We almost had to reckon with de-aged Julia Roberts in Mission: Impossible 7
Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie chose not to accept this mission
Aux News Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One is a movie obsessed with its franchise’s past, not only through a litany of references, callbacks, and restagings of the series’ many beloved set pieces but also the history of the mysterious Ethan Hunt. For the first time, director Christopher McQuarrie looked at Ethan’s life before the Impossible Mission Force and the death of his long-lost love Marie (Mariela Garriga), who taught him that the only way to love someone is to make sure they never, ever die.
Though they considered but decided against de-aging Cruise for the scene, the conversation surrounding digitally removing the ravages of time went further than that. In a new interview with Empire (via Slashfilm), the director said they briefly considered a de-aged Julia Roberts for Ethan’s doomed lover. Thankfully, Roberts costs too much for that. Still, McQuarrie had an interesting take on why he wanted Roberts: She fits the period.
“I said, ‘Okay, if I were doing this sequence, it would be Tom in, say, 1989. It would be Tony Scott’s Mission: Impossible. That’s who would have been directing the movie before Brian De Palma, you know, in that era,” McQuarrie explained. “We looked at Days Of Thunder and we looked at the style of it, and we started thinking what would it look like if Tony Scott had shot this, and who would it have been? I looked back at who was the ingenue, who was the breakout star in 1989? And right around then was Mystic Pizza. And I was like, ’Oh my God. Julia Roberts, a then-pre-Pretty Woman Julia Roberts, as this young woman.’”
Honestly, Tony Scott’s Mission: Impossible is a more interesting thought experiment than what if Julia Roberts appeared in the thankless and voiceless role of Ethan Hunt’s fridged girlfriend. Thankfully, McQuarrie fell out of love with the idea when he started thinking about de-aging.
“The only way I could have seen doing the sequence justice [using de-aging] was to somehow convince Julia Roberts to come in and be this small role at the beginning of this story. And of course, as you’re conceptually going through it, you’re like, ‘Now all anybody’s going to be doing is thinking about the de-aging of Julia Roberts, and Esai, and Tom, and Henry Czerny.’”
There was another factor: It’s pretty costly to de-age a celebrity. He continued:
Then I got the bill for de-aging those people before their salaries were even factored into it. And if you put two of them in a shot together, or three of them in a shot together, it would have been as expensive as the train by the time we were done.
Finally, the massive salaries of the world’s biggest stars paid off, and we were spared the uncanny horror of a de-aged Julia Roberts.
36 Comments
Clever of them to avoid the controversy of de-aging Julia Roberts but not Tom Cruise. That certainly would have upset people lol.
*smh*
It said they considered de-aging him, and the implication is that this would have been done if they’d gone with de-aging the cast at all. Admittedly, I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t speak to how the scene actually plays out. I do have to say that I’m intrigued at the idea of a Tony Scott Mission: Impossible, even if I’m not generally a fan of the late Tony, if only because it would be so different from the more recent films of the franchise.
They de-age him to play whatever Ethan Hunt’s current age is.
If the films are spaced out over real-time, then wouldn’t Ethan’s current age be roughly Cruise’s age?
Tom Cruise doesn’t appear in movies as his current age.
I honestly think it would play a lot like John Woo’s M:I2 did. Lots of flash, maybe a more jittery camera, but otherwise a little hollow.
Actually, it’s not so much the cost of de-aging Cruise as it is the concern of what might happen to that oil painting of Tom that’s stored at Scientology’s Gold Base headquarters in California. You know, the painting that reflects the actual effects that the M:I films have had on Cruise.
Especially considering how flirty the 11-year apart Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise were… just saying….
11 years? She’s 41, he’s 61. That’s 20.
I remember I was talking to a friend back when Rogue Nation came out and we were saying all the standard shit about how Cruise is increasingly willing to share the spotlight in the M:I movies, and then we were like “And he kind of has an age-appropriate love interest— oh wait, Rebecca Ferguson is 32 and Tom Cruise is 53…” We’d unfortunately caught the Hollywood brainworms and just accepted that her as a suitable love interest because at least she was over 30.
