Production Information
A former Russian spy selling international intelligence on the black market ... a list containing names of
the top undercover agents in the world ... a corrupt agent doubling for an unknown organization ... a
mysterious arms dealer ... a spy agency ready to disavow the actions or existence of any of its members
captured or killed ... and one man on a mission which seems impossible ...
Mention the words "Mission: Impossible" and the images immediately appear: adventure, intrigue,
excitement. Along with the familiar strains of its classic theme music, the show, which ran on CBS
Television in the late 1960s and early 1970s, is now a part of American popular culture.
Taking the concept as its inspiration, Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's Cruise/Wagner Productions has
chosen "Mission: Impossible" as its debut feature, one that will conjure up those same elements of
surprise and thrills.
Tom Cruise stars in the adventure thriller "Mission: Impossible," a Paramount Pictures presentation of a
Cruise/Wagner Production directed by Brian De Palma. The producers are Tom Cruise and Paula
Wagner, and the executive producer is Paul Hitchcock. The screenplay is by David Koepp and Robert
Towne, and the story is by David Koepp and Steven Zaillian based on the TV series created by Bruce
Geller.
Also starring are Jon Voight, Emmanuelle Beart, Henry Czerny, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott
Thomas and Vanessa Redgrave. Paramount Pictures is a part of the entertainment operations of Viacom
Inc.
"Mission: Impossible" is the first film from Cruise/Wagner Productions, the company formed in 1992 by
Tom Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, and based at Paramount Pictures. It was a choice
both filmmakers heartily embraced.
"When we came to Paramount," recalls Cruise, "I asked who owned 'Mission: Impossible,' and when I
found out they did, I told them I wanted to make the movie. I felt it was the perfect film to start our
company. I thought it had all the elements to make a fun, suspenseful picture."
"They had been trying to crack this for many years," says Wagner, "and we came up with a concept that
excited Tom and me, and we got the studio excited about it and we were off and running."
The fact that "Mission: Impossible" had an established identity on television wasn't lost on the
producers. "I have a theory that television is the mythology of the 20th century," says Wagner. "There is
a kind of archetypal imagery that has evolved from television. Really, all that counts is the quality of the
movie. It was a great idea for a film; it doesn't matter that it came from television. That can be a big
asset, because people know the theme song and the concept and the idea, and there are huge fans of it
all over the world. We also think the movie will stand on its own."
DE PALMA JOINS PROJECT
Director Brian De Palma came in early on. Cruise and Wagner were looking for directors when, by
chance, Cruise met De Palma at dinner at the house of a mutual friend.
"I've always been a huge admirer of his," Cruise says. "Brian is a classic filmmaker, a great stylist and a
master of suspense. I thought he would be the perfect choice. The next morning I called Paula, and we
agreed that we would see if Brian was interested, and it turned out he was."
What Cruise and Wagner saw in De Palma was a master craftsman who could transcend the genre.
"This is an action-thriller," says Cruise, "but we wanted to make it different. One of the reasons it's so
hard to make a spy movie these days is that there is no Cold War. The obvious villains have changed.
"I wanted the movie to be very sophisticated. It needed to have a balance of complexity to plot and to
character and be grounded in an emotional reality. We knew Brian was the director who could deliver
what we wanted, and more!"
De Palma, Cruise and Wagner got to work with screenwriter David Koepp and later Robert Towne while
casting was under way.
Says Wagner: "When you bring a filmmaker like Brian on, you get a creative participant in tailor-making
the movie. The casting really grew out of the roles as they were written. We wanted to make interesting
and maybe slightly unusual choices. The process went very smoothly."
"Brian's got very good taste in casting," says Cruise, "so whenever he really believed in someone, we
said great."
It was De Palma's idea to base the film in London. "Brian had the wonderful idea of making an
international movie," Cruise says. "He opened the picture up when he suggested shooting in Prague and
England. Paula and I fully endorsed the idea. Having just shot 'Interview With the Vampire' in England,
we had a wonderful and talented crew. The prospect of working with the same group again was very
exciting to me."
They were considering a Vienna location when De Palma brought a book on Prague to a script meeting.
The photographs convinced them that this Eastern European capital, so seldom seen on the screen,
would be the ideal setting for the film's opening sequences.
That decided, they continued to work on the script. The pressure was intense.
CHALLENGES OF PRODUCTION
"It was a challenge," says Cruise. "I've learned so much from the many movies I've made and been lucky
to work with the people I've made them with, but once you're producing your own movie, it's very
different. And had I not had Paula Wagner, it would have really interfered with me as an actor.
