Henry Cavill’s career in Hollywood is one that has already been filled with some iconic moments for film and TV fans. His time as Superman in the DCEU on the big screen has been huge for some, while bringing the world of has had its fair share of noteworthy moments. Perhaps the biggest of his career though, and one that is still talked about, is the one second clip from Mission: Impossible – Fallout where his character August Walker prepares himself for a fist fight by seemingly reloading both of his arms. It quickly became a meme even before the movie was released and now we know its secret origins.
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Speaking at a live taping of Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast during a benefit for The 92nd Street Y in New York, Cavill was asked about the moment, teasing: “I’ve seen so many conversations about this on Reddit.” The host then asked if this moment was something he came up with on the fly or of it was written in the film’s script as “he reloads his arms.” As Henry reveals, it was all him, and director Christopher McQuarrie loved it after he saw it.
“There was nothing like that (in the script),” Cavill teased. “It was a rather intense fight scene. We’d actually been shooting it for about three weeks at that stage, which is a long time in comparison to things like The Witcher, where you get a day. Everything starts to get quite sore after a while because it’s just a lot of repetitive motion, and the connective tendons in my biceps were getting sore so I had to warm them up before I threw punches. I would literally do that to warm them up. And I did it once and I thought, ‘Oh god that probably looked really stupid, I can’t believe I did that.’ I said ‘Sorry McQ, I won’t do that again,’ and he’s like ‘Do what? Okay whatever, let’s go again.’ Then I did another take without doing it and he’s like ‘Why didn’t you do…that thing? That was really good.’ And I was like ‘That was GOOD?’ And he said ‘Yes, definitely do that.’ And so we did.”
Cavill had further high praise for McQuarrie and his Mission: Impossible co-star Tom Cruise, teasing that he hoped he could work with both of them again some day. As for now, and his iconic arm reloading, you can watch it over on Paramount+ along with all the other Mission: Impossible movies.
