Love Lives - Mission Impossible star Hayley Atwell on how she helped create her character

Episode Date: July 6, 2023

This week, we’re thrilled to be joined by actor Hayley Atwell, to discuss her latest role in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Atwell stars as Grace alongside Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, as the team track down a weapon that threatens humanity.We talk with Hayley about how she collaborated with Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie to build her character, as well as stunt and combat training, and the barriers facing women in Hollywood.Check out Love Lives on Independent TV and all major podcast platforms, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like, and now that's what my grandma's on. Thank God phone a friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Tom jumps down onto my platform and he says to me,

we're going to jump across this. Do you trust me? And on the day I just went, I was like, I don't. Oh, no, I meant to. It's for Tom Cruise. You're Ethan Hunt. I'm Grace.

Where am I? Hello and welcome to Love Lives, a podcast from The Independent where I, Olivia Petter, will be speaking to different guests every week about the loves of their lives. Today, I am so excited to be speaking to Hollywood actress every week about the loves of their lives. Today I am so excited to be speaking to Hollywood actress Hayley Atwell. She has starred in everything from Black Mirror

to Howard's End to so much theatre. Now her latest role takes her to another major franchise, Mission Impossible. In this latest film, Dead Reckoning Part One, Atwell plays Grace against Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt in some pretty serious action scenes that I am so excited to ask her all about, as well as hearing about the loves of her life. So let's get started. Hi Hayley, how are you? I'm good, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much for being here. As I said in the introduction, so this is the seventh Mission Impossible film and it's such a huge franchise to be a part of. Tell us a little bit about your character, Grace, and how she fits into the plot.

Well, I think it helped to give context of how I came into this world of it. About 10 years ago, I was doing a play called The Pride in the West End in London. And Chris McQuarrie, the director and the writer of Mission Impossible came to see me. And then afterwards came up and said, I want that thing that you do on stage. I don't know what the character is. I don't know what the story would be, but I want to work with you.

And then six years later, he called me and said, we are looking for, we're looking for an actor for Mission Impossible. And the way that they worked, both him and Tom, was that they don't have a character or a story in place that they're looking for someone to fit into. They find the actor they want to work with who is interested in their particular unique process

and thinks they too could thrive in that kind of experience. And then they build the character with that person. So when I started, for the longest time, I didn't have a character name. I was trying lots of different sort of things because for me, it was so important to me that she wasn't going to be one thing, that she wasn't archetypal.

So she wasn't going to be the femme fatale, the ice queen, the ingenue, the victim, the damsel, whatever it is. And so there wasn't a sense of sort of over-objectification or simplification of who she was. And so, well, how can I do that within a very specific genre and franchise like this? The way I could do that was to try lots of different kinds of things and hopefully give them enough creative choices where they could put together someone who just had a bit more nuance and so what we found was that she became therefore consistently inconsistent and so Grace sort of comes in as an outsider she's very much a lone wolf and she's spontaneous and playful and doesn't realize the extent of the trouble that she's suddenly found herself in and so she has this hyper vigilance about her and there's moments

of real levity in it we were you know watching films like what's up doc and the sting and paper moon and these 70s heist films that had sort of a playfulness to them and a cat and mouse energy between the protagonists but at the same time I was going it's my role as an actor to find if I can a way to explore an inner world that can land so that despite the action or the the frenetic energy or the edge of your seat excitement and the incredible spectacle that these movies are can I can I can I care about her enough so that the audience want to follow what happens to her and McHugh and Tom are so um they're so generous and specific with their their kind of care and support of me trying lots of different

things and so ultimately when you have someone who is a lone wolf, the psychological profile that I built of her was that she was someone who, if we are hyper-independent and hyper-vigilant as adults, something's happened in our formative years where we should be wired for connection and wired for attachment and belonging to our family, our tribe or social group. belonging to our family our tribe or social group and if that's been interrupted in some way by a traumatic experience then it's shut her down from feeling that she could ever rely or trust anyone and so therein lies her sense of survival her opportunist kind of thief mentality and it gives her somewhere then to grow as a person as she obviously because mission is so much about friendship as a major theme so it's how does someone like grace trust or even want or know that that friendship is something that is safe for her she is such a rich character and i think it's so important like you said to

move away from you know the aforementioned tropes that you said in this in this particular action genre because for so long it's probably the genre where women are pigeonholed the most I imagine because action films have been so traditionally seen as masculine films. Yeah and I think we're I'm certainly kind of seeing a trend where we've moved away from the damsel the woman to be saved and more into action movies that involve women who are badass or strong, which, again, is reductive. It might be seen as progressive because of what came before and therefore feels like a change. And that is great.