"And Brian was incredibly prepared," continues Cruise. "We'd been working on the movie for a year and
half. Brian had the first six weeks of shooting in his head and down on paper, so it was a matter of
pulling back the trigger and firing and just heading out there.
"We knew which way we wanted to go with the characters. We basically had the structure of the film,
but some of the scenes weren't there. And there were certain story points that we hadn't decided as of
yet.
"There was a tremendous amount of work, and I did not want this movie to go over budget a penny or
over schedule a day. And we finished under schedule and under budget. "That really had to do with
Paula Wagner and Brian being so responsible. The three of us worked very well together. We had an
excellent team of people. We moved quickly on the things that we needed to move quickly on and took
our time with things that needed more time. As a producer I feel I've done my job. This has been a trial
by fire."
Executive producer Paul Hitchcock says that the changes and immediacy of the project didn't seem to
hamper the production as much as some thought it might. "Whether we would have done any better
doing it another way is always a question. Sometimes you get the best out of people when you have a
problem and have to solve it immediately. Sometimes if you have too much time, you end up not solving
it anyway."
Is producer Cruise ready to do it again? "Yeah, I am. But our company is also going to produce films that
I'm not in." Throughout the production process, Cruise was able to separate his producing
responsibilities from his duty as an actor -- the role of Ethan Hunt.
Describing his character, Cruise says: "I wanted to make Ethan's strength more mental than physical,"
although Cruise's
level of physical strength and fitness is put to the test in several scenes. "His ability is in the way he can
think his way in and out of situations. That was a very important part for me. In these thrillers, you need
to feel that the character is going through hell, and you have to understand that emotionally his life is
falling out from under his feet and he's going to be crushed by the weight of what's occurring around
him.
"If you don't emotionally believe that, it doesn't drive the story. No matter how carefully a sequence is
constructed, the suspense has to come from the guts of the actors. I hope we've done that."
VOIGHT SIGNS ON
Co-star Jon Voight heard that Cruise and De Palma had mentioned his name while discussing possibilities
for the role of Phelps. "It was very good news to me because I really liked them both, although I didn't
know Tom very well. I did know Brian from before, but we'd never worked together. It was just nice to
know that people you respect and like are talking about you.
"Then subsequently it became real and there was a specific script and a specific role, and I finally met
Brian at a restaurant with Paula Wagner and we all liked each other. It was very warm and we all
enjoyed each other and had a laugh or two, and it looked like it was going to happen, and it did."
Voight is the only character in the film "Mission: Impossible" who shares a name with a character from
the TV series, Jim Phelps. A viewer of the original series, Voight says he "felt the fun of it when Tom,
Brian and Paula talked about it." "To do the character of Jim Phelps was a very tricky thing, though,
because our Jim is different than he was in the series. It was fun to think of myself doing this piece, and I
really did admire the guys who did it originally, so if I can fill in those shoes a little bit and remind people
of Peter Graves, that would be nice."
For Voight, the role was also very physical. "I did my best," he recalls, "to get in some kind of shape, and
then I got little bumps and bruises along the way and had to stop my working out. But I enjoy that kind
of stuff, and I really enjoyed it with Tom because he's very athletic and adventuresome. "I think both of
us are a little too much risk takers in a certain sense to be safety valves for each other. We push each
other through certain things, and that's not so good. I must say we were helped enormously by the
quality of the stunt guys who were with us, who were not only supportive of us doing what we had to do
and keeping us safe, but were very capable of stepping in and doing anything we needed. They were
great."
Voight found a good deal of common ground with both Cruise and De Palma. "These guys are really top
fellows. They're used to doing big films, and they're very experienced masters. They're both bright, fun
people, and they're both full of energy. Brian is quieter than Tom, but as the film went on I think he
loosened up a little bit with us all, and he is amazingly concentrated.
"He sits in front of that video machine with all this technical stuff that he has to look at, all the details
that he has to keep focused on, and he's quite remarkable in his endurance and the constancy and
intensity of his focus. Brian is very impressive, and I find that he's very good with actors, he works very
well with advice, and his eye is very good.
"I find that Tom has an amazing energy. You always catch him on the run. He gets a lot done in a day,
he's extremely focused. He's very well organized for himself and I think for the film, too, and he's a very
strong actor. It would surprise me greatly if this was not one of Tom's most comfortable personas,
because he's been tremendously impressive.
