Introducing July Starring Hayley Atwell

Hayley was photographed by Pip in London. She was styled by Caterina Ospina and is wearing Giorgio Armani. Hair by Dayaruci and makeup by Jenny Coombs. Interview by Alison Engstrom.

It’s so great to meet you hayley! I’d love to tap into how you work creatively. As an artist myself, I find it important for my CREATIVITY to stay curious about everything. I’d love to hear how curiosity played a role and led you to where you are now. 

The feeling for me over the course of my career, in terms of cultivating a sense of curiosity, is that it results in variety. I have done a lot of theater, TV adaptations of novels, period dramas, radio plays, audiobooks, franchise films, and independent films. I think that’s where my natural curiosity has taken me. As an actor, you can’t control if you get the part, and how it’s edited, or received. What you can participate in is the collaboration with people. I have always been driven by a person or a group of people–the writer, director, the ensemble–where I feel I instinctively lean forward into it. It can also involve a person I admire or a project that I can contribute, learn from, and expand my mind. It can also be about the diverse ways in which we tell stories, how we are tapping into the current zeitgeist, or something more universal about the human condition that transcends all cultures and time. It comes from being a child and being very much a searcher. I’ve always participated, engaged, and moved toward the work rather than have the work come to me and be a version of me. It’s about stepping out of my comfort zone and my own understanding of a character, place, or arc of a story, and how I am going to stretch and expand myself into it. 

above Hayley is wearing a full look by Tod’s.

So are you someone who thrives on feeling a bit uncomfortable because you know it can take you somewhere great? 

Well, that’s it, right? It’s a different type of fear. There is some fear that’s appropriate because it’s a mechanism within our body. Fear can also be designed to go, this is telling me I shouldn’t do this.

above Hayley is wearing a full look by Stella McCartney; heels by By Far.

completely, I think that’s gut, too.

Exactly, fear is such a useful emotion if we have a good relationship with it and an understanding of our fears. The internal dial I have in any creative process whenever a fear comes up is to go: what am I fearful of? Is it the unknown or I don’t know if I can do this? Or, could it be wanting an audience to like it as opposed to using my fear to create something new and relinquish control of how it will be perceived. I think as time goes by, we have a deeper understanding of what our fear is and what it’s telling us, and how we can use it to propel us forward to something that is actually more exciting than it is fearful. 

I love that, reframing it is key. 

Exactly, there have been times when my fear has been really useful and helped me think, I am fearful of this job, this choice, or this situation, and that’s alright. Whether we need it for self-preservation or we realize it’s not in alignment with our values, or it might steer us in a direction that doesn’t feel life-affirming to step into. It’s about finding that sweet spot of what is making you tick and if that is based on fear or an excitement to try new things.  

above Hayley wears a blazer by Blaize Caprice; dress by Temperley London.

They say anxiety and EXCITEment are close on the emotional scale anyways, sometimes it can be hard to decipher.

Doing Mission created adrenaline in the body with all the stunts and high stakes. I wouldn’t say it was anxiety. In my experience, anxiety is this free-floating sense of worry that I have been displaced or it’s stemmed from a past bad experience. Anxiety is the feeling of cortisol running through my body that I don’t know what to do with. It’s not a creative or great place to be. I think there is a disconnect between excitement, which feels like I am getting nerves that are creating adrenaline in my body because I am about to do something. Can I get away with it or achieve it; is it exciting to watch and be a part of? That is easier over time through experience to recognize that it’s that sort of feeling of nervousness. 

now to chat about your career so far, If you could pinpoint one moment that shifted everything, what would it be?

I think there have been specific moments in my jobs. For me, the idea of success isn’t based on when I get ‘there’, I will feel success because sometimes you don’t. You’ll think, I was supposed to feel something here, but it either just feels normal or not as fun as I thought it would be.

When I look back on examples there’s stepping onto the stage of the Olivier Theater at the age of 24 and playing Major Barbara in Major Barbara with Sir Simon Russell Beale, directed by Nicholas Hytner. I walked into that amphitheater without a mic because back then, no one was mic'd. You had to use your voice as an instrument. It felt like I met the training I had done with my ambition in one place and I was able to see if I managed to combine the two. Theater is very confronting because you are very much in tune if something is or isn’t landing with your audience. You can work it out and change something to get them back. When you get that sense that the audience is with you, and engaged in the story, it’s the most amazing feeling. It’s the creative connection that is happening. I probably felt that more acutely on stage because it’s immediate as opposed to doing a film. You can do a scene with someone and it can feel great but the after-effects happen after a whole process of editing. There might be feedback from an audience or more of an interest in a public persona that can feel like it isn’t linear. It could be a Tuesday afternoon but everyone is responding to what I did two years ago. It’s a different kind of feeling. 

One thing that was so endearing was with Tom Cruise. We were filming in a car in Rome and we were doing some stunts. Loads of people were there to say hi and he was saying hi to all of the fans. I looked at him and I had a pinch-me moment. I said, “Oh my god, I am in a Tom Cruise movie! And you are Tom Cruise!” He looked at me and said, “No, I am in a Hayley Atwell movie!”. He’s an example of someone who works at such an extraordinary global level. He has done stunts for 40 years and he wears it internally with a real sense of ease. He is doing exactly what he was built for.  At the same time, he isn’t buckled under the pressure of the audience. He revels in it.

