Tom Cruise Helped Hayley Atwell Overcome Social Anxiety by Telling Her: ‘If You’re Scared of Something Just Keep Looking at It’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Hayley Atwell appeared on a recent episode of “Reign With Josh Smith” podcast and credited her “Mission: Impossible” co-star Tom Cruise for helping her battle social anxiety in Hollywood.

Atwell made her debut in the action franchise as Grace in 2023’s “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” and will reprise the role in this summer’s “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” “Social anxiety tends to be something that people talk about a lot at the moment, right?

And how a lot of people do have social anxiety at some point,” Atwell told Josh Smith. “It manifests in different ways, but the pep talk [Tom] gave me helps that, which is if you walk into a room and you feel the anxieties coming, and it makes me want to retreat into myself, I start to overthink, and go: ‘Do I look weird?

Do I seem awkward?’ We go into ourselves, and Tom said: ‘Try doing the opposite.'” Cruise told Atwell: “Try to look out, look around the room, and go… where is it?