"He's also got very good taste and judgment, and as an acting energy he's tremendously sure-footed.
And I like him in this role. I think it's romantic for him. I think he fits it. I think it's something that he will
make work very beautifully."
FRENCH STAR JOINS CAST
For co-star Emmanuelle Beart, one of the biggest stars in France, "Mission: Impossible" was her first
major English-language film, and it proved to be a linguistic challenge. When she met De Palma, she told
him she had lived in Montreal for three years but went to a French school and didn't learn much English.
"I said if you want me to do this movie, I really have to get a coach and work every day. And that's what
we did for four months." Beart worked steadily with dialog coach Jenny Patrick, and although she still
isn't terribly confident, Beart's English is very good. "There are a lot of things that I didn't have the time
to think of because of the language. I usually like to work more on the words, on the thought. I always
have the impression that things go by very fast. I think that's just because I'm so scared every time I have
to talk."
De Palma didn't give Beart very much background on how he wanted her to interpret her character,
Claire, but it didn't matter much to her. "I really accepted the movie because of Brian, because one day I
met this man with this huge humor that I loved. And then I met Tom, and I said well, I really feel like
going with them, whatever it is. And so I wasn't expecting a big part.
"I was just ready to, can you say, to have a ride with them? To go with them for a few months and to see
what's going on in an American movie. "So about Claire, he just told me that she was a spy, and that I
didn't have anything else to play other than trying to be myself. I went to Paramount and I did a test,
and they thought right away that I was right for the part."
And how has Beart found the experience of working on a major American film? "I liked watching what
was going on. It was so different. It was not even a different country, it was a different world, I would
say another planet from me."
But she finds the process of acting is not so different. "When we had those scenes together, when I was
with Tom, it was easier, because it was like working in France -- we were just two simple actors.
"He's very professional, and he was very aware of my situation. He really took care of me, and I could
feel it. He knows it's hard. And I had this feeling that everyone was always there for me. It was more
difficult when there were a lot of people around. Then I felt a little bit lost."
Has "Mission: Impossible" created a desire for more American film roles? "It's definitely not my goal,"
she says. "Because I cannot work the same way that I do in France, I don't have the same power, of
course. But I think in life when a window opens, you should always just have a look and watch the
landscape. And that's what I'm doing. I thought it would be pity to let windows open and not to watch.
"And of course even though I'm very happy in France and I'm not planning to do any more American
films, I think we actors should all work in English, that's for sure. In a few years, I think we're all going to
have to play in English. So this is a good start.
"I've been very spoiled for a long time now in France, so I'm just going to do little French movies, and
maybe I'm going to appreciate a little bit more what I have there."
RENO SHOWS STYLE
When he was cast in the film, French star Jean Reno was already acquainted with "Mission: Impossible"
from its TV broadcasts in France.
"I saw many episodes on French TV," he says. "We got both the old and the newer series, and I saw
them both. And when Brian De Palma called me to read for him, I was happy to be cast in the film."
Reno's character, Krieger, changed somewhat between the time Reno was cast and the time he actually
began working on the film. "I think Brian gave him more of a bad attitude," Reno laughs in his typically
good-natured way, "and I think maybe I gave him this idea because of my style."
What did De Palma tell him about Krieger? "That he's French, he's a traitor and he smokes. That's all. I
think he understood me." Reno found that working with Cruise made his job much easier. "He has his
heart open," Reno says. "He made it easy for me."
RHAMES DELVES INTO CHARACTER
As is his way, Ving Rhames created an inner life for his character, Luther. "I created my own history for
him. He's a guy who was married and actually still is, still wears his wedding ring, but his work in the IMF
(Impossible Missions Force) destroyed his marriage and his family life. Because he's been disavowed,
he's had to keep underground."
Rhames spent several hours with technical consultant Suzane Doucette, a former member of the FBI,
and discovered that once an agent becomes disavowed, "it means you're on a hit list, so at any time
your life could be taken."
The production also provided Rhames with the training he needed to authenticate Luther's computer
expertise. "Brian is an actor's director," Rhames says, "and I trust him. I've worked with him before on
'Casualties of War,' and he makes it very easy. He knows what he wants, but he's also open to an actor
bringing in something new if you can make it work. This has been a very focused, concentrated set with
very positive energy."
As for co-star Cruise, Rhames likens him to "an open nerve ending." Elaborating, he says: "Basically,
whatever stimulus is presented to Tom, he will respond to it. I like that fact, because I've worked with
quite a few actors who are very set in how their responses are going to be, and if you veer from that, if
you say your lines a little differently or with a different emotional inner life, it will throw them.