That must have been a total pinch-me moment.

There was a turning point working with Tom where I was working in what seemed to be high stakes—because of the size and scale of the film within a studio system, within a franchise—and yet I felt a complete sense of calm in what I was doing. That for me felt like a real personal triumph; I went, I made it.  I’m still here with my full self intact and I can enjoy it. 

That’s amazing and so important, actually enjoying all you have worked for, because if you don’t it’s almost lost.

Absolutely, it can be a strange place to be in psychologically. If you have the world going, you are a success, and you go, I might define success in a different way or what does that even mean? It’s an abstract idea for the most part about the idea of what fame actually is. So for me, the feeling of success is coming from moments when there has been a lot of frenetic energy or excitement and I can retain my sense of calm and focus about the job I am doing and be able to wear it lightly. That is the mark that I have succeeded in an industry and within a culture that could so easily spin one into a sense of confusion or overwhelm.

Being grounded, that’s key. Are you big into meditation? 

I wouldn’t necessarily say I meditate, but I find when I am about to go on stage, do a stunt, or press, I take a moment to breathe to connect with myself and what my job is at that exact moment. It settles the nerves and it keeps me having an alertness. It comes from a lot of my drama school training, which was about how to control your breath. It’s voice work but also physical work with the actor’s body starting in a place of neutrality, then you adopt the characteristics of your character. At my drama school, it was about returning to your center self and knowing that as human beings, without doing anything, we are inherently interested and interesting. So I find that place before I do anything, especially meeting new people, it keeps me present. It sounds so esoteric.

neutrality, I love that! Now to talk about ‘Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One’, congratulations! It’s not your first time joining a mega-Franchise, since you also played a part in the marvel universe. How would you describe joining this popular franchise?

What is exciting about my role in the film is that it has been strategically kept enigmatic from the press and the trailer so far. There is a smart reason for that in part because you don’t want an audience to be like, where is so and so, you have to earn that from them.

I did the Marvel film 12 years ago, it was in its second chapter, and now it has huge stratospheric success. I approached that audition as I would anything. I had worked for a couple of years but mostly in theater, some TV jobs, and independent films. Stepping into that world was like oh, this is just bigger but my work ethic was going to be the same. I needed to be truthful in that moment and work with what I had. The people who run Marvel are wonderful and it set me up so when I came into Mission, I understood the size of working in a studio. I also understood the size of the beloved franchise existing for an audience so I knew what the tone was going in. When I got the call to do a chemistry read with Tom and to discuss what their ambitions were for the film they said, we haven’t written a character yet and have someone who fits that. They wanted to find the actor they wanted to work with and then from that build the character with them over time.

By the time I came into the franchise, not only was I doing the physical training to work out what my natural skills were and what stunts I could do competently. Tom, McQ (Christopher McQuarrie, the director), and I were also watching a lot of movies together. We had a lot of dinners where we were telling each other funny stories and anecdotes. They were listening to my speech patterns and where my natural comedy lay. They were looking at my natural qualities and seeing what the camera picked up on me. We all worked together to see who Grace was and how she fit into this already established franchise, but also, how she could offer something new. They wanted me to elevate her beyond one archetype—she’s not the femme fatale, the ice queen, or the maiden in distress. So I would try takes in so many different ways. I’d throw a ton of ideas out knowing they wouldn’t use something that didn’t work. I was free to make mistakes because I couldn’t fail, they were going to keep me safe.

That’s so liberating. 

Right! So when people ask about my character, I don’t know (laughs) because on any given day she was doing different things. What she became was consistently inconsistent and the chemistry that was generated between Tom and I was naturally cat and mouse. He can’t pin her down to convince her to be on his side and she’s not sure if she should trust him and not this other person. I’m not an agent but in terms of the quality, I am an agent of chaos. It’s finding the ways we could have a What’s Up, Doc, Thomas Crown Affair, The Sting–all those really fun 70s heist movies—and how we could create the character with a lightness of touch that hadn’t been seen before with female roles, particularly, with Mission. It also changes the tone of it a little bit, it has more comedic elements this time around.

It’s so cool to hear that such a huge studio project comes together like that. 

Tom and McQ work with such symbiosis. They have this working friendship and sometimes it’s like one mind coming together. 

How do you want people to feel when they leave the theater? 

The thing about these films is that you are on the edge of your seat the entire time. It’s a visual spectacle of action but it’s also driven by the characters. What I have loved about playing Grace is she finds herself in this world thinking, I have no idea what I have gotten myself into. So in a way, it’s like the audience is in a Mission Impossible film. She’s like an audience member–I am not as skilled as Tom, but I am going to give it a go (laughs). 

i’m sure you can’t say but i’m curious if there is a cliffhanger at the end since there are two parts? 

They know how to deliver what the audience wants. People are going to see it and go, oh, that was such a great, fun ride but they won’t feel punished. At the core of these films, it’s about friendship, the power of a team, and sacrificing yourself for the group. There are moments of levity and then there are moments of real poignancy. It’s going to blow people’s minds for those who already know Mission. It’s gotten bigger and better and that was their intention setting out. I think they have achieved it.

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‘Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One’ is in theaters july 12th

A special thank you to this team and Narrative PR.