Tom Cruise's IMF agent Ethan Hunt returns in Mission: Impossible 5 next year, and he'll be accompanied by at least one new coworker - played by Rebecca Ferguson (The White Queen) - along with old friends like tech specialists Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg). However, we've yet to hear anything about who the villain will be this time around - prior to today, that is.
Mission: Impossible movie villains, truth be told, tend to not get a whole lot of screen time, as most of it goes to Hunt and/or his IMF team performing incredible tasks. So, in that respect, there doesn't seem to be much reason for concern about the fifth installment having not yet firmly nailed down an actor to play its antagonist, even with production being already underway.
According to Deadline, Sean Harris has been approached to take on the Mission: Impossible 5 villain role. Harris is known to many as the panicky geologist Fifeld in Ridley Scott's Prometheus, though he's been acting for twenty years now; in that time, he's amassed a noteworthy body of work that includes a role in the Red Riding movie trilogy, along with more recent roles on the TV show The Borgias and supernatural horror/crime procedural Deliver Us From Evil (which released back in July).
Deadline is cautioning that Harris is only in negotiations to join the Mission: Impossible 5 cast right now. However, with all his upcoming films - including the Jennifer Lawrence/Bradley Cooper period drama Serena and a version of Macbeth that stars Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard (featuring Harris as Macduff) - either finished or currently in post-production, there shouldn't be any scheduling issues that would prevent Harris from reaching a deal.
The first four Mission: Impossible films were each directed by a different filmmaker - and had their own unique flavor as a result - and the fifth installment won't break away from tradition. Helmer duties this time around are being handled by Oscar-winner Christopher McQuarrie, who previously co-wrote a pair of Cruise-starring films - the WWII drama/thriller Valkyrie and this year's time-traveling/alien invasion thriller Edge of Tomorrow - and wrote/directed the Cruise-headlined Jack Reacher.
McQuarrie, who is drawing from a screenplay written by Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3) and Will Staples (the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 video game) on Mission: Impossible 5, may offer a take on the property that recalls Brian de Palma's first installment - or perhaps something that calls back to the grittier chase/action films of the 1970s (think The French Connection). We'll see, though.
Mission: Impossible 5 opens in U.S. theaters on Christmas Day 2015.
Source: Deadline