"What I like about Tom is he will go with whatever you present to him. So it makes the work easy, and it
creates a positive chemistry."
REDGRAVE TRIES SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Vanessa Redgrave, who co-stars as Max, was working on a play in New York when De Palma and Cruise
called her. "They said they'd got this part for me that had originally been written for a man but they
thought it would be real fun if I did it. And they told me a bit about it, and I said, well, this would be
absolutely wonderful."
Max is unlike any other part Redgrave has done in her varied and honored career. She was excited about
working with De Palma for several reasons, among them "the work that I've seen before." "It's always
different when you see someone's work, but I really liked working with him because he's very precise
and methodical in the way he prepares, and he keeps a very good working atmosphere. That's very
important to me, and it doesn't happen all the time, far from it."
She was also happy working with De Palma "because from the day I started shooting, he gave me really
good notes."
About star and producer Tom Cruise, Redgrave says: "I love working with Tom. I think he's a terrific
actor. I had always admired his work very much, but when you actually get to work with someone, that's
the real test.
"There is a difference between doing work in a professional way, which pretty well everybody does, and
doing it in a special way, really connecting, so that was very exciting for me, too."
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
"Mission: Impossible" was filmed on location in Prague and London and on sets built at Pinewood
Studios outside London, with principal photography beginning in the Czech capital in March 1995 and
ending in England in August.
Well before filming began, production designer Norman Reynolds was hard at work creating a look for
the motion picture that is, he says, "like a collage, really -- a collection of different looks, different facets,
different styles of architecture, from art nouveau and the classical architecture of the 1920s to the
computer room set, which tends to lean towards science fiction."
Reynolds says: "I tend to do things really by the seat of my pants, design things on an instinctive level
that makes me feel that it's right for the film."
He decided to keep his approach original by not looking at any episodes of the "Mission: Impossible" TV
show. "There's quite deliberately nothing in this film that is taken from the series. There's a satisfaction
that whatever the look, it's something I've given it."
The constant in Reynolds' design equation was Prague. "The thing that didn't seem likely to change was
Prague, so that was the first thing that I did -- I went to Prague and looked at some of the possibilities
for locations. From there on, really, it's been an evolutionary sort of thing."
Moving back to England and shooting at Pinewood presented the next challenge to Reynolds. He recalls:
"The Prague safe house was one of the first sets they shot after they came back from location, so it was
a little bit nerve-racking for me.
"Brian was concerned that it look authentic, so it clearly has a Czech feel to it. I went to a lot of trouble
to insure that colors were typical of historical Czechoslovakia, using the beveled glass that they're very
fond of and, hopefully, giving it the right feel.
"Getting the right sort of furniture was very important. We got a lot it from Barrandov Studios in Prague,
where the Prague production offices were located. They have a large prop room there, so they were
able to supply everything we needed."
COMBINATION OF INFLUENCES
The set for Max's apartment, which was built at Pinewood Studios, is a combination of influences
Reynolds found in the Czech capital and incorporates two different exteriors. Reynolds says: "From this
set, in one direction we look out at a location that matches a scene we shot in the Europa Hotel. In
another direction, it has to match another scene we shot in a completely different place in Prague. So
this is really a good example of art direction: two locations and a set married into one and hopefully in
not too obvious a way."
In the apartment set itself, Reynolds used murals and paintings inspired by Alphonse Mucha, the Czech
artist whose influence is seen in many places in Prague. "The art nouveau feeling is a nice element, a
nice counterpoint to some of the other things that we've done in the picture like trains and helicopters
and things. We have a little bit of everything."
COSTUMES UNDERGO EVOLUTION
Costume designer Penny Rose made adaptations to original plans as the screenplay evolved. "The
original concept that we worked on was that each character would have his/her own designer. And
while Emmanuelle Beart wore Emporio Armani and Vanessa Redgrave was dressed by Catherine Walker,
other characters evolved in different ways. As the script developed, everybody's look started to change,
and so the clothing automatically changed as well. As we went along, it became more of an organic
design job.
"The actors have contributed enormously in that I talk to them and we decide what would work or not
work. I never ask actors to wear anything they don't feel comfortable in. As soon as I tried the Armani
things on Emmanuelle, we felt that we'd arrived at the right kind of feel for her. As scenes required her
to have new things that we didn't have, I just went to Emporio Armani and bought some more."
