Mission: Impossible – Dead Count Part One director Christopher McQuarrie explains why the teasing romance between Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust will never happen. After six previous entries, Cruise’s super spy returns for the final two installments, where he faces off against a new enemy with the help of his loyal operative team. Ferguson’s Ilsa model was first introduced in 2015 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and has since become an inseparable ally with 2018 Mission: Impossible – Fallout again teasing that there is some romantic tension between her and Ethan.
After release Mission: Impossible – Dead Count Part One trailerDiscusses Ethan and Ilsa’s romantic future in a new interview with McQuarrie Empire. While there is definitely romantic chemistry between the two characters, the director explains that it’s not really possible for them to have a relationship in their line of work. Check out McQuarrie’s full review below:
“What we really baked into the narrative is that the closer someone is to him, the more dangerous he is. I was never interested in creating a typical love interest for Ethan. When this relationship ends, this relationship ends.
“The simple fact of the matter is, you don’t Mr and Mrs Smithyou are creating Mission: Impossible, and so the challenge comes in creating relationships that are always evolving and never reach a simple resolution. I’m more interested in seeing the characters that could have been and might even be, but I can’t because of the nature of what they’re doing. So, if I can distill it down… it’s really complicated!”
Christopher McQuarrie is right about Ethan Hunt’s romantic life
The thing is Mission: Impossible the franchise is successful because of its great acting. This does not mean that there cannot be meaningful characters between embedded parts Cruise risks his life to entertain audiences, but romance and the complexity of human emotions aren’t just the franchise’s bread and butter. Hunt himself is a very ordinary character who is driven only by the desire to protect the world from those who seek to harm it.
Hunt’s biggest “flaw,” and something the previous films explored through Michelle Monaghan’s failed marriage to Julia, is that his relationships don’t work because he can’t turn off the IMF part of his brain. If the world is in danger, you have no choice but to act to save it. That’s why the relationship dynamic between Ethan and Ilsa is so much more interesting than Cruise’s super-spy getting into a relationship that’s doomed from the start.
Hunt knows that a regular romance is off the table for him at this point, and Ilsa’s presence in his life is a constant reminder of the life he’ll never have. It’s also part of what sets it apart Mission: Impossible Franchise from James Bond, for example. It remains to be seen how the dynamic between Ethan and Ilsa will play out Mission: Impossible – Dead Count Part One and its sequel, but it sounds like viewers shouldn’t expect the two spies to be happy together.
Source: Empire
Key release dates
[pub1]