Shea Whigham Is Not At Liberty To Share His Classified Mission: Impossible Character Backstory [Exclusive]

There's always a big villain in a "Mission: Impossible" movie that Ethan Hunt and his team at the IMF have to take down. But then there are secondary foes that Hunt and his team must contend with in attempting to accomplish the impossible mission at hand. In the case of the latest entry in the franchise, "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One," one of those secondary obstacles takes the form of a man named Briggs, played by Shea Whigham.

Briggs is introduced early on in the movie as a loyal government agent who is heading up a team tasked with locating Ethan Hunt, who has gone rogue once again (surprise, surprise). But the movie makes it clear that there is something below the surface between Briggs and Hunt. It's strongly suggested that the two have a past, but one that is never addressed in the film. /Film's own Jeremy Mathai recently spoke with Whigham and asked him about precisely this. The actor made it clear that he's not at liberty to discuss.

"In true 'Mission' fashion, I'm not at liberty to say [laughs]," Whigham said. It's important to remember that Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie are working on "Dead Reckoning Part Two," though filming is currently halted due to the ongoing writers strike. So, why wouldn't Whigham be able to talk about this backstory — or lack thereof? Presumably, we'll get to that in the sequel.

Without getting into spoilers, Briggs is absolutely going to be back in "Part Two," and a great deal happens at the end of the first film that will probably inform how he's going to act in the follow-up. It would only seem natural that we're going to learn more about him and his relationship to Hunt. So Shea Whigham revealing anything now would pretty much constitute a spoiler.

That said, the actor did speak a bit more broadly about his role in the film and what he wanted out of the character. Whigham wanted to harken back to classics such as "The Fugitive" and "Midnight Run" for his part of the film, setting the bar quite high for himself:

"I told them that there has to be a reason why I'm chasing [Ethan]. Otherwise, it's not going to play for two and a half hours, to have egg on my face in every country, that I just miss him. So I just wanted to ratchet that up without explaining anything. I didn't want to explain it, other than going into, possibly, the next one. But also, man, I wanted to honor the 'Midnight Run' of it all, 'The Fugitive' of it all. I'm big on paying homage to films that I love, and so we sprinkled some of that in there and I just wanted to make Briggs a wild card. By any means possible, he'd tried to take Ethan in, with it being real and personal underneath."

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