Rose doesn't credit herself with being a "true designer." She says: "I don't do drawings. I find clothing
that seems right for the character, and then I put it on the actor, and then we decide whether we're
going in the right direction or not. Then if we go and make it up, the design factor is evolved by choosing
the right fabrics, by deciding on the fit.
"But I really have to see things to know whether they're right. You know, it's rather like if you design
something in your house. An architect comes and does a drawing and it all looks absolutely fine, but it
isn't until it starts going up that you think, 'I don't want the staircase there.' That's the way I function."
To complement Rose's costuming, make-up designer Lois Burwell worked to develop a look for the
actors that fit their characters. "What we were trying to achieve was the feel of the original 'Mission:
Impossible' brought up to date so that it's kind of slick and smooth. We wanted everyone to look
believable and yet stylish."
LIGHTING SHOWS INGENUITY
Cinematographer Stephen Burum found an answer a lighting problem that will be useful to other
directors of photography. At Prague's Europa Hotel, a classic art nouveau building, Burum and his team
were not allowed to hammer a nail or hang any lights off the walls. He needed a solution.
"When I came to London to do prep, I went around to all the rental houses to look at catalogs, because
in every country they have different things. I got a brochure from a French company that had a heliumfilled balloon with a series of globes in it that gave off 4,000 watts of light."
It was an interesting solution to some of Burum's lighting problems, but it was too small, and the French
company was reluctant to invest in making anything larger. So Burum and his chief lighting technician,
Laurie Shane, convinced London-based Lee Electric to combine its resources with those of the
production, and they solved the problem easily.
"We built four eight-foot balloons, and we put 8,000 watts of light in them. We used all of them in the
Europa Hotel." And on Prague's historic Charles Bridge. And in London's Liverpool Street Station. And on
other locations and sets as well. "The biggest application for them," Burum says, "is for people who have
to work in old stately homes and historical monuments where you can't easily do any rigging. It's a very
simple solution. Eight thousand watts of power at England's standard 220 volts is only 40 amps, and you
can plug that in anywhere.
"There's a little tiny cable, smaller than your little finger, and it's also switchable, so if it's too bright you
can turn off half the lights and have a 4K. They're made out of the same material sporting hot-air
balloons are made of, and the interesting thing is that the helium in them keeps the lamps cold.
"It's completely non-flammable, so there's no fire hazard. They also have a safety system in them where
if the balloon starts to collapse, there's a microswitch that automatically shuts off the lights.
"I think this is going to be the next big lighting rage. They saved us an enormous amount of time because
we just floated them up, turned them on, and we were in business." Mission accomplished.
Burum had other problems in Prague. Some of the city's monuments are lighted at night, and on his
initial location scout, Burum read how much light they had on the immense Prague Castle. He used that
as the norm and then graded everything else to that situation.
"There was a lot of light on that castle, so I used a little more light than I normally would have. I had to
balance it so everything else wouldn't look overexposed."
Then there was Charles Bridge -- "over 1,700 feet long," he says. The company lit more than 900 feet of
it. "We used 450 1K Par 64 lamps to light the bridge and to light about two miles of bank on either side.
That was just lighting the background. Then we had to light the embankment area."
They used the balloons as well as HMIs on the embankment, and all worked well.
STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGY
With one of the characteristics of "Mission: Impossible" being state-of-the-art technology, the
production also operated a complete computer/video department. Headed by Andrew Eio, who had
come to the production from the recently completed film "Hackers," the group was responsible for the
look of all the computer graphics for the film.
Using both Apple and IBM technology, they supervised the development of the IMF logo, the software
programs run on screen as part of the film's action, and behind-the-scenes support for director De
Palma and the art department. "We had to imagine what might be happening at the CIA," says Eio, "and
then had to put things just slightly into the future. We found we were constantly pushing the edge of
technology. When technical advisor Suzane Doucette came on board, she helped us get the finer details
right."
Doucette, a former FBI member who studied criminology, forensics and film, was hired to keep
"Mission: Impossible" real and believable. In working with the computer department, Doucette says,
"We started by doing a lot of computer graphic design, working on things that were real, and then made
them more visual and more exciting for the screen, because obviously 'Mission: Impossible' isn't a
documentary. So there was a lot of license taken. We tried to base things on reality and then take them
a little further."
