Mission: Impossible 7’s Hayley Atwell Is Having Fun Teasing Wild Car Stunts With Tom Cruise

Hayley Atwell holding gun as Peggy Carter

Hayley Atwell already has some action experience under her belt from her time as Peggy Carter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (including the short-lived Agent Carter TV series), and now she’s kicking it up a notch for Mission: Impossible 7. We’re still largely in the dark about how Atwell fits into the Mission: Impossible 7 picture, but one thing’s been made abundantly clear: she won’t be stuck behind a desk for the entirety of the movie. Among the ways Atwell’s character will be mixed up in the craziness is behind the wheel of a car with Tom Cruise by her side.

Following a rough start back in the spring due to the ongoing health crisis, Mission: Impossible 7’s principal photography has been chugging along since July, with the plan still being to film that movie and Mission: Impossible 8 back-to-back. Hayley Atwell has been chronicling her experience working on the two movies for her fans on social media to follow along with, and here’s the car-centric picture she recently shared on Instagram:

A photo posted by on

If Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible character, Ethan Hunt, is your driving instructor, then prepare to frequently break the speed limit and cause a lot of property damage during the course of your trip. But seriously, it looks like Cruise and Hayley Atwell were having fun shooting this Mission: Impossible 7 scene, with Christopher McQuarrie, the movie’s director and writer, snapping a picture of the two actors in between takes. And while Atwell’s character is undoubtedly driving in the midst of dangerous circumstances, at least the actress herself is comfortably sitting down, as opposed to doing some slide-riding.

This isn’t our first look at a Mission: Impossible 7 car stunt involving Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell. Last month, a set video went viral showing the two actors shooting a scene set in the aftermath of a car crash, with Atwell’s character in the driver’s seat and Cruise’s Ethan Hunt taking out an assailant before then escorting his cohort out of the car. Presumably these are all pieces of the same action-packed sequence rather than Mission: Impossible 7 having two separate car sequences, but we shall see.

Hayley Atwell was the first new actor to be brought aboard Mission: Impossible 7, with her casting being announced in September 2019. While we still don’t know who she is playing, Atwell’s character has been described as “morally ambiguous” by the actress herself and “a destructive force of nature” by Christoper McQuarrie. Atwell’s training for the Mission: Impossible franchise has included rock climbing and learning how to fight with knives.

Among the other newcomers who are involved with Mission: Impossible 7 are Shea Whigham, Pom Klementieff and Esai Morales, with the latter replacing Nicholas Hoult as the movie’s main villain. As for familiar faces, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt will be joined by Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell, Simon Pegg’s Benji Dunn, Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust, Vanessa Kirby’s Allana Misopolis, Angela Bassett’s Erika Sloane and Henry Czerny’s Eugene Kittridge. Lorne Balfe is returning to compose the score.

Mission: Impossible 7 is currently slotted for November 19, 2021, and Mission: Impossible 8 will follow on November 4, 2022. Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for more updates on its progress, and find out what other movies are supposed to arrive next year in our 2021 release schedule.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.