Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) Behind-the-Scenes Cruise Control

I love making movies. There's such a unique intensity and joy of so many people coming together. Mission Impossible is the first film that I ever produced. And to be here after all these years, it's a wonderful thing. Tom, as a producer, is the best partner you could possibly hope to have. He understands the Mission Impossible franchise inside and out, obviously, having worked on it for 20 years. He's a 24-hour-a-day movie-making machine. Loves making movies, loves being part of the process. There's no place he'd really rather be. From our budget to our schedule to the physical needs of the movie, he's involved with it in every way. Always positively, always driving us forward, always keeping in mind the big picture of what the movie needs and making sure that everything we do shows up on screen. I make my movies for audiences. That's why I do it. They're always there for me. One of the things that I really push for early on is getting the studios to send me to Europe and send me to Asia and all around the world so that I can see, do I understand that audience? Are they reacting the same way? Do they have the same kind of response? Tom is always thinking about audience expectations of a movie, of a scene, of a sequence, and what would they like to see in the moment. Some people, they want the action. So we give them, you know, the action is there, or they want the intrigue, or they want the journey of traveling to different places. So Mission has all of those elements. It has the twists and turns, so it's not just action. It's got story. A very famous movie actor once said to me, when you take ultimate responsibility for what's on screen and become a real producer, you can't afford to complain anymore about what's being done or what's not being done. And Tom has taken that responsibility. Mission Impossible III was the first movie that I directed, and it was because Tom gave me the shot. And I didn't know what I was getting into, and people warned me, oh, the movie star is the producer. That could be a real problem. It could not have been less of a problem. Tom was as aware of the process of making the movie, of what it needed, as anyone I could have imagined. Every day I felt that he and I were in the trenches together in this incredible way where we were both sort of pulling each other up this mountain. And he wasn't a movie star looking to do a vanity project. He was an incredibly focused, dedicated producer who also happened to be starring in the movie. You want to feel motion and motion. The process for Tom and I tends to be one where it's totally chaotic, and yet we're the calm in the center of that story. Do you think it's funny enough? Tom comes to the process from a very emotional point of view, and I come to the process from a very analytical and very ordered point of view. We check each other very well. Tom will say, this is what I want the audience to feel in a scene. How would you best bring that feeling to the screen? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you okay to drive? A minute ago you were dead. What are you talking about? This is not going to end well. Tom is everywhere at all times. Not only is he being an actor, remember his lines, but his head is in every other facet of the production. There's the actor to support the director and support the cast and all the departments. How's that frame for you at the end? Working on films with Tom is really the best film education I've ever had. He's able to not only be in these movies, but produce these movies and make them his own. It's amazing to watch him kind of spot little bits and pieces around that he wants to change or thinks this should be this way, and it's an incredible position of control to be in. It means that you have complete dominion over your sort of art form, which is great. Get in! Go, go, go! What the? She tried to shoot me! It doesn't make her a bad person. Who is he? We're after the same thing, and I can help you. I knew, of course, that this was Tom's whole franchise. I mean, he produces it, he helps edit it. He's always on set, even when he's not even shooting a scene. He's acting. I don't know how he does it. I like the shot. Let me practice. Tom is not only performing, but he's aware where we're going to cut, what continuity he has to bring, and you see him physically moving back and forth within a scene, calculating in his mind where the cut points are. Now, my question is, editorially, do you need a long enough cut? He works incredibly hard, and he cares passionately about giving the audience a great experience of the movies. And Tom will review every scene in the film and will throw up ideas and will bounce ideas around. He lives and breathes filmmaking and storytelling, and he's incredibly passionate about making sure that the audience have a great time when they buy their movie ticket and go to a theater to watch the film. This is better. That's it. He has a really firm grasp on what it is that makes a mission film specifically mission and not Bond and not Bourne and not something else. With any movie, we're taking that audience, and there's a trust that I feel, and I want to hold them in the same way that I want to be on the edge of my seat when I'm watching a movie. I want to deliver that for an audience, and that is storytelling. Watching Tom produce this film is a experience that is about not settling and pushing yourself and everyone around you to do the best job you can do and to make a film that will surpass everything you've done before, and if we do our job right, it will entertain millions of people. We always want to make it better, and you know there is never perfection. In storytelling and movies, you're constantly reaching for it. I'm just happy that audiences find these films entertaining, as entertaining as I do, and I really enjoy making them. Do you have your seatbelt on? Are you asking me that now?