I never would’ve guessed they were 20 years apart (or the same with Atwell). My favorite comparison for that movie is that Tom Cruise was older in Rogue Nation and Wilford Brimley was in Cocoon. I know plastic surgery or whatever, but it’s ridiculous how he looks and what he’s doing at his age.
It helps that Tom doesn’t have diabeetus.
What people don’t know is Tom Cruise has his de-aged face being projected from a small device around his neck, onto the drum tight skin of his featureless Xenu form, 24/7. True story.
We looked at Days of Thunder and we looked at the style of it, and we started thinking what would it look like if Tony Scott had shot this, and who would it have been? I looked back at who was the ingenue, who was the breakout star in 1989? Days of Thunder? Well, if Julia Roberts was too expensive, why not go with the other breakout star of 1989—one that in fact starred *opposite* Cruise in Days of Thunder?! I am, of course, talking about none other than Nic—*Phone rings* Hold on a second, folks. Let me just take this.Hello. Yeah, I’m talking about Cruise and— What’s that? Yeah, her. She was the love interest t in Days of Thunder. She’d be age appropriate and would probably cost a lot less than Roberts. What’s that? They did? Married, even? Really. No, I hadn’t heard. Did it end well? It didn’t, huh. Okay. Yeah, thanks. Bye.Folks, let me get back to ya on this.
I dunno if Kidman would be cheaper. You’d have to de-age her AND remove all that bad plastic surgery.
I’m watching Lioness on Paramount. Has Kidman’s plastic surgery turned her into Elizabeth Holmes?I’m wondering why her voice has lowered a couple octaves. Did she Botox her vocal cords?
Bad plastic surgery feels good in a place like this.
Remember when Nicole Kidman had freckles?!
Have people completely forgotten who he was actually married to in 1989?
Mimi Rogers?
Why is that a question?
The implied, “You mean” and “right” are, as I said, implied.
This was better than the article it’s commenting on.
Came here for this.
“Breakout star” from Days of Thunder? You mean John C. Reilly?
Did McQuarrie just spoil Part 2?Because the only reason it would make sense to cast an older star for this part, and then de-age her by 30+ years, would be if the dead girlfriend is still alive and appears in the present day in the next movie.
Thankfully, this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Marie. McQuarrie made it clear on the podcast that more of her character and the backstory she shares with Ethan Hunt will be explored in the upcoming sequel. I will be eagerly awaiting Julia Roberts’ review of “Dead Reckoning Part Two” whenever it arrives.
Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/1349987/mission-impossible-7-nearly-included-digitally-de-aged-julia-roberts/
Eh, I’m still convinced the big twist is that Marie didn’t die and therefore Ethan has spent the last 35 years scaling skyscrapers and riding motorcycles off cliffs because he was set up.But it’ll be cheaper to put makeup on the young actress playing Marie than it would have been to de-age Julia Roberts.
they could have just used clips from her movies from that era.
i’d totally watch a Mystic Impossible mash-up. throw in some Satisfaction and i’d watch it twice.
What’s the difference between de-aging and deepfaking an actor.
that whole aspect of Dead Reckoning was so confusing. I spent half the movie being like, “wait, who is this woman again? Have we seen ‘Gabriel’ in an earlier movie? What happened to Thandiwe Newton?”
After the first one they really all just…melt together, don’t they? I think I’ve seen 2, 3, 4 – maybe 5? Is there a 5? I honestly couldn’t tell you.
Deaged Ford in Dial of Destiny was great! But they had a lot of Lucasfilm archive footage of Ford that age and the movie cost 300 million dollars
It was definitely impressive how they gave us young Indiana Jones in the latest movie. It was extremely convincing… usually. There were a couple shots and angles and expressions that looked off. I think it’s ultimately a distraction from the plot and dialogue, simply because you’re focusing on the face.
“In a new interview with Empire (via Slashfilm)“
Because why listen to the interview yourself when you can just report on someone else’s reporting of it.