But I think, you know, human beings, male or female, or however one identifies, is not ever one thing. And so can you have an action star um in a mainstream movie that's ultimate goal is to absolutely serve and entertain the audience that's what this film is and within that can you have someone that is full of self-assurance and and self-doubt that she is really competent and then at times totally reckless that she doesn't know what she's doing is totally out of control but then she is very brave and kind of clear about what her next move is going to be and those things can coexist in a totally plausible arc of a character in any sort of

genre of movie and that's what I'm always sort of looking forward to try and bringing and you know to the extent to which I can have any sort of creative control, those conversations behind the camera with McHugh, with Tom and with Eddie Hamilton, the editor, very much sort of in keeping with can we make sure that we're seeing lots of different bits of who she is rather than the one thing that we feel like she is is a one trick pony. And they are so sort of astute to that and sensitive to it and excited by that that really it's a process of if you come in every day with with new things to offer and you're creative and productive as opposed to going in complaining going like well she's I want I don't want her to be like that or she's only one thing you've got to offer something else and if you're offering

something that is actually active then there's a chance to change the representation of the character or the representation of of a type of person in general and talk to me about the physicality of taking on a role like this because obviously there is so much action there's so much stunt work involved and I know you've done your own stunts which is so cool. Talk to us a bit about how you went about kind of physically preparing for the role and and then what it was like to to do all that stunt work on set. So the screen test also involved a sort of a stunt test to see sort of how quick I was able to learn unarmed combat or fight choreography. And that was under the guidance and the teaching of Wade Eastwood, who was world class stunt coordinator, professional race car driver, has worked with Tom for many, many years. Loads of blockbuster films and has a stunt team that involve world-class kickboxing champions,

Olympic athletes, mixed martial arts experts. And so he's looking at sort of how I move through space and how I move with the camera in terms of my own personal style, coordination, strengths. And he's looking in the test of how, if I worked with him and his team, what could we build physically that would fit into this world? And that also would potentially offer something new, a different kind of style that Grace would bring.

And then Tom and Macquarie watched it as well, the kind of final piece we put together. And then when I got the role, it was five months of full-time training. So the morning and the afternoon, the afternoon I go to the studio and we look at knife work. We do lots of drills. We look at the basics of various disciplines of martial arts to see where my natural, all my enjoyment was. You know, Tom would say, if you don't want to do it, like if you don't enjoy it, you're not going to be able to actually progress and learn this.

You've got to find the thing that makes you feel like it's you're going to come alive with it because we're going to pick that up on screen and drifting became a thing very quickly so drifting I'm instinctive with it so forgive me I can't explain theoretically what it is but you're you're basically swinging the arse of the car out behind you as you're turning so you can you can do what they call donuts and kind of like turn the car um on on front wheels and um it's all kind of the screeching that you see in those action car movies require you to kind of drift is is the kind of the term that they use so I was learning how to do that and then I was also discovering that I could learn a fight piece choreography faster if I had props in my hands it was it was weird and I think it comes from background in theater

and the use of props you know I love the fact that you know the way that I would pick up that glass of water and drink it would convey to you what I thought about you if I was hiding a secret my emotional state any props for me or an extension of the subtext or the what's going on for the character they can be very useful and they can give you something to do that's active and so if I was given a knife or if I was given an inanimate object I just felt that I could I could do the the fight a lot quicker with a lot more dynamism. So we started to then weave those into the fights that we would then use in the film. And because we wanted her to be an origin story and because she was an opportunist, we thought, right, she's made things up as she's gone along. She's learned on the job.

