Read the Full StoryHow did the shoot for M:I 5 go? Could you ever have pictured yourself as an action star?
PEGG: No! It was great fun! It’s funny to see [the trailer] because we only just wrapped two weeks ago. There’s a hell of a lot that’s not in the trailer. You’re never gonna go into a film with Tom Cruise and it’s not going to be fun. He is such an inspirational character. He cares so much about the product. He obsesses about the audience having a truly cinematic experience, so he will do all that stuff. And I was in that plane, when he took of and was on the side. I was in the cockpit, actually, but I did go back and watch the monitor. He did that. In an age where you can do anything with CG, and people just go, “Okay,” people have an abstract idea of CG. When you see something that makes you go, “How did they do that?!,” it’s a rare occasion, these days. Tom has been at the forefront of making sure people still ask that question, by scaling the Burj Khalifa, which he did, and by hanging onto the side of an A-400, which he did. Of course, there were safety precautions, but he did it. It was extraordinary to see him do that. There’s stuff he does in the movie that is as committed and as nuts and as exciting as hanging off of a plane that you don’t see in the trailer.
Does seeing Tom Cruise do such death-defying stunts make you want to step up, or do you want to just leave all of that to him?
PEGG: You have to step up around him because otherwise you just get left behind. The car chase that you glimpse in the trailer, we shot in Casablanca and Rabat, and it was only ever me and Tom in the car. It was never stunt people. A lot of the chase is on us. It cuts to the exterior, but a lot of the time, it’s just us. He did all of the driving, so I was happy to allow him to do that. They asked me sometimes, “Do you want a double in the car?,” but I was like, “No, I want to be in there.” And it wounded up being a way between me and up, with the seat heating in the car. Casablanca was really hot. Whenever I wasn’t looking, he’d switch on the seat heaters and I’d start getting a bit hot. I realized what he was doing, and it became this war. In the midst of this crazy car chase, where he was driving around these little alleyways, whenever he’d turn the corner, I’d switch his heater on. It was a very silly day.
