**Spoilers below for “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1.” You’ve been warned…**
The threat of death is an underlying aspect of every ‘Mission: Impossible’ film. Honestly, that threat doesn’t just apply to the characters and their gunfights and elaborate car chases. The franchise’s star, Tom Cruise, regularly puts his own real life in danger in the creation of these films. However, in the latest ‘M:I’ film, ‘Dead Reckoning Part 1,’ a character on screen does meet their demise. And for filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie, the decision to kill this character off wasn’t taken lightly.
Speaking with USA Today, McQuarrie spoke about the death of Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust. The character, in the film, is teased as dead early but is later revealed to be alive and well. But when she finds herself in a knife fight with the film’s villain, played by Esai Morales, Ilsa is killed, for real this time.
McQuarrie noted her death was “a really tough decision,” but something that was necessary for the story.
“But it was one we knew we had to make for the movie to have stakes and for the movie to remain ‘Mission,’” he explained. “‘Mission’ is primarily Ethan’s journey (and) there is this continuum that the people closest to him, he tends to lose them. It was a really tricky conversation for us to have, and we knew that there would be some reactions to that, but we also knew this is the reality of the world that’s been created over seven movies.”
Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust has quickly become a fan favorite after being introduced in ‘Rogue Nation’ back in 2015. Since then, she’s been a regular addition to subsequent films, including ‘Fallout’ and the aforementioned ‘Dead Reckoning.’ Obviously, the death of the character drives the drama at the end of the film, but it will be interesting to see how the, uh, fallout is handled in the upcoming ‘Dead Reckoning Part 2.’
Until then, you can watch Ilsa Faust’s last stand in “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part 1,” in theaters now.