So she's not slick and polished. You see her kind of become quite scrappy. You know, she's not sort of full of the kind of the sexy moves that make her look very cool. She is fighting for her life. And then also that means that you're, after all the training, you're coming in making creative choices within performance. So I could do one where I'm going,

oh, we can make her look more reckless or we can make her look braver than she feels or we can make her look more reckless or we can make her look braver than she feels or we can make her look like she doesn't know what's going to happen next or if she's going to be able to survive this and so you're adding different sort of nuance of performance in that yeah because I was going to say it goes back to your earlier point about it being less reductive for the character if she's not as slick with all of the kind of combats I'm just thinking of like Charlie's Angels for example you know the original one when their their combat scenes in that they're so finely polished and they're so kind of slick and chic and it's it's not well it's not realistic

but also it kind of goes back to that point of like these are just three badass women but it's another trope it's another kind of way of pigeonholing I suppose I think I mean there's there's certainly within the arts you know there's there's room for everything but you know I'm I thought you know if there's something that's different maybe what I could bring with the experience that I have or the interest that I have which is to try and root to anything that I do in an emotional truth or create a psychological profile. So even if it's my own secret, I know what her wound is, her core wound is, or what her obstacle and her great want is.

And once I've sort of worked that out, then it starts to inform the choices I'm making physically or even the way that I'm improvising with Tom when we're in the car. And then he's with me and he's throwing out lines of dialogue or even the way that I'm improvising with Tom when we're in the car. He's with me and he's throwing out lines of dialogue as I'm drifting while he's in the passenger seat and he's handcuffed to me. And I'm like, we're trying ones where Grace

is really reluctant to follow his direction because she doesn't know who this guy is. She's trying to get away from him. But also she knows that he probably is, he knows a bit more about driving than she does. there's a kind of comedic element to it to that which also comes from again her resistance to just do whatever this person is telling her to do and she's always kind of fighting for her own agency in it um which you know for me therein lies the drama you know everything's going to have to create suspense and tension and conflict

in a movie for it to be interesting to watch. And did you ever have kind of situations where you're doing these crazy stunts and you feel, I guess, unsafe? I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of people around you to make sure that that doesn't happen. But were there any moments where you kind of felt like, oh God, I don't know what's going to happen in this situation I never felt and it's it's so strange to say this

I never felt unsafe and I never felt truly scared because first of all Tom is so he's so skilled and disciplined. He's so brilliant at what he does as a stuntman, as an athlete, as well as a producer. But part of that is that he's like a mother hen. He clucks around everyone else and makes sure he's like, are you okay? What do you need? And also has the world-class athletes and stunt people around you. But the motto for a lot of the stunts we were doing and a lot of the filming was, don't be safe, be competent. Because if you're studying something and you're seeing where the dangers are and where your sort of blind spots might

be and where your weaknesses are, and you're able to communicate that with teachers who understand what you're saying and can help you overcome certain things or break through certain blocks you're having and truly help you advance physically then there's no time to be fearful of it you know fear can sort of paralyze and I can feel quite stagnant in whatever you know and it can mean that I'm resisting the process but because I also rationally knew that I was always going to be safe and then I could see that with the way that they would check a harness that I was wearing or that every time we got into a car even if we'd been getting into the car take after take after take Tom would go

okay let's check what's sticking out what's sharp what could hurt us what where do we need something to buffer us if that that's a kind of a hard edge if we go around a corner. All of that meant that on action I felt very free, which means that then I can choose as the actor to convey fear or excitement, but I have the flexibility of not just having to play fear because I'm learning how to control that in my body. And there was a couple of moments that I never got used to. Like there's a train carriage sequence and there's a carriage that goes from horizontal to vertical in six seconds. Yeah, it's crazy. And on that steep sprint incline as it's going,

we're hanging and Tom jumps down onto my platform and he says to me, we're going to jump across this. Do you trust me? And on the day I just went, and that's real. I was like, I don't. Oh, no, I meant to. It's for Tom Cruise. You're Ethan Hunt.

I'm Grace. Where am I? And he was like, yeah, I love that. I love that. Let's use that. You know, so like, OK. And then when he turns his back to me to make his initial jump, then I kind of hold on to him. You know, those moments were real.