Eio continues: "One of the problems we had was to make the computer screen look realistic -- make it
look as if it's working properly. But we have essentially two different audiences: we have an audience
who doesn't necessarily understand computers, and we have the younger kids who know everything
about computers. They both have to believe what they're seeing. And they have to get the message."
Basically everything seen on computer screens in "Mission: Impossible," with the exception of certain
official government seals, was designed for the film. This was mostly done by adapting and combining
available software.
Eio says: "We applied to After Dark, the screen saver company, to use their software for a screen saver
sequence. It made our lives much easier because one of the problems of filming is that things change
very quickly. But with designing and building computer graphics which are interactive, it's very difficult
to change things quickly. Therefore, you have to fall back on various things which you know can get you
out of trouble.
"For instance, in one scene, although Brian had said he didn't want anything on a particular laptop
screen, he suddenly changed his mind, so we quickly imported the CIA logo and had it bouncing around
the screen to give the impression of a screen saver. We also applied for permission and license to use
the Netscape interface, which we then modified to suit our purposes when an actor had to access the
Internet."
Also in the computer department's arsenal of numerous available applications were an interactive
software package called Director and the popular Adobe Photoshop. The group also did a good deal of
work behind the scenes remotely controlling computers on the set. The fact that the computer
department worked within the art department proved to be a learning curve for both. "One of the
interesting things for us is that the art department began to come to us for things that used to be done
through drafting and drawing and photocopying of text and the like.
"That sort of thing took us a few minutes, if that, and it saved them a lot of time, so there was a lot more
interaction and they saw the benefits. In the beginning, we didn't know what they needed and they
didn't know what we could do."
Innovation is always part of Eio's work. "Every film we push the edge further because as we achieve one
goal someone thinks up something worse for us, and we have to try and achieve that."
As far as innovation for "Mission: Impossible" is concerned, Eio cites his favorite: "We had laptops which
were capable of playing six live video images at once. We had a surveillance camera which technically
was quite difficult for us. It had a little camera in the middle of the bridge of a pair of glasses which was
American-standard NTSC video format. We had to send that image through to a converter to go from
NTSC to the U.K.-standard PAL format.
"We then had to import it into a computer graphic environment to make it interactive with computer
graphics. And that image came up live on the computer screen used in the shot."
ADVISOR HELPS FILMMAKERS, CAST
Technical advisor Doucette, who helped the computer department achieve its goal of believability, had
begun her involvement in the film by giving screenwriters David Koepp and Robert Towne technical
assistance to make the script more realistic. She knew state-of-the-art jargon and helped them develop
characters who would be believable as spies. She also worked extensively with the prop department.
Doucette says: "When I first met Brian De Palma, I was terrified of him, but he turned out to be one of
the nicest people I've ever met. It helped that he was very interested in making a very exciting film but
also wanted to add touches of reality. I was glad I could contribute to that."
Doucette also worked with the actors, beginning with Tom Cruise. "Tom was very interested in knowing
what makes people tick and what makes people want to work in these sorts of areas. He was very
interested in the physicalization of the characters and in making the dialog as accurate as possible."
She spent quite a lot of time with Jon Voight. "Because of the difficulty of portraying his character, we
spent hours talking about espionage. We gave him books for research and helped with dialog rewrites to
make him feel comfortable and real as Jim Phelps."
With Emmanuelle Beart, Doucette also found a willing accomplice. "Emmanuelle is a very talented actor
who likes to really get into the mind of her character. We spent a lot of hours talking about what it's like
to work under cover, what it's like to be involved in counter-intelligence and in intelligence gathering,
and we also worked with her to make her feel a little more comfortable with weapons and with hand-tohand combat -- things to make her feel more confident in her role."
Ving Rhames was very interested in portraying his computer genius, Luther, accurately. "I spent a lot of
time with him talking about how you can actually break in and out of computer systems, and computer
hacking and working on the Internet," says Doucette.
Henry Czerny, who played a CIA agent in "Clear and Present Danger," co-stars as Kittridge in "Mission:
Impossible." "I worked with Henry quite a bit because he'd never held a gun before," Doucette says. "So
we spent some time learning how to hold a gun and how to walk when you're carrying one and exactly
what it means to be armed and carry weapons."
Doucette also had some input as to what those weapons would be. "Most of the weapons are ones that
are really used by different agencies in the U.S. and other governments, but then we also looked for
weapons that photographed well on the screen."
