To mark the arrival of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol on Blu-Ray and DVD, Movie Fanatic brings you a conversation with one of the film’s stars. Jeremy Renner was new to the Tom Cruise franchise, and seamlessly fit into the action, thrills and spills. After all the incredible stunts featured in the fourth Mission Impossible film, Renner for one was thrilled to still be well… amongst the living. “It's good to be alive,” Renner said. “There are some amazing set pieces, my friend.”
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
That is saying something as the action sequences, particularly atop the tallest building in the world, are breathtaking. “The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. It's twice the size of the Empire State building in New York. We were on the top of it and it is so high that when you look down it is like the view from a plane. It's intense,” Renner recalled. “All the stunts are practical and that made that a lot of fun. There's a lot of challenges to overcome, but luckily we had a man like Tom to lead the way.”
Cruise, as he often does, insisted on doing his own stunts -- therefore audiences get that incredible sequence in Dubai. Although he appears quite serious during those scenes, Renner tells us that Cruise was having the time of his life. “He was smiling ear to ear between takes,” the actor said.
Meanwhile, inside the room from which Cruise was propelling to and from, Renner, Simon Pegg and Paula Patton were content to admire the view. “We just had to sit inside and sip on some tea,” Renner said and laughed. Cruise’s co-stars knew that the franchise’s star was more than equipped for the dangerous stunt. “He has a lot of mountain climbing experience and one of the stunt guys behind him was one of the top mountain climbers, so being on a wire, he was as comfortable as hanging on a rock. That's strange enough in itself. But hanging off a building like that? Maybe it's not new to him. Maybe it is, but he certainly was enjoying himself [laughs].”
Renner portrays Will Brandt, the chief analyst for the secretary (Tom Wilkinson) who is the head of the IMF. After a bombing of the Kremlin, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and his team are accused of plotting the explosion and the gang most go off the grid. “We become rogue agents essentially and hence 'ghost protocol.' We are thrust together to overcome great obstacles and within that dynamic of the four agents you realize that not everybody is who they say they are or who they appear to be,” Renner said. “It's a spy franchise and you never know with spies -- if they are good, bad or where their allegiances lie. That's the case in this movie.”
Renner is having quite a run, one that began with his Oscar-nominated turn in The Hurt Locker. He soon will be seen as Hawkeye in The Avengers May 4 and taking over the Bourne franchise from Matt Damon in Bourne Legacy, due in August. “It's amazing. There have been a lot of wonderful opportunities I have seemingly stumbled across with Mission being the first big monster out of the gate. I enjoyed the heck out of that and ever since then it has been more action movies after that. Who knows what the future holds?” Renner said. “The Hurt Locker definitely changed everything for me. I'm getting opportunities now that are just amazing -- roles that I could only dream about and big, huge films like Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.”