And you're looking down and you're higher. And if you were to fall, you're going to be swinging. You're attached to a harness. But you don't want to do that. It's still terrifying. It's still terrifying. attached to a harness it but you don't want to do that and it's also it's still terrifying you could still also hurt yourself bruises and scratches and banging around inside this this very long um carriage and so it's just the stuff what it did to your what it does to your body and

it becomes you can become very over journalized i remember at one point tom also looked at me and he was like what's what's wrong and i like, I don't even know, Tom. Don't even know what I don't know, mate. I've checked out. No, I don't. And then he was just like, oh, you've got adrenal fatigue. Do you want some chocolate? And I was like, yes.

Hell yes. That I know I want. That I know I need. And so produced this beautiful box of incredible chocolate. Amazing. From seemingly thin air. And then I was like, yeah, a little bit of sugar rush let's go and there was this sort of a there's a playfulness to it as well you know it's there was it's it's really focused set it's really intense but that's why I worked so hard in the in the initial training you know I came on board to this not going like oh yeah

actually that sounds fun I had to go I was. I was like, this is serious. And this is, you're working with really extraordinary people that really know their stuff. And if I follow their instruction, I will be able to do this. But only if I, too, am mirroring that discipline and that attention to detail. And only then, once all that preparation is done can i actually then have fun with it and play with it in the moment and can i ask you how do you go about choosing the roles that you take on now because i think grace is such an interesting complex female character and for years you know actresses have been offered you know very kind of limited roles depending on their age depending on how they look depending on all sorts of things and that is changing now I think um I mean I I'm I don't know do you agree do you

think that's changing well it's such a hard question to ask because it's such a general big that involves a current affairs a political a cultural a zeitgeisty a it so many complex conversations are part of that I think I can only sort of from my I can only speak from my lived experience and as I've had more experience in the industry what I've noticed is that if I'm focused on studying my own craft my own business, trusting my instincts that I have about filmmakers or people that I meet and my intuition telling me, is this an interesting filmmaker or writer or producer or director or actor to work with? Does this make me feel like I want to sit up a little bit taller and I kind of want

to lean into this? Or does it make me go, you know what, I'm not really feeling that this is the right project for me. Those things are within my control. And I've become, I think, more interested in looking outside as opposed to feeling watched. You know, I was rereading Ways of Seeing by John Berger the other day, and he was talking about female representation within various sort of art forms. And he was saying that the sort of generalization is that men watch and women watch themselves being watched. And I think that felt very, very true for me in my 20s, for sure, in a public facing industry where I was aware that I was not fully formed as an artist.

And I was still working out what my skills and strengths were, but also what I enjoyed doing and where I felt that I could hopefully build a career that would keep me doing this into my 80s if I wanted it. And so that, but you're sort of doing that in public. if I wanted it. And so that, but you're sort of doing that in public. And what I found now is I'm not as interested in myself as I was. I'm more interested in what I'm reading, what I'm studying, performances that inspire me, surrounding myself with the people who don't want from me but want for me in terms of my own development

as a person as an actor as someone who is um you know coming onto set with uh with something to contribute and to be of service and from that that's all that is within my control and funnily enough more interesting things come my way because of it more opportunities seem to be afforded to me it's attracting that level of conversation that level of interest in certain things is attracting that similar sort of wavelength in other people and I think it's sort of so important to discern what is within my control where can I in my own small way make some kind of contribution that hopefully can have a positive progressive impact on other women or other people in my life and then what is not within my control

and therefore not my business to engage in, you know, and where actually should I just be listening to other people's experiences? It's very easy to be taken for a ride a little bit. And I always, I just always had that. I always loved what I did. So I was always passionate about theater and about language and the power of language and the

power of storytelling. That to me was always so much more interesting than the politics or the seemingly cultural consciousness of a narrative that was like, isn't it bad that we feel like this? And I was like, that is too big of a conversation for one individual to unpick. And so I thought, well, you know, if someone doesn't take me seriously, I could take myself seriously. That's a start, isn't it? And if I was to be the one that was going to take myself seriously, what did that mean? What did that look like and that meant you know focusing my attention on the on the artists that inspired me studying working hard developing and cultivating a work ethic that was sustainable but that also built built within me a sense of self-esteem um that was you know a

