After talking to writer-director Christopher McQuarrie about his experience working on Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, it seems as though there was absolutely nothing traditional about how they went about making this film. Whereas one might expect the story to come before the action sequences, the exact opposite happened here. First, McQuarrie and his team isolated the stunts that they wanted to pull off and then they built the narrative around them.

During my one-on-one interview with McQuarrie in Vienna just before the film’s world premiere at the Vienna State Opera, he discussed the stunt that was key to breaking story on Rogue Nation, teased an Easter egg worth keeping an eye (ear?) out for, revealed how much of the underwater sequence is digital and tons more. You can hear about it all in the video interview below. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is due in theaters on July 31st and I've got loads more MI5 content coming your way before the big debut.

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Christopher McQuarrie:

  • McQuarrie on joining the project.
  • Why he didn’t want to write it alone.
  • The stunt that helped him break story.
  • On planning action sequences before locking in the narrative.
  • Does a Mission: Impossible bible exist?
  • McQuarrie on the Easter eggs he hid in Rogue Nation.
  • Making sure the audience cares about Ethan Hunt but can still enjoy the spectacle of Tom Cruise’s next big stunt.
  • How much CG is in the underwater sequence?
  • The use of POV shots in the movie.
  • The geography of the opera sequence; the prep he needs to do for something like that.
  • What was his reaction to the release date shift?

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