Bizarre Things That Happened On The Mission: Impossible Sets

The production of any movie in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise can be frenetic and chaotic. Given that the franchise's lead star and producer Tom Cruise, who ushered the IP from its television roots to the big screen, pushes for riveting and realistic set pieces executed with practical stunts, production isn't always swift and is often rife with various hiccups. That's part of why it takes an average of five years for each "Mission: Impossible" film to come out.

But for what it's worth, the series is widely seen as one of the best action franchises in cinematic history, showing no signs of aging despite having seven movies released across nearly three decades since the first "Mission: Impossible" in 1996. Each film has carved an identity of its own that's able to withstand the flux of CGI-heavy action and superhero movies, which have dominated the entertainment landscape in the past decade and a half.

That being said, the scale of each film's production opens the window for many bizarre things to take place on and off sets. These range from the various injuries that Cruise has sustained from his insistence on doing his own death-defying stunts to tiffs between him and his fellow cast and crew members, logistical nightmares, unforeseen external circumstances for the production to deal with, and even just amusing occurrences that the cast can use as anecdotes for promotional interviews and press tours. Here's a look at some bizarre things that have happened on the sets of the "Mission: Impossible" movies.

Thandiwe Newton, who plays professional thief Nyah Hall in "Mission: Impossible 2," recalled her negative experience working with Tom Cruise in a 2020 interview with Vulture. When asked why she never returned to the franchise, Newton said, "Oh, I was never asked. I was so scared of Tom [Cruise]. He was a very dominant individual. He tries superhard [sic] to be a nice person. But the pressure. He takes on a lot."

The actress cited one particular incident during production when she and Cruise were struggling to make one scene work, which she didn't think "was a very well-written scene." Newton detailed how she felt John Woo's direction was "unhelpful" as she and Cruise rehearsed the scene multiple times, including one take where the two actors switched characters per Cruise's suggestion. "It just pushed me further into a place of terror and insecurity. It was a real shame," Newton said.

She went on to reveal how Cruise's stress and frustrations manifested physically, saying, "I remember at the beginning of the night, seeing this slight red mark on his nose, and by the end of the night, I kid you not — this is how his metabolism is so fierce — he had a big whitehead where that red dot was. It would take anyone else 48 hours to manifest a zit. I saw it growing, and it was like the zit was me, just getting bigger and bigger." Newton repeatedly insisted that Cruise "wasn't horrible," and that he was just "really stressed."

As exciting as it can be to watch a riveting car chase such as the one in "Mission: Impossible –- Rogue Nation," it can be equally as mundane to shoot such scenes. With the spare time that actors are left with when a scene is being lit or staged through multiple takes and shots, they sometimes have to find their own way to pass the time. That boredom can lead to fun and sometimes bizarre pranks on set.

Such was the case with the chase sequence in "Rogue Nation," where the anxious Benji (Simon Pegg) unwittingly bears the brunt of field partner Ethan's rash driving. Pegg recalled on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" how he became a target of Cruise's pranks on set. As the two actors were seated in the car, shooting in the scorching heat of Morocco for five days, Cruise would turn on Pegg's seat heaters without him knowing. He'd do it while making sure that Pegg was regularly hydrated by the crew, which Pegg remarked was like the kind of torture seen in the 1995 psycho-thriller "Seven," where serial killer John Doe keeps his victims barely alive just to torture them again.

It took three days before Pegg finally found out why he was the one sweating the most, after which he waged a prank war with Cruise on who could switch on the other person's seat heater without them knowing. Pegg's final blow to Cruise was turning on the latter's seat warmer and covering its indicator light with a sliver of black tape that he procured from a gaffer on set. When Cruise finally discovered the trick, he had to pay respect. "He gave me that one," Pegg said, laughing.

Nothing is certain except for death, taxes, and — for film productions and celebrities — paparazzi. Paparazzi are notorious for going to great lengths to capture the latest pictures of famous celebrities and production photos of anticipated movies, the latter of which can even end up spoiling important scenes and plot elements. Such was the situation faced by the makers of "Mission: Impossible -– Fallout" during production in Paris in 2017.

In "Fallout," Ethan Hunt reluctantly gets tangled in a plot to break his old nemesis Solomon Lane out of captivity -– a plan that involves killing innocent cops during a prisoner transport. He imagines how the events could play out, which devastates him and pushes him to deviate into another version of the plan where the police are spared. It's an important moment in the film that exhibits Ethan's disapproval of the notion that one life is worth sacrificing for the greater good — something that brings him into conflict with his superiors.

The scene provides shock value for audiences, even if it ends up being Ethan's imagination, but it would undoubtedly have been ruined if the paparazzi had leaked this moment. Not to mention, the sight of Tom Cruise's character killing innocent cops could also have ended up becoming another PR challenge. In the Blu-ray commentary of the film, director Christopher McQuarrie details how, in order to counter the many paparazzi clicking photos of the production from across a river, the crew had to block out any visibility of the set from the outside public by rigging 300 feet of silk.

After the success of 2018's "Mission: Impossible — Fallout," Tom Cruise announced in January 2019 not one, but two sequels, to be shot back-to-back with director Christopher McQuarrie returning for a 2021 and 2022 release, respectively. Soon enough, after more cast members joined the film throughout the rest of 2019, production began in Italy in February 2020, only to soon be halted by the rise of COVID-19 cases in the country and around the world. Nearly every film and TV production was stopped by March, and the next few months saw nationwide lockdowns implemented across the world in an attempt to contain the contagious virus.

By July and August, some countries began allowing productions to continue as long as they adhered to the protocols set in place to counter the pandemic, such as the use of masks, routine tests, and two-week quarantines. This included the production of "Mission: Impossible 7," which was well underway by September in the U.K. and Norway, where Cruise reportedly paid $700,000 to charter two cruise ships to accommodate the cast and crew during filming. However, production was halted again that October after 12 crew members tested positive in Italy.

After a slew of halts and resumptions, production finally wrapped in April 2023, three whole years after filming began. By February 2021, Paramount decided against shooting both sequels back-to-back, as they also had the release and promotion of Cruise's "Top Gun: Maverick" pending. The release for "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" saw five delays across the span of two years, partly due to its release date being handed to "Maverick" with each pandemic-related shift in Paramount's release slate.