The Protégé star, Maggie Q, recently spoke out and praised Tom Cruise’s leadership on Mission: Impossible III. She starred alongside Cruise's Ethan Hunt as a fellow IMF agent in the 2006 installment of the long-running franchise. To date, it remains her one and only foray into the Mission: Impossible series.
Releasing in 2006, Mission: Impossible III was directed by J.J. Abrams, who would eventually go on to become a consistent producer on the Mission: Impossible series. The film sees veteran agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) lured out of retirement to take down Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an arms dealer planning to sell a mysterious doomsday weapon called “The Rabbit’s Foot.” This installment saw a number of new IMF agents enter the fray, including Maggie Q as a badass and capable femme fatale named Zhen.
In a recent interview with Collider to promote her latest film, The Protégé, Maggie Q spoke out about her work with Tom Cruise on Mission: Impossible III. Reflecting on the experience of collaborating with him, she noted that he had an impeccable work ethic on set and displayed immense leadership as a movie star, plus a clear love of his job that not all movie stars have. Read what the actress said below:
Tom’s a leader. And again, when you work with people at his level, there is a reason they are where they are, period. There’s no question. He’s not my best friend so I’m not talking about him personally, but I am talking about him as a professional. On set his enthusiasm never waivers. I’ve never seen it waiver. I’ve never seen somebody who loved what they did more and I’ve also never seen somebody who was so encouraging of those around him in the thing that he loves.
Cruise’s on-set passion doesn’t seem to have waned in the years since Mission: Impossible III debuted. The actor has always played a major role as a producer on the Mission: Impossible films, and that has involved a number of key responsibilities beyond his on-camera performance. As such, when Mission: Impossible 7 was hit with Covid-related shutdowns last year and members of the set did not abide by certain social distancing measures, Cruise was caught on tape yelling at members of the crew who did not follow the rules. If nothing else, Cruise always appears to care about the final product of what he works on.
The context of Maggie Q’s comments about Mission: Impossible III also should be taken in the context of where Cruise’s career was at the time of the film’s release. Cruise entered a bit of a fallow period following the release of War of the Worlds, with Mission: Impossible III earning the lowest total box office gross of any film in the franchise. It wasn’t until 2011’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol that he arguably recovered, leading to the current state of his career as a renewed superstar. With all of that said, audiences will get a chance to see Cruise in Mission: Impossible 7 when the sequel debuts in theaters on its brand-new release date (following the Top Gun: Maverick delay) of September 30, 2022.
Source: Collider
