‘I love the company of alpha men’: Hayley Atwell on working with Tom Cruise

One might assume, as a woman in Hollywood, that Hayley Atwell is sick of being asked about Mission: Impossible co-star Tom Cruise, who she’s worked with now for over five years. But when the inevitable question is asked, she seems genuinely fond of him, at least from what I can glean from our Zoom interview (her camera remains firmly off for the entirety). “I think I’ve taught him over time that I’m a friend to him,” she says, a smile creeping into her voice.

“He’s met my family, and I’ve met his, and he creates a really wholesome environment for his actors to work in … he values me as a friend and I think that comes from my respect for him as a person. He is a very mild-mannered, polite gentleman, in that old-school Hollywood way. Kind of like Paul Newman for me.”

Atwell is speaking from her home city of London, and her voice is hoarse – she’s just wrapped the marathon run of a West End production of Much Ado About Nothing, playing Beatrice to Tom Hiddleston’s Benedick – and she speaks with a slight lisp not apparent on screen. But Atwell, 43, isn’t here to talk about theatre. She’s here to talk about Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the second instalment of the latest reboot of the action franchise.

It was in the first instalment, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, released in 2023, that audiences met Atwell’s character Grace, a free-spirited pickpocket eventually persuaded by Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) to join the Impossible Missions Force.

Both Mission: Impossible and the action-spy genre at large have historically had a fraught relationship with their female characters, who are often relegated to stale stereotypes like the damsel in distress or sex symbol. As Grace, Atwell is cunning, gutsy and utterly captivating – not unlike the actor herself. With a wardrobe heavy on pantsuits and notably lacking in ballgowns, Grace is never a damsel and only occasionally distressed.

“I would consider myself an alpha woman,” she says. “I’ve always been very strong. I’ve always had a very strong sense of who I am. I can’t even work out how to get into the beginnings of why that is. It’s just partly how I’m built.”

This self-given moniker, “alpha woman”, is fitting for someone who’s maintained both a steady professionalism and fierce outspokenness throughout her career. Atwell has been particularly vocal about the pressures young women in Hollywood face to look a certain way – including a remark about her weight on the set of Brideshead Revisited which was initially attributed to producer Harvey Weinstein but which she has since said was made by someone from the crew.

Certainly, it seems this headstrong spirit is what drew Cruise (who is also a producer on the Mission: Impossible franchise) and director Christopher McQuarrie (who Atwell refers to affectionately as “McQ”) to cast her. “I love the company of alpha men,” says Atwell, citing a number of “alphas” she’s worked with previously, including Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Simon Russell Beale. “From the moment I met Tom and McQ, I discovered they also really love and value strong women.”

Atwell praises the freedom the pair, who are known for letting actors improvise, gave her to make Grace her own. “I find it very exciting because with Mission, if I didn’t come up with any ideas on any given day, then I would appear in the scenes as just another brunette. It really was up to me to keep moving forward and keep pushing, and keep being present to Tom.”

Like Cruise, notorious for his determination to perform his own stunts, however dangerous, Atwell was equally game for the physical challenges the role demanded. But it’s the quiet moments, away from the high-octane car chases and scuba diving in freezing water, that really stick with her.

She recounts a particularly emotional moment while shooting The Final Reckoning in Svalbard, an archipelago situated between Norway and the North Pole. “There was this incredible sight of a polar bear walking very slowly, calmly towards our ship. It looked well fed, thankfully, but we were very aware that we were in its territory. So there was this sense of absolutely respecting its space and its privacy. We were able to experience this mighty beast in its home. It was very awe-inspiring.”

Atwell grew up in London where she was raised by single mother, Allison Cain, a motivational speaker. They didn’t grow up with money, but she says her childhood, surrounded by the beating heart of London’s arts scene, was a happy one. Her father Grant, an American photographer, stayed in the picture, taking his daughter travelling during a gap year after high school.

While she says her hunger to perform started young, she almost didn’t pursue acting. Atwell received a conditional offer to study philosophy and theology at Oxford University, but purposely flunked her final exams – something she doesn’t regret to this day.

Acting has brought her into contact with all manner of people – from archbishops to scholars – who more than satisfy her curious spirit. “It means that I’m immediately collaborating with them for a specific reason that fuels my own creativity rather than studying what they have to say from an academic point of view. I feel like I am a student every single day, and I’ll never graduate.”

After finishing her studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2005, Atwell started her career in theatre before making the transition to the screen with a breakout role in Woody Allen’s 2007 film Cassandra’s Dream (in 2018, Atwell spoke out about her poor on-set relationship with Allen, vowing never to work with him again).

A series of roles in films including Brideshead Revisited and The Duchess followed, earning Atwell the title “queen of period drama”. Her recent appearance in Mission: Impossible, alongside a recurring role as Agent Peggy Carter in the Marvel cinematic universe, might lead audiences to add action star to period-drama heroine.

But a closer look at her CV reveals a genre-defying career, including an emotional role in an episode of the sci-fi series Black Mirror and a guest appearance on another UK TV series, Heartstopper, she’s particularly passionate about. “There were a couple of lines in the script where I just felt like: ‘Yes, I want to say those lines. That feels like a beautiful moment and I would like to experience that with that actor in that show.’”

Throughout her career, Atwell has remained fiercely protective of her personal life. She became engaged to music producer Ned Wolfgang Kelly in 2023 and gave birth to their child last year – two milestones she has little interest in discussing, except to say she remains “stubbornly myself, and very close to my family and friends from childhood”.

Despite her private nature, Atwell is fond of talking about self-love and its power in an industry known to be particularly cruel to women. In a recent appearance on the podcast Reign with Josh Smith, she commented on this perception, referring to a journalist who once wrote “Hayley Atwell comes across like a self-help book”.

I ask her how she maintains such hope and optimism. “If someone was cruel to me, that doesn’t mean I have to be cruel back. When I walk into a room, particularly a working environment, I go, ‘It’s my responsibility how I show up and what I partake in and what I comment on.’ And if someone gossips, it’s my responsibility to not gossip back. The minute I do, I’m part of the problem.

“I understand that as a deep sense of individual responsibility to shape the conversation I’m having. I want it to come from a place of professionalism, kindness and belief in what art can do to bring us together, to unite us and to help us understand differences. But there are also many things that are beyond my control and I really understand what’s not within my power.”

If Atwell has earned the trust and ear of Cruise as both co-star and friend, then being in the orbit of one of the best-known men in Hollywood has dramatically shifted her relationship with fame. Or, rather, her distaste for it. “It’s not my business what people think of me,” she says firmly. “There’s nothing I can do about it.

“Of course, that’s the power of charismatic actors – you can feel what they feel. You’ll certainly feel a connection to the stories they’re telling. But we’re talking about that going into delusion if there is an assumption that, because we’ve seen this person on the big screen, we have any right to have any sort of relationship with them in real life.”

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is released May 22.

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