“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” lands in theaters in about three weeks, and with comes another batch of jaw-dropping stunts from actor Tom Cruise. Cruise’s turns as IMF agent Ethan Hunt showcase the actor’s willingness to take physically demanding risks. Just a few examples: hanging outside a plane in “M:I Rogue Nation” or jumping out of one in “M:I Fallout.”
But according to Cruise’s “Dead Reckoning” costar Pom Klementieff, there is one stunt the actor refused to do in the new film: kick her in the stomach. EW reports that Klementieff asked Cruise to really kick her while filming a fight scene between their two characters for the upcoming movie, but he wouldn’t budge. “I kept telling him to just kick me here,” the actress recalled, pointing to her midsection. “I was squeezing abs. [I said], ‘You can just go for it.’ He was like ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ I was like, ‘But it’s going to help me!’ But he wouldn’t do it.”
Klementieff plays Paris in “Dead Reckoning,” a henchwoman for Esai Morales‘ new franchise big bad Gabriel. And according to the actress, Paris is someone who “destroys everything in her path. She’s a rebel, she’s a killer, she’s extremely skilled and quite lonely too.” “[She is] very, very, very much a chaotic element in the story,” Klementieff continued. “It doesn’t matter how deep in the background she is, you’re going to be watching her at all times and wondering what she’s going to do.”
So much destruction does Paris wreak in Christopher McQuarrie‘s latest “M:I” installment? Here’s one of the blockbuster’s bigger action sequences: Paris chases down Cruise’s Hunt in a Humvee through the streets of Rome while he escapes with Hayley Atwell in a small yellow Fiat. “I had so much fun shooting this scene,” said Klementieff. “It was so special to be on location in Rome. We were shooting during COVID, so we were very lucky to be here. I was trying to not laugh too much because I was having so much fun in the car following the Fiat.”
Klementieff also added that her character’s name is a reference to Leonard Nimoy‘s magician/spy Great Paris from the original “Mission: Impossible” TV series. “When Christopher McQuarrie cast me for the role, he didn’t know which name the character would have,” the actress said. “It was cool to name me Paris, me being from France, and then they decided that I would speak French because I speak French in real life.” But Paris is a much different than Nimoy’s Great Paris, in both characterization and dress sense. “She’s very different style-wise from every other actress in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise,” Klementieff continued. “She has a side that’s a bit more punk and she doesn’t really give a f*ck. So that was cool.”
The “Mission: Impossible” films have already had their fare share of memorable bad guys, including Jon Voight‘s Jim Phelps, Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s Owen Davian, and Sean Harris‘ Solomon Lane. So how will Klementieff’s Paris and Morales’ Gabriel compare to them? Find out when “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” hits theaters on July 12.
