Vanessa Kirby and Hayley Atwell Explain How ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’ Pulled Off That Thrilling Mask Sequence

variety.com:

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” now playing in theaters. The “Mission: Impossible” movies have no shortage of death-defying stunts, but the Tom Cruise-starring action franchise is known for another iconic magic trick: its mask reveals. “Dead Reckoning Part One” features two mask reveals — in the first, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt uses a mask to infiltrate a meeting between CIA director Eugene Kittridge (Henry Czerny) and officials from various intelligence agencies about a rogue artificial intelligence system, known as the Entity.

The other is a face swap between Hayley Atwell’s Grace, a pickpocket who becomes embroiled in IMF’s hunt for the Entity, and Vanessa Kirby’s black-market arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis, aka the White Widow. “It was so much fun.

It was the first time two women have got to do that,” Kirby told Variety on the red carpet at the film’s New York premiere. “It was such an amazing gift — because I love Hayley — to channel her and get to play her for a bit, and to get to play somebody that was totally out of control,” she continued. “My character is usually so restrained and composed and in control; it was really, really fun to play someone a bit scrappier and a bit messier.

I’m naturally more messy in real life, so I felt more at home in that sense.” In a separate interview, Atwell echoed Kirby’s excitement, sharing that the two became particularly close while training together for the film amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “We both have a background in theater, and we’re both British, and we had mutual friends,” Atwell said.