Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Star Pom Klementieff Says Tom Cruise Refused To Kick Her in the Stomach

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is being released in theaters next month, and it will feature the return of Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in addition to some other fan-favorite franchise stars as well as a couple of exciting newcomers. One such Mission: Impossible first-timer is Pom Klementieff, who is best known for playing Mantis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When it comes to the Mission films, Cruise is known for doing his own stunts, but there’s one thing he refused to do while making Dead Reckoning Part One. According to Klementieff, she encouraged Cruise to kick her in the stomach during a fight scene, but the actor would not do it.

“I kept telling him to just kick me here,” Klementieff told Entertainment Weekly while reportedly gesturing to her midsection. “[I said], ‘You can just go for it.’ He was like ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ I was like, ‘But it’s going to help me!’ But he wouldn’t do it.”

Pom Klementieff On Playing a Villain: 

A villainous role is new territory for Klementieff, but it sounds like she had a blast creating her character, Paris. While speaking to ComicBook.com’s Brandon Davis, Klementieff opened up about how she crafted her character. 

“So much fun. I had so much fun creating the character,” she said. “And what is fun also is that the character was not written at all on paper. What Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise do is they cast the actor and then build the character around the actor’s abilities and all the conversations that we have. So it was just nothing at first, and it became just all these things that we added and I came up with. You know, different ideas. The makeup that the character wears in Venice, with the white and the teardrop. I thought it would be fun to wear, to draw a mask on my face instead of wearing one, because at some point other characters were supposed to wear a mask. And I thought, ‘You know, she’s a rebel.’ She doesn’t really care. So I thought she would wear something that is a little bit strange just to make fun of the whole thing.”

“I thought it’d be funny because it’s a little bit sad, melancholic, but she would look like a thug,” Klementieff continued. “And then with a sweat, with a fight, it would all just drip down. And then I look like a monster at some point. It was so many little ideas and they’re so down for that, you know? They’re like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s great. And what about this? And what about this?’ So it was such a collaborative process.”

What Is Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One About?

Tom Cruise is back as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which premieres in theaters on July 12th. It’s the beginning of the end for the action-packed franchise, as Cruise reteams with longtime collaborator and filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie for more death-defying and breathtaking stunts. Hunt and allies Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) attempt to track down a new weapon with the power to tear the world apart. Actors Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, and Esai Morales join the cast for the latest installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise, which is set to wrap up with Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two.