(grunts) (thuds)

- They lost their (bleep) the end of the movie, for sure.

- I'm so glad, I'm so pleased to hear people responding

to the third act of the movie.

- That's what I wanted to talk with you about.

If I'm the Bond producers I'm watching that

third act, I'm going "This (bleep) just topped us."

(laughs)

Can you talk about, like I felt like I was watching

a Star Wars movie, in that, not to impose a Twitter (bleep)

in that inner cutting across like three spheres of action

the way Star Wars does.

And, I was just wondering like how did you lock in on that?

Was that from like early concept thing?

- Early concept was you had all of these characters

and I had to give them all their things to do.

So, the entire third act, I knew what Tom was going

to be doing.

He was going to be flying in this helicopter.

But, that his flying in a helicopter didn't mean

anything if it didn't have some immediate impact

on things that were happening on the ground.

And, the whole movie became about how do I engineer

a sequence where the team all has things to do

and if any one member of that team was removed

it all would have gone to seed.

And, even then I only had the vaguest sense of it

going into that village days before we shot it.

- Like, that sequence just in it with the IMAX scope to it

like is that, on an Empire podcast you said last year

that you showed Tom a picture of something

and he said, "I can't wait to fall off that."

Was that the helicopter?

- That was Pulpit Rock.

- [Phil] Oh that (bleep) rock.

- We had figured out the helicopter sequence

and we knew that it was going to end on a cliff somewhere.

But, we couldn't find a cliff like that anywhere

in New Zealand.

New Zealand everything was sloping downward.

And, I kept saying to the location guy, "not something

"he can fall down.

"It needs to be something he can fall off."

And, he brought me that picture and when I brought it

to Tom he was like, "That's it."

And, the trick became how to create the helicopter

sequence so that it would end on that mountain

with both of those characters together.

And, that really was the big challenge of that sequence.

- And, I love that, I mean I think if that sequence

has any theme it's like subverting expectation.

'Cause you're sitting there and you're like

Ethan's going to get out of the helicopter

before it hits him.

No it (bleep) isn't.

(laughs)

I was like he's not going to crash.

He's going to crash and the helicopter,

like was that something like, 'cause I know these movies

they don't exactly stop on dime.

So, is that something that you're coming up with

like leading up to the shoot?

Was that there in the original outline?

- It really became, it became the demands of

we wanna have this confrontation between

these two characters.

And, we wanna have this helicopter chase between

these two characters.

And, Benji when he asked that question saying,

"If he's in another helicopter how are you gonna get it?"

That was our question.

And so, a lot of what you see the team going through,

that's why when I introduced the film last night

I said, "Watching a Mission Impossible movie,

"the experience of watching it is very much like

"the experience of making it."

A lot of times we put together these sequences

not knowing how we're gonna solve these problems.

And, it's always just about doing it in a way

that just feels real enough 'cause they're so outrageous.

- Right, and what I like that question, another question

that's asked in the film addition to how the hell

are we going to do this?

We'll figure it out.

Is not a question but I love that Ethan says

throughout the movie, "I'm so sorry."

Like, six movies in we have not seen him

express the emotional toll this has.

And, was that a conscious effort from you?

- From the very beginning, when Tom asked me to come back

to do another one

I said, "But a new director has come on for every one,

"and that's the precedent."

And he said, "Precedents are made to be broken."

I said, "All right, well I'll come back but I wanna

"maintain that aesthetic.

"I want it to feel like a different director.

"And, I wanna make a very different movie

"from Rogue Nation."

Rogue Nation tipped its hat to Ghost Protocol.

And, Ghost Protocol wasn't broke and we didn't try

to fix it.

I said, I don't think we can do that three times in a row.

It's gonna become kind of cute.

And so, I wanna do something more emotional.

And, I never really even allowed inside Ethan's head

and I want this movie to do that.

So, what do you wanna do?

And he said, "Well, I wanna tie up the story with Julia.

"Everybody keeps asking me wherever I go

"they're asking me what about Julia?"

We thought we had tied it up in Ghost Protocol.

So, I said, "Okay, we can do that but you gotta do it

"in a way that it's not gonna end up on

"the cutting room floor.

"And, I need to reintroduce that character.

"You can't assume that people have seen

"every other Mission Impossible."

So, I pitched him the opening of the movie which is

the opening you saw.

And, that was the very first scene we came up with.

- The dream sequence?

