Hannah Waddingham has been publicly effusive with her praise of Tom Cruise before. She previously called her Mission: Impossible 8 co-star one of the “loveliest and encouraging” people she’d ever met, an adulation that seemingly ruffled some feathers. However, it’s looking like a little backlash isn’t stopping the Ted Lasso actress from backing the movie star.
Waddingham joins Tom Cruise in the upcoming eighth installment in the Mission: Impossible film series, but though the Brit has remained tight-lipped on both the plot and her character (director Christopher McQuarrie did give fans a little sneak peek last March), she was positively gushing about her megawatt co-star. She told Hollywood Life about working alongside “daredevil” Cruise:
I don’t think there’s anyone that’s as much of a daredevil as he is. I mean, the fact that he did his leap off in Dead Reckoning 8 times. When we were shooting the first stuff that I do with him on the George H.W. Bush fighter carrier, I had to dig deep and get involved and be going up and down ladders and sleep on a bed and not having any refineries. But he said, ‘We love the fact that you’re so gung-ho and pushing it.’ I think that is my theater upbringing. I love the muscularity of working with Tom Cruise.
She also shared how she is looking forward to playing a character different from Rebecca Welton, Ted Lasso‘s boss on the acclaimed, same-named Apple TV comedy series, a role that’s won Waddingham a Primetime Emmy and a Critics’ Choice Award. In her words:
I come from theater where there isn’t that vanity. You roll with what serves the character, which is why I took Septa Unella in Game of Thrones. It’s why I wanted to play Sofía Marchetti in Sex Education, and again with Mission: Impossible…I like leaving me, whether it’s leaving me at the door in order to play Rebecca Welton with the peaks and troughs that she goes through, or it’s joining Tom Cruise and Chris McQuarrie in creating the next stage of Mission: Impossible. I love leaving myself at the door. I don’t thrive off anything as much as I thrive off removing myself.
Waddingham undoubtedly got a crash course at throwing oneself into a role opposite Cruise, who is known for putting his body on the line by performing many of his own stunts, including that record-breaking underwater sequence in Mission Impossible—Rogue Nation and that high-flying motorcycle jump in Dead Reckoning.
Knowing this Ethan Hunt-led universe, there will be even more shocking stunts where those are concerned when Mission: Impossible 8 is released. I’m certainly excited to see Hannah Waddingham get in on all the daredevil action alongside Tom Cruise.
Alas, the spy action thriller won’t be on the 2024 movie schedule, as pandemic-related delays have pushed its theatrical release back to May 2025. In the meantime, while you wait, you can revisit every previous Mission: Impossible movie with a Paramount+ subscription.