Tom Cruise might hang from planes, dangle from buildings, and run fast enough to catch the number 16 bus, but Hayley Atwell got in a scrap with bad guys during Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning—all while eight months pregnant. During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Cruise's co-star, who plays Grace in the film, revealed that she had to do reshoots and was set on keeping her stunt double on the sidelines.
"During this fight sequence, we came back to it a few times to add a few elements to it, and in this clip, I’m actually eight and a half months pregnant," she explained. Seemingly taking on the Mission: Impossible approach of going hard or going home, Atwell expressed how helpful the crew was at the time, but she was still adamant on getting the job done.
“I’m serious. Yes. And I have to say, I was taken such good care of. Everyone was so supportive and they were like, ‘Oh, you can sit down, and we’ll have a stunt double do it.’" Of course, this is Captain Carter and IMF ally, Hayley Atwell, we're talking about. "And I was like, ‘No! I’ve worked too hard. Let me do it.’ So I did it, and here it is.”
While Atwell carrying a child, didn't halt production, the star did reveal there were wilder things that slowed things down. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about the film, she recalled animal encounters that pumped the brakes on things. “We had to stop shooting because a polar bear walked across the [Arctic] set, and that is something I’d never thought I would hear myself say," she confessed. “In South Africa, we had to stop the car because a tortoise was walking across our path. We had to wait for him to cross before we carried on, and we were like, ‘Just another day on Mission.’”
You can see how Atwell handles herself as a mother-to-be in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which is in theaters now. Also, should you choose to accept it, check out where it sits in our ranking of the Mission: Impossible movies here.