- Yes, and that from that moment on

we were in different territory.

We were starting an action movie in way

action movies don't begin.

Not because we were saying, "Oh, let's be different."

It was simply well, what would the story require.

And, everything that's you're seeing in the movie

that feels subversive is just us following the story

where the story wanted to go.

- As a huge fan of three I love that you guys

wrap up Julia.

I thought it was such a ballsy move to open with

a dream sequence. - Thank you.

- Is that, not to be a Mission nerd or anything

but is that supposed to be Lake Wanaka where they

got married in three?

Or, it can be now.

- Well, that's just it it's we actually to get

to that location took off from Lake Wanaka.

- [Phil] Oh nice, awesome.

- We were in New Zealand and it all sort of came home.

We didn't make any conscious effort to do that

but when we found that location, that's a place

called Millford Sound, which is actually quite beautiful.

We had one hour to shoot that scene.

- Holy (bleep) nicely done.

- Thank you very much.

- In terms of your visual approach, I know you said

that was important to you to be distinct

and the movie it feels like if Gordon Willis had

like a three way with Three Days at the Condor

and Michael Mann.

I'm watching this movie I'm going, "I think this is

"your best directed, - Wow.

- "Visually," - Thank you.

- And two sequences that really like felt

very Paccouli to me was the funeral beat which,

I don't know how you guys away with keeping that in there

for such a, it's such a small beat in such a big movie

you'd think that would be the first thing cut.

And, I also love the one=er where Ethan is imagining

the first heist with-- - Yes.

- Can you think about how you pulled those two scenes off?

- Thank you, first of all you're speaking my language

when you say Gordon Willis you are talking about

the cornerstone of everything I think cinematography is.

- I mean, you've got two eyes and a heart so.

- But, what I realized about people ask me

"Who's your favorite director?"

And, I say Gordon Willis.

Gordon Willis has such a distinct impact over

so many movies with so many different directors

from Woody Allen, to Francis Ford Coppola,

to Alan Ber-coola.

He's a distinctly powerful

filmmaker in his own right.

And, the sequence you're talking about, that one-er

when I was pitching to Tom the breakout

the rule of every Mission Impossible is you have to show

how something is supposed to happen before

you show how it all goes wrong.

And he said, when we're describing this sequence

I wanna see what they plan to happen.

And, I said, I'm gonna take that a step further

and I'm not gonna let you know it.

And then, I designed as something that was going to be,

there was going to MOS.

It was gonna be shot without sound.

I knew from the very beginning it was going to have music.

I never considered for a moment using that particular

cue which is the same music playing over the wedding

at the beginning of the movie.

- [Phil] Oh, nice I didn't catch that.

- And, that piece was written by Loren Blafe

before we ever started shooting the film.

And as I started, and I don't cut with temp music.

I edit the entire movie together before I ever put music in.

And, as a result you had the freedom to drop

this piece of music throughout the movie

and it worked in scene after scene after scene.

And, it became sort of a theme for Ethan's regret,

all of his emotional baggage that he's carrying with him.

And, that became more or less the theme of the film.

- That's awesome, and can you talk about

the little funeral beat, how you guys came up with that?

- The Saint Paul's? - Yeah.

- Yes, well it was originally going to be a wedding.

And, we had talked about a wedding

and talked about a funeral.

Somebody said the funeral was going to be too heavy,

it was going to be a little bit depressing.

And, I said, "Great, then it's going to be more

"inappropriate and that'll be funnier."

But, the shot that reveals the coffin, where Ethan's

walking through, it's all done in a one-er.

That was just coverage.

We didn't think that that's how the shot

was going to pay.

And, it wasn't until I saw it on the monitor

and realized, this is actually funny all by itself.

And, I changed the entire way we shot the scene.

The real impetus of all of that

was we started on the roof where Ethan runs along and jumps

from one building to another, where he ultimately

broke his foot.

And, we were there and we saw Black Friar's Bridge.

We saw the Tate Modern, we could see Saint Paul's

and it became very clear to us that all of these pieces

within this geography were great for

the set piece itself.

So, we didn't even think of Saint Paul's until

after we picked the roof.

And then, it became the question of how do I

get him onto the roof of Saint Paul's.

And originally, we had a meeting that was gonna happen

up inside, it was way too complicated.

And, the simplest solution became I'm gonna force him

up those stairs.

And, how do I funnel Ethan into that place?

And, all of the choreography, everything you're seeing