But the emphasis in "Mission: Impossible" was never meant to be firepower, a fact that Doucette finds
true to the espionage world. "There are occasions, of course, where there may be weapons involved,"
she states, "but it's very rare, and this movie is very true to that. Espionage is mainly psychological as
opposed to violent. The suspense comes from that tension."
STUNTS: SPECTACULAR BUT BELIEVABLE
"Make it real, make it believable" were also the marching orders for stunt coordinator Greg Powell.
Having worked with Cruise on "Interview With the Vampire," Powell already had a good relationship
with the producer/star. He was used to Cruise's eagerness to do dangerous work.
Along with special effects technician Terry Glass, Powell carefully choreographed the actors during the
multiple explosions at the Akvarium Restaurant, designed by Norman Reynolds and built on Pinewood
Studios' back lot.
The restaurant had a lobster tank in its midst and three huge fish tanks overhead. At one point the
lobster tank explodes, pulling down the structure holding up the three tanks. A stuntman is blown
through the front window, allowing Cruise's Ethan Hunt to make his escape through the broken glass.
"It was such a great set to look at," says Powell, "but there was so much water -- I think about 16 tons in
all the tanks. And we had to use proper toughened (tempered) glass to support the structure of all the
tanks, so when we blew them and the water dropped out, there was a lot of glass flying around. That
was the most dangerous part of it."
But more difficult was a sequence filmed on top of a train built on the huge 007 Stage at Pinewood. Even
though it was filmed in front of blue screen and coordinated with effects wizards from ILM, "the train
sequence proved to be more difficult than we anticipated because of the wind factor on the machines
we got," Powell says.
"We tried different machines, but Tom wanted the wind to be as powerful as possible so that it could
actually knock you off the train." Cruise adds: "We had a very difficult time finding the proper machine
that would create the wind velocity that would make it visually accurate. We tried jet engines, various
kinds of fans, and none of them created the authentic look we wanted.
"As a sky diver, I was exposed to a skydiving simulator during my training. It has a very powerful engine
that gives one the sense of the wind velocity once you've jumped from a plane. I suggested to Greg that
finding one of these machines might be the thing that resolves this problem."
Powell found one, the only machine of its kind in all of Europe. "We converted the skydiving simulator
so that I think it ran up to something like 140 miles per hour," Powell says. "When you were standing up
there close enough to the vent, you had to hang on. It would distort your face, but that's what Tom
wanted.
"It wasn't like you see in some other films where people run along the top of the train and jump from
one car to another. Definitely that was out on this, because you couldn't have done it. "It was a surprise
that the force of that wind could actually bowl you over, clean out. And what the actors were doing was
hard work for them. We've done lots of stuff with wind machines before but certainly not as powerful as
this one."
ABOUT THE LOCATIONS
The majestic Eastern European city of Prague has been seen before on film but rarely as itself and rarely
as a contemporary location. At the crossroads of Europe, Prague has been a thriving city since the
Middle Ages. After over 40 years of communism, the "Velvet Revolution" of 1989 has led the city and
the Czech Republic itself into an era of freewheeling capitalism with sometimes dizzying results.
"Mission: Impossible" began principal photography in Prague on March 13, 1995, at the National
Museum. The neo-Renaissance building, dominating one end of historic Wenceslas Square, was
completed in 1890, and its rich marble decor is used in the film as the interior of the American Embassy.
The embassy's exterior was shot at the Lichtenstein Palace on Kampa Island, a small island formed by a
tributary of the Vltava River and a short distance from Charles Bridge.
The bridge is Prague's most familiar monument with its many beautiful statues edging its wide path.
Commissioned by Charles IV in 1357, it was, until 1741, the city's only crossing over the Vltava,
connecting the Old Town with the area called the Little Quarter. A popular tourist destination, the
bridge is now limited to pedestrian traffic and is dotted with the stalls of craft and trinket sellers.
The "Mission: Impossible" crew was based near Charles Bridge for nine nights, enduring snow and rain in
the process. Filming took place not only on the bridge itself, but along the embankment, on the steps
which lead down from the bridge to Kampa Island, and in Na Kampe Square below.
The grand staircase of the Hotel Europa, located on Wenceslas Square (which is less a square than a long
avenue), served as the interior of a Prague apartment building. Built in 1904, the Hotel Europa is one of
many well-preserved art nouveau structures that can be seen around the city. Its ground floor still
contains the original bars, the large mirrors, paneling and light fittings so typical of art nouveau; and its
restaurant and cafe are popular Prague meeting places. Once filming was completed in Prague in early
April, the production moved to the U.K., where sets were built at Pinewood Studios for interiors. Several
London locations were also used. One scene required location manager Simon McNair Scott to scour
London for an appropriate train station.
