A Stage Play Started Hayley Atwell On A 10-Year Path To Mission: Impossible

Audiences primarily know Hayley Atwell for slugging the jaws of HYDRA agents and stickin' it to the misogynists of the world as Peggy Carter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's a role that makes her a natural addition to the "Mission: Impossible" franchise — a sandbox Tom Cruise has been playing action hero in for nearly three decades — starting with her turn in this year's "Dead Reckoning Part One."

But years before she (respectfully) tapped Steve Rogers' chest during "Captain America: The First Avenger," Atwell got her start acting on the stage in productions of Aeschylus' ancient Greek tragedy "Prometheus Bound" and the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Women Beware Women" back in the mid-aughts. In fact, it's thanks to her stage work that Atwell caught the eye of "Dead Reckoning" co-writer and director Christopher McQuarrie in the first place.

McQuarrie, of course, has evolved into the Scorsese to Cruise's De Niro over the last 15 years, beginning with his efforts as a co-writer and producer on the Cruise-led true story WWII thriller "Valkyrie" in 2008. McQuarrie would go on to do uncredited writing on director Brad Bird's 2011 "Mission: Impossible" installment, "Ghost Procol," before assuming the helm of the franchise himself in 2015 with "Rogue Nation." However, at some point between those two events, it seems McQuarrie saw Atwell in a play that left him wanting to work with her (although he had no idea when and on what project).

As famous as she is for portraying the gung-ho love of Steve Rogers' life, Hayley Atwell has always made a conscious effort to change things up in between her MCU appearances — whether that entails playing a middle-aged Christopher Robin's nurturing but no-nonsense and outspoken wife in "Christopher Robin" or an obedient Roman Catholic in "Brideshead Revisited." In an interview with Screen Rant for "Dead Reckoning Part One," Atwell said that working on varied projects has actually taught her to approach every role the same way regardless of their differences:

"I think I'm 17 years into my career, so in that time I've developed a work ethic that's very focused and disciplined, but it also has asked me to adapt to different filmmaking styles or different characterizations. You create this flexibility to be able to take on new challenges, and that approach then remains the same regardless of the genre or whether it's a more physical or more literary role."

Atwell suspects this is part of what inspired Christopher McQuarrie to cast her as her character, Grace, in "Dead Reckoning." She explained:

"I think with Grace, I'd come into it at a position where [McQuarrie] had seen me in a play 10 years previously and had taken me out to dinner and said, 'I want to work with you. I just don't know what it is yet.' So, when he brought me in for the screen test to meet Tom [Cruise], what they said was they were looking for an actress rather than someone to fit a character that's already written."

Christopher McQuarrie's unorthodox methods for making "Mission: Impossible" movies have only gotten more audacious over time, to the point where he and Tom Crusie shot entire action sequences for "Dead Reckoning Part One" without even knowing how they fit into the story. This isn't, per se, a good thing, either. In his review for /Film (one that was overall positive, keep in mind), Chris Evangelista wrote, "More than any other previous entry, 'Dead Reckoning' feels like a movie cobbled together in between big set pieces. We marvel at the action, but it comes across as disconnected in a way the other installments never did."

While it would appear the limits of McQuarrie and Cruise's techniques are starting to make themselves visible in the final film result, they also serve to keep things interesting for an actor like Hayley Atwell. "[They wanted] someone that would collaborate with them," she told Screen Rant. "Based on my level of commitment to the process of discovering new things, then the character would naturally emerge. Which is why I feel like I was having so much fun with Grace; why she's so mischievous." We'll see if audiences share Atwell's enthusiasm for the character soon enough.

"Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" is currently playing in theaters.