healthy level of self-esteem um and sort of also learning to let go of the rest that was not something I could change and therefore finding a peace in that too. You know, I think that, you know, it's like that brilliant, very famous book of Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke where he says, you know, he's talking to this young poet who says, you know, should I be a writer? know he's talking to this young poet who says you should I be a writer and the young and the Wilker says you know paraphrasing obviously of the if if late at night you're by yourself and you ask yourself in the in your darkest moments must I write and if the answer is a resounding clear yes then live you live your life with that that with that dedication to your craft.

And also that will be the overriding voice when you have moments where you feel that maybe there are people who are saying that you can't or there's no evidence outside you that you feel you could be or be seen as. That essentially sort of takes care of itself when you're asking yourself fundamentally, do I want a creative life will I accept any cost of that and that cost I'm talking about you know

not being in control of it if you get the job or not rejection as and when it happens projections onto you people thinking that they know who you are, or in the public eye thinking that you are public property and therefore over familiar questions are perfectly appropriate. You know, how can you, is that okay for you? Can you develop a level of boundaries that keep you feeling that you're in integrity with your own value system and respectful of their line of questioning, but also knowing that there is a line. There's all these, you know, all these things that happen as you, I think you kind of go along. Yeah. all these, you know, all these things that happen as you, I think you kind of go along.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting what you're saying about the, you're viewed as a commodity and sort of as a public figure, there is this level of dehumanization completely where people just forget you're a person and just. Until I remind them and then they're like, okay, that's my responsibility sometimes. Yeah. You know, I can't change people's initial projections or assumptions but I can show up as who I am and engage with them

as a human being and then that often invites them to suddenly go oh hello hi yeah sorry how you know let's have an authentic interaction and that to me becomes really interesting because that's what I'm looking for I'm looking for connection to I want to know what your actual story is and I'm wanting to find out what makes you tick and how we relate as human beings and you know what this experience of being in 2023 is that for me is the point of you know the work that I do in creating art you're creating some sense of structure that contains a lived experience that is otherwise in a constant state of flux and chaos that is very hard to define you know yeah well I think fame is just a very strange concept isn't it because it's very I don't know if you feel this way but I feel like it only means as much

as people want it to mean or people tell you it means yeah it's an abstract thing you know you can have one day where no one knows or cares who you are. And other days where some people might take more of an interest in what you're doing because you've just finished a play and you've come out the stage door. And it's the thing. I mean, I think I'm so inspired by Tom Cruise's attitude towards fame because he wears it so lightly and he knows exactly who he is and so seeing him live out his life would be this such clear intentionality of he's going to be at McNubies for the rest of his life he loves to delight his audience and serve them and never has this sense of like it has to be you know, an intellectual kind of, you know, story that is very niche and only available to a particular kind of person who's, you know, read this many books. He's like, I want to entertain the masses because storytelling is at the heart of any community and sort of really the heart of civilization.

and really the heart of civilization. And so to have that collective experience of strangers in a dark room as the lights go down, having a moment of real escapisms and being taken and transported somewhere is a really profound, deep feeling when it hits it and when it gets it right. And I love that about him, that he is focused on that. So people can say what they want.

He'll just show up as a gentleman and be kind. And really what people say about him is not his business. ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Jessie Cruikshank, and on my podcast, Phone a Friend, I break down the biggest stories in pop culture. But when I have questions, I get to phone a friend. I phone my old friend, Dan Levy.

You will not die hosting the Hills after show. I get thirsty for the hot wiggle. I didn't even know what thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no, that's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

Acast.com Let's move on to talk about the loves of your life. Yeah, the current ones. There are so many. So for the first one, you've chosen some podcasts. So talk to me about why you enjoy podcasts, how you listen to them, when you listen to them. All the time. When I'm doing the cleaning, when I'm walking the dog sometimes,

sometimes when I'm lying down in bed, just winding down for the day or I'm in the bath or I just want that sort of like, that's something that's kind of a light engagement that doesn't feel too much of long form um and I might be in the mood for a bit of true crime or interviews and so I love the sort of the diversity of all the kind of things that are available in a podcast um so you know it's it just seems to be something that I kind of take with me wherever I go now. And you mentioned George the Poet's podcast.

