The director who gave Hayley Atwell a 10-year heads-up: “I want to work with you”
During the first wave of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, several actors achieved a level of fame that many can only dream of.
Within the ilk of Robert Downey Jrs and Chris Hemsworths, however, there was another tier of actors who quietly wormed their way into the Hollywood elite, and one of them was Hayley Atwell.
Having previously been best known for stage shows and a few British independent movies, the London-born star was catapulted to global recognition in the role of Captain America’s lost love, Peggy Carter. As the driving force of Cap’s righteous quest, she wasn’t actually in a lot of the movies, but her presence loomed over the entire billion-dollar project.
One of the many doors that were opened for Atwell was into the world of Mission: Impossible. She joined the high-octane, low-logic franchise for its seventh film, which is still called Dead Reckoning – Part One, even though there isn’t going to be a Part Two.
As Grace, a pickpocket recruited by Ethan Hunt, she was placed right in the centre of the money-churning franchise and was given the rare privilege of being allowed to run next to Tom Cruise.
In an interview with Screen Rant, Atwell recalled how she came to join the series. It all revolved around a chance meeting with director Christopher McQuarrie, whom she playfully referred to as “McQ”, and a promise that he was determined to keep.
“I’d come into it at a position where McQ had seen me in a play ten years previously and had taken me out to dinner and said, ‘I want to work with you. I just don’t know what it is yet’,” she revealed, “So, when he brought me in for the screen test to meet Tom, what they said was they were looking for an actress rather than someone to fit a character that’s already written.”
Dead Reckoning was released in 2023, and ten years prior to that, Atwell had been appearing in a revival of the Alexi Kaye Campbell drama The Pride in London, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award. According to the timelines, this must have been the play that McQuarrie saw her in, as Atwell wouldn’t appear in another play for five years.
Following the death of Ilsa Faust (played by Rebecca Ferguson) in Dead Reckoning, Atwell’s Grace assumed her place as the de facto female lead of the Mission: Impossible series. She continued this into the next film, The Final Reckoning, where it was teased that she might even replace Hunt as the franchise’s main focus. Of course, that relies on Tom Cruise handing over the reins, which we all know he’s never going to do.
Hollywood is full of people who make big claims and then never follow through with them, but McQuarrie stood by his word and gave Atwell a job, and while it might have taken him a decade to do it, he made it happen.
