In 2015, Rebecca Ferguson’s profile got a major boost when she co-starred with Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation. She went on to reprise disavowed MI6 agent Ilsa Faust in Fallout and Dead Reckoning, with the latter movie seeing her character being killed by Esai Morales’ Gabriel Martinelli. Three years after Dead Reckoning’s release, Ferguson has shared how she really felt about leaving the Mission: Impossible franchise.
Rebecca Ferguson stopped by Happy Sad Confused as part of the press tour for her newest movie, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, which can be streamed with a Netflix subscription starting on March 20. After this continuation of the popular TV show that ended in 2022 was discussed, the conversation turned to other parts of her career, including Mission: Impossible. Here’s what she told host Josh Horowitz when he asked for her thoughts about Ilsa being killed off:
I think she was so brilliantly written, and it was so well executed. And I think there's just sort of that much you can do with a character until she starts feeling like a team player. right? And I think we had these conversations, me and Chris and Tom, and my contract was a three-picture deal, you know? So you can renegotiate to move on, or you can sit down and go. I'm not sure there is enough room. It's Ethan, it’s his story, and there's a lot of other people in [it]. We have incredible Vanessa Kirby, Haley Atwell, Pom Klementieff. So, I think a hard exit is a cooler ending than kind of lukewarmly diluting into a team, because she was always supposed to be unpredictable. She was always supposed to be an equal – and was – to Ethan.
I was certainly shocked when Ilsa died in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, but as Rebecca Ferguson laid out, it was always the plan for her to leave in this movie barring negotiations to be part of last year’s The Final Reckoning. Hey, at least we got closure with Ilsa, as opposed to characters like Jeremy Renner’s William Brandt who just disappeared and were never mentioned again. As for if she was happy with Ilsa’s specific death sequence, Ferguson just said this:
Article continues belowI don’t write it.
Interesting. Could this be her subtle way of indicating that while she might have been fine overall with Ilsa Faust being written out of the Mission: Impossible franchise, she felt its execution left much to be desired? Ferguson was clearly being diplomatic, but then when Josh Horowitz asked how she reacted to the fans who thought pre-The Final Reckoning that Ilsa might still be alive, she answered:
It's sad because she was so well executed. Chris [McQuarrie] wrote an incredible character and it was also so much fun to be a part of like it was such an extreme. I will never experience anything like it. What comes with traveling and the training and the camaraderie and it's just — it’s phenomenal. And I think there's nothing more to be said. There was an ending. It needed to happen. You know, there are different versions to how it happens and why it happens. And I think people were sad because she was so well executed, and it's a big risk to kill someone off like that.
Whether you were a fan of Ilsa Faust’s ending or thought it could have been handled better, her death helped mark the beginning of the end for Mission: Impossible. The Last Reckoning brought the film series to a close, and while Ethan Hunt made it out alive, it’s a shame that he and Ilsa never got to go further in what looked like a promising relationship. Maybe years from now, Rebecca Ferguson will share her full, unfiltered thoughts on how Ilsa’s story ended.
As for what lays ahead for the actress, along with the aforementioned Peaky Blinders movie, Rebecca Ferguson will be seen reprising Lady Jessica in Dune: Part III, which opens on the 2026 movies schedule December 18. She’s also still leading the Apple TV subscription-exclusive series Silo, which has been renewed for two more seasons.
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