Yeah I came across this a few years ago and it was the first podcast it's called Have You Heard George's Podcast which is a brilliant bit of marketing and it was the first podcast I heard where he'd taken the format and put it into an art form. So he uses poetry, spoken word, music, and storytelling to explore politics, sociology, current affairs, activism, social justice, and his own personal story. And so it feels like a beautiful kind of soundscape a sound installation and i thought what a clever use of of the podcast i think it's the first podcast outside of the states that won the peabody and he you know such an intelligent guy from background family from uganda grew up in northwest lond went to Cambridge and studied, I think, politics, psychology and sociology. And so combined all of that from the experience, from his experience as

a black man growing up in North London and having access to a very privileged institution such as Cambridge. And so you can hear all of that in the podcast. So it feels very personal to him, but also a beautiful kind of soundscape love letter to his family to his community but also the the the ways in which he wants to then use his platform to to have a much more sort of active role within in in the world right now it's a it's it's it's just I think a stunning artistic achievement yeah I think it's such an interesting medium as well through which to achieve all of that because podcasts are such an intimate art form because you know you listen to them when you're on your own you listen to them when you're doing very kind of you know slightly you know boring daily activities it's but it's a very and

it's very it's very individual just you and the other person so I think it's a really interesting way of getting across something a bit more meaningful than than necessary and you know watching something where you could be on your phone like halfway through or whatever yeah you're right there is an intimacy I wonder if it's partly because it's it's often two people with a microphone in a room somewhere um so that you know the feeling of them recording it feels quite intimate but they've also it it uh it can be my backdrop to a road trip I did a road trip last summer and I was listening to um the West Cork True Crime podcast and I was fascinated by it but it and it it sort of got me from one state

to the other in the car because it sort of became a companion on that journey and let's talk about your second love which is music you've chosen a couple companion on that journey and let's talk about your second love which is music you've chosen a couple of artists that I want to ask you about let's start with self-esteem I'm a huge fan of hers as well tell me why why you love her music that album uh her album I saw her live and I listened to the album I started looking at the lyrics and um and I loved her humor I love that you can hear her accent through her music and that it had it was it was honest and I felt like she was she was expressing her own lived experience of something in a in a vulnerable way that at times felt like she was talking to

her younger self when she's like, don't send those long paragraph texts, stop it, don't. It felt like a bit of, she gives herself a pep talk at times, but also she, you know, the humor and the self-awareness when she says one lyric of saying like, texting you from the mental health talk seems counterproductive and there is a sort of a that self-awareness and that tongue-in-cheek quality she's very free in who she is and in her body and how I think she seems to have total total creative control over her own music and you know this is not someone that was kind of manufactured at the age of 20. This is someone who has been honing her craft as a performer, as a storyteller. And I'm sure she's a brilliant actor as well as she is a musician, as well as she is a writer.

So it feels again that that sort of I'm seeing a lot of artists now who are doing lots of different things and combining lots of different styles or different talents and skills into one thing thing whether it be George the Poet or whether it be self-esteem yeah the thing that I really love about her music there's that one song where she's talking about violence against women and she barks and that there's barking yeah and there's this thing that came about after that where a bunch of women would kind of talk about on social media like if they are approached by a man on the street or something just bark in their face and they get so scared because they're like oh my gosh she's a lunatic that they run in the opposite direction I did I remember doing my own version of that when I was you know when I was clubbing sort of as a teenager

and if I was in the you know I'd often like to go to um gay clubs because I could dance freely and feel just for me much safer and I remember though when I was in clubs and I the men would come up to me and I felt that they were quite adamant or aggressive on the dance floor with me the thing that the the thing that actually it's so it's it feels kind of so crazy uh that you know women have to feel unsafe just dancing but the but if I was resilient um if I was sort of back-footed or try and walk away I had this real fear that if I offended the guy that it that wouldn't make me me safe that would make him angry and so there's this and I feel like you can feel hear her in the music doing that as well but if if you do something a bit mad, they back down.

