Undoubtedly one of the best films of 2018 is Mission: Impossible – Fallout. It’s an action masterpiece, plain and simple, but also one of the best (if not the best) Mission: Impossible films yet. Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise took an epic approach to their Rogue Nation follow-up, but also married that with an intensely intimate character focus. The result is an astounding and compelling film from start to finish.

And one of the highlights of this incredible movie is Henry Cavill’s performance as Walker. The character is a bit of an enigma when he’s first introduced, performing insane stunts right alongside Cruise, all the while you’re not exactly sure how it’s all going to play out in the end. This was by both design and necessity, as McQuarrie has been upfront about the fact that the Walker character evolved significantly during production. The end result is one of the franchise’s most intimidating and memorable characters.

In concert with the Blu-ray and DVD release of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Collider recently got the chance to take part in a short email interview with Cavill about his work on the film. The actor was gracious enough to discuss what made the filming experience with McQuarrie unique and how they went about shooting that iconic bathroom fight sequence.

Check out the full (but admittedly brief) interview below, and for much more on the film click here for our exclusive in-depth interviews with McQuarrie. Mission: Impossible – Fallout is now available on Digital HD, Blu-ray, and DVD.

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Christopher McQuarrie has said that your character evolved during filming. How much did Walker change from when you first signed on to what we see onscreen, and how did you guys know when you'd hit upon the "right" version of the character?

HENRY CAVILL: It's difficult for me to quantify how much the character changed, aside from saying "a lot". The whole process was an evolution and an improvement upon yesterday's work. That was one of my favourite things about working with McQ. The script was very much alive and he was constantly, day and night, improving every aspect of it.

Were any alternate endings or fates considered for Walker?

CAVILL: I'm sure they were considered! But the joy of it being a Mission: Impossible movie is, that there is always a way for something other than what was assumed to have happened, to happen. One just has to look carefully and you'll see.

What was the process of training for, preparing, and shooting the bathroom sequence, which is now an all-timer action scene?

CAVILL: Wade Eastwood and his team (Eastwood Action Stunts) put the fight together over the course of shooting early in the movie. Tom and I had slightly different schedules so we worked with each other's respective doubles for training purposes and then with Liang Yang directly as well because he was actually the guy who would be giving us a hiding! We trained and got the fight choreography and the various stunts drilled into our muscle memory during any moments that we could get away from the shooting schedule.

Overall the bathroom fight took 4 weeks to shoot, which, for a scene as intense as that, definitely felt uncomfortably long.

Best memory was when Tom and I finally confessed to each other how much pain we were in. Pretty sure that was the very last day of shooting the fight!

You've worked on some massive movies, but how did the making of Mission: Impossible - Fallout differ from your previous experiences?

CAVILL: Well, there were the numerous near death experiences that gave this one a bit more tickle than the others.

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Image via Paramount Pictures
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Image via Paramount Pictures
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Image via Paramount Pictures