THE PERFECT STATION
"I spent two days traveling around all the stations in London. I found the best way to do that was to get
a Circle Line ticket and just travel by underground. "We ended up with Liverpool Street, which has
recently been restored in a way that's very sympathetic to the original Victorian architecture. It had all
the necessary ingredients for our scene. "We needed a safe house overlooking the station and lots of
angles where people could be hovering above the station. We chose the building right opposite the
main entrance, which we used as the exterior of our safe house, and we used Ponti's Restaurant in the
station for a dialog scene.
"We also had to make rain for one of the shots. We had filmed the interior of our safe house at the
studio, and Tom decided just as he was about to enter the set that it would be good if he was absolutely
wet from a storm outside. Brian De Palma agreed, and they shot the scene with him soaking wet.
"So I had this terrible problem, a week before we were supposed to go there, of getting permission to
put two enormous rain cherry pickers with tankers outside the station and arranging for the whole area
to be absolutely soaked, including the McDonald's restaurant next door. I don't know what we would
have done if they'd said no because we'd already shot the other footage with Tom absolutely drenched.
"The great thing about filming in Liverpool Street, which is in the City of London, is it's very quiet on the
weekends, and the city police were very cooperative and extremely helpful." It took three weeks to get
Liverpool Street Station ready for the "Mission: Impossible" crew. "We had our own offices there," says
McNair Scott. "There was a lot of electrical rigging to be done. We had to inform a lot of people, there
are a lot of businesses there, and we had to work very carefully with the train schedules. We kind of
turned the place into a mini-studio for three nights."
Another London location was County Hall, which doubled for the lobby of the CIA headquarters in
Langley, Virginia. Last used as County Hall in 1988, it's been a popular film location for several years.
"County Hall was a location that was chosen a very long time ago," says McNair Scott. The property,
however, is being developed into a major new London center with an aquarium and a hotel.
"The worry was that it might no longer be available when we needed it. I think we're just about the last
filming operation to go in there. It's quite a popular film location because it's a building on such a vast
scale."
One angle called for a view out of the front door, but County Hall is in a particularly urban area and
Langley is very rural. "We dressed in an enormous amount of trees and bushes so you could look out the
door and see greenery," says McNair Scott. "The local inhabitants were rather surprised to see this
forest that had grown in their midst."
HELIPAD WITH A VIEW
Another location challenge was a place scripted as an air field where a helicopter was to land. McNair
Scott says De Palma asked them to find somewhere that could easily be identified as London.
"Tower Bridge was the most obvious icon of London that I could think of, so I just got a map out and
looked at every possible area where a helicopter might land within a mile of Tower Bridge and where we
could get a view of it," says McNair Scott.
"After several days I came across this little park which was just nestling on the south side of the River
Thames. I wasn't sure we could get permission to film there, it being a public place, but Southwark
Council, who own the park, couldn't have been more helpful. They said we could do what we liked there
as long as we left it tidy again afterwards, which of course we did.
"We built a landing pad, which took two days using a giant crane because access was very difficult. We
put up some offices and supplemented the existing greenery in the park with a lot of plants. The helipad
looked so realistic that it fooled a lot of the crew who thought it had always been there. They were
surprised when I said the whole thing was made of wood instead of concrete."
Getting permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to land the helicopter wasn't a problem, since the
park is along the central London flight path, which is the River Thames. Quite a few tourists were a little
surprised, however, when they saw a U.S. military helicopter landing in their midst.
A scene which called for a Midwestern courthouse was filmed at London's Tate Gallery. "We were
looking for a fairly classical-looking building with pillars and lots of steps leading up to them," says
McNair Scott. "Most buildings seemed to have about five or six steps, but then one day as I was going
home I went past the Tate Gallery, which I'd never thought of because it was so obvious, and it had
about 20 steps, absolutely ideal for us. We filmed there very early one Sunday morning before the
gallery opened."
The last location almost turned into its own impossible mission. With three days left to shoot, the final
location was to be an airport bar. A site was chosen near Heathrow Airport, but it turned out to be
logistically impractical.
The schedule was shuffled, and within 24 hours the Anchor Pub in Southwark had been arranged. Built
in the 17th century, the pub overlooks the Thames at the end of Pickford Wharf between Southwark and
London Bridges and is near the original Globe Theatre and the infamous Clink Prison.