And so I used to do really ugly, intense dancing at them that also was totally out of rhythm all of a sudden and almost be like manically into them. And it would last like 10 seconds before they were like, going to back down, she's crazy. And it would be like an armor that I had on me. God, in my head I'm like that's such a great tip everyone lives with them I'm like no why should we why should we be the ones that are happy no exactly yeah absolutely but it is unfortunately the world we live in um finally I'm going to ask you about Venice which is your

love which I know you obviously you know visited in. So tell me about, was it your first trip to Venice when you went to do the film? What did you make of the area? I mean, it's so beautiful. It's beautiful. Of course, Venice has been filmed once or twice, and most famously in Don't Look Now, the Nick Rhoad film with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland,

and Venice is so full of these dark alleyways and these kind of waterways, it makes it feeling quite claustrophobic place to film. It's very atmospheric. So great for a sort of a horror or a thriller genre. But what we've done in this movie is kind of, it's a love letter to Venice. We see it at sunrise and at sunset and from a great height and we've managed to light up the Ducali Palace and host the sexiest party inside of it and really celebrates that sort of hedonistic Dionysian kind of quality that Venice feels like it has with the, you know, the history of its own festival. And at a time, you know, when it was, you know, I love the idea that at the festival, it was kind of the one time of the year where regardless of class within Venice, all people kind of came

together and had these rendezvous, but they were masked. So it's an anonymity, which meant that people were, they were free from their everyday sort of roles and titles and relationships to each other. And it's quite a decadent, romantic, luscious kind of place. So I've always found it quite mysterious. And I've shot twice there now. There's another film that I did there. And then I started going back and spending a bit more time there and starting to befriend a Venetian family that lives there, who have lived there,

their families, they've been there for a thousand years. And you kind of get access to sort of the actual, the underbelly of Venetian life. And it's full of a cast of such exciting kind of eccentric characters. And there was a book in particular, the Joseph Brodsky's book, book in particular, the Joseph Brodsky's book, Watermark, which is his essay on Venice. It's the kind of place where if you are a poet or a writer, Venice starts to write itself for you. So if you have Jan Morris, who did Venice, or you have a very famous book called The City of Fallen Angels, where a writer goes and he starts to, he'd initially gone to start kind of using Venice as a backdrop to a novel that he wanted to write, but he found the actual truth of the stories

he was discovering so interesting that it became a work of nonfiction. And for me, it's sort of, it's weird. You go to, I've gone to Venice and I've just gone, I feel like I've been here before. It feels deeply creative and mysterious and mercurial. when we filmed you know we couldn't you can't fly or drive any equipment and every single piece of equipment had to be brought in by boat which is probably why a lot of things don't get filmed there you know so we were so lucky to again you know Mission Impossible

the making of Mission Impossible is reflected in the plot. You know, the plot is a metaphor for the making of. And so to be able to get what we got in Venice with the support of so many lovely locals that we met along the way. And also at times filming during the pandemic when this beautiful city was completely quiet. That must have been quite spooky. It was... Venice has this ability to make the scary actually seem intriguing. And for that, you go down an alleyway and there might be like loads of layers of ripped posters from various Vivaldi concerts over the years that have been stuck up on the wall. But there's even like this kind of rugged beauty. There's also stubborn beauty to its grandeur.

You know, Francesco Di Mosto, who lives in Venice, a very famous Venetian, would say, you know, Venice should not exist. It's built on stilts. Not only should it not exist, how is it still here? After all this time, it sort of is beautifully stubbornly itself and it refuses to play small. It's so, you know know it's not just sort of a couple of you know two-story buildings it is great big grand palazzos built on water

and there's something um incredibly poetic about it thank you so much it's been such a pleasure to talk to you really nice to chat with you and the film film is out on the 10th of July so do go and see it and that is all we've got time for today. Thank you so much everyone for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode of Love Lives

you can catch us on all major podcast platforms. You can also watch us on independent TV, all major connected devices and all social media platforms. I'll see you soon.

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