Why Filming ‘M:I 8’ Changed This Actor’s Opinion of Tom Cruise Forever

After spending a week with Tom Cruise filming Mission: Impossible 8, Ted Lasso star Hannah Waddingham won’t tolerate any criticism of the actor. Waddingham appeared on the Christmas episode of ITV’s James Martin Saturday Morning (via The Independent), where she spoke about working with Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie on the follow-up to last summer’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

“I have to say, I have a real problem with anybody that goes at [Tom Cruise] now,” Waddingham told Martin. “Having met him and having spent five days intensely [filming]…He is, without doubt, one of the loveliest and [most] encouraging, positive, and inspiring human beings I have ever met,” she gushed. “Isn’t he gorgeous? I have no time for anyone saying anything [negative] about him.”

Though Waddingham’s character in the sequel has yet to be revealed, she disclosed the plot finds her going “head-to-head” with Cruise. She let a few more details of the production slip during an interview with Sirius XM last week.

Waddingham was flown via helicopter to the shooting location, which happened to be an active fighter jet carrier in the middle of the sea. “[I] met Tom Cruise on the runway, got into an Osprey, and landed onto the George H.W. Bush fighter carrier with 400,000 active servicemen and women,” she recounted. “We landed on it and shot for five days all the exterior stuff I needed to do with him.”

According to Waddingham, the production was surprisingly barebones aboard the tight ship. But this wasn’t an issue for the actor, who grew up on boats alongside her father, who worked with the Thames River Police.

“I know the thing of mucking in, sleeping in a cot bed, climbing up ladders through portholes,” she revealed. “That’s where I’ve grown up, so [Cruise and McQuarrie] were just like, ‘You are up for this!’”

The biggest problem Waddingham encountered on set was Cruise’s charisma, as she often found herself lost in his eyes. “I did actually have to tell Tom to stop doing his Tom Cruise twinkly thing,” she admitted. “I literally said to him, because we’re like head-to-head, ‘Stop doing that twinkly thing!’

“He was like, ‘What?’” Waddingham continued. “And I was like, ‘That thing you do. Stop it! Say your lines to someone else and I’ll just listen to you.’”

Waddingham is the second Mission: Impossible star to praise Cruise in as many weeks. Michelle Monaghan, who plays the actor’s estranged wife in several installments, recently recounted the bizarre experience of making out with Tom Cruise during her honeymoon. Despite that potentially awkward setup, Monaghan voiced nothing but admiration for the actor. “[I had] an amazing shoot with Tom, and I have all the respect for that franchise,” she told Collider.

Mission: Impossible 8 is currently scheduled to hit cinemas in the summer of 2025. It was originally slated for July 2024, but Paramount pushed the film due to production delays caused by last summer’s dueling strikes. Waddingham can next be seen opposite Ryan Gosling in The Fall Guy, in cinemas this May.