Vanessa Kirby enjoyed the challenge of portraying Hayley Atwell’s character in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
In the film, there is a face swap between Vanessa’s black market arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis, also known as the White Widow, and Hayley’s character Grace, a pickpocket. Vanessa loved playing someone who was “completely out of control.”
She told Variety: “It was so much fun. It was the first time two women were able to do that.”
“It was an incredible gift – because I love Hayley – to be able to channel her and play her for a while, and play someone who was completely out of control. My character is normally so reserved and calm and controlled; it was really, really fun to play someone who is a little bit more combative and chaotic. I’m naturally more chaotic in real life, so I felt more comfortable in that respect.”
And Hayley was impressed by Vanessa’s portrayal of her character.
She said: “She does a kind of echo gesture: when I fall backwards onto the tracks in the little Fiat 500, I kind of blow my hair out of my face. (Vanessa) then does that when she comes out of the booth and Grace is playing the White Widow. She sees her brother there and does that too, and there’s a different kind of manic energy in her eyes. That’s all Vanessa studying me a little bit and having a great time. It’s remarkable.”
Meanwhile, Rebecca Ferguson recently praised the “Mission: Impossible” series for giving women opportunities.
Rebecca reprised her role as MI6 agent Isla Faust in the latest film in the series and is impressed by how director Christopher McQuarrie and lead actor Tom Cruise provide material for actresses such as Vanessa, Hayley and herself.
Rebecca told IndieWire, “‘Mission’ is probably the only franchise that knows how to write storylines for women.
“They analyze things, there’s not a lot of detail about what happened. It’s not talked about. There are always reasons why arcs go in a certain direction. I control my own destiny (as Ilsa), there are reasons why things happen.”
