghost Protocol” as “a sort of master plumber to re-wriggle the pipes,” as Pegg characterizes it, and since became the series’ ongoing co-architect with Cruise. Their partnership reaches its peak, even if by all indications it’s far from over, with “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,” half of an operatic culmination of narrative seeds planted since Cruise first played Hunt back in 1996. In a conversation with Variety, Pegg discusses what makes McQuarrie’s creativity so special, and his collaboration with Cruise et al so unique; he also talks about new details he discovered about Benji, explored the challenges of being self-referential in a franchise like this without undermining emotional stakes, and hinted at what is yet to come as he and the rest of the filmmaking team move on to “Dead Reckoning — Part Two.”
