Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie talk ‘Mission’ story and action ahead of premiere

Tom Cruise (left) and director Christopher McQuarrie pose for press at the InterContinental Grand Seoul Parnas on Thursday. (Yonhap)

Tom Cruise is well-known for his love of Korea and its moviegoers, and made a stop here on his promotional tour for “Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation” together with director Christopher McQuarrie in time for its premiere.

“We just finished the movie a week ago Saturday in London, and the moment we finished we started this tour. One of the things we do when we make a movie is talk about all the places we’re going to go, and we were very excited to come here to Korea,” Cruise told reporters at a press conference at the InterContinental Grand Seoul Parnas, Thursday.

With an eye-catching cast including Sean Harris as the maniacal, raspy-voiced Solomon Lane and Rebecca Ferguson as the stunning Ilsa Faust, “Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation” takes care to bring to the screen every ounce of the action and drama audiences have come to expect and love from the franchise.

Tom Cruise (left) and director Christopher McQuarrie pose for press at the InterContinental Grand Seoul Parnas on Thursday. (Yonhap)

“I wanted to celebrate the entire series,” said director McQuarrie. “This was the fifth film, coming 20 years after the first. I wanted it to hearken back and follow the previous movies. There are even elements of the first movie in this movie. We’ve made little references to the first film throughout.”

While the characters and certain sequences were designed to recall previous “Mission” movies, the action scenes in “Rogue Nation” were meant to up the ante, even for the “Mission” franchise. The most hyped scene, which has Tom Cruise hanging off the side of an Airbus A400, was extremely dangerous -- Cruise was strapped on only via a thin wire rig -- but Cruise says it was worth it.

Tom Cruise stars in “Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation” (Lotte Entertainment)

“No matter what, I didn’t want (McQuarrie) to cut because I knew this was our chance to get it,” he said. “But when we were going down the runway, there was a moment when I thought, ‘Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.’”

“We ended up doing it eight times,” he said, laughing. “I lived through it. Really, it’s for story, it’s to entertain the audience and it’s a privilege for me to do that. I kept thinking about the shots and the audience and wanting to entertain them, thinking ‘Wow, maybe this will take their breath away.’”

Having McQuarrie at the helm did also bring some changes, including a more traditional spy-film feel. “Some of that was conscious, some wasn’t,” McQuarrie said. “I grew up watching all those spy movies from the ‘50s and ‘60s, more than the films from the ‘70s.”

Tom Cruise pose for press at the InterContinental Grand Seoul Parnas on Thursday. (Yonhap)

Cruise said that he and McQuarrie, who have worked together on five films so far, had already been talking about the next “Mission” film, although he declined to disclose details.

“Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation” opened in local theaters Thursday, with Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie hitting the red carpet at the evening premiere.

By Won Ho-jung (hjwon@heraldcorp.com)

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