Hannah Waddingham Flew Onto the ‘Mission: Impossible 8’ Set Where Tom Cruise and 4,500 Active Military Members Were Waiting For Her: ‘It Was Insane!’

Hannah Waddingham Flew Onto the ‘Mission: Impossible 8’ Set Where Tom Cruise and 4,500 Active Military Members Were Waiting For Her: ‘It Was Insane!’

Hannah Waddingham revealed during the official Golden Globes pre-show presented by Variety and Entertainment Tonight that she was accompanied by 4,500 active members of the military when she first flew onto the set of the upcoming “Mission: Impossible 8.”  It was announced last March that the “Ted Lasso” Emmy winner was joining Cruise and the “Mission: Impossible” gang in the highly-anticipated eighth installment of the action series. Waddingham’s role in the film is not yet known.

“He’s lovely and fabulous to work for and that’s it,” Waddingham said about working with Tom Cruise. “We arrived on an Ossprey on the moving [USS George H.W. Bush fighter carrier] with 4,500 serving men and woman in the hull. It was insane! It’s a proper, ridiculous pinch me job. Him and Christopher McQuarrie are total dreamboats.”

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Waddingham previously said on the Christmas episode of ITV’s “James Martin’s Saturday Morning” that she spent five days on the USS George H.W. Bush filming scenes for “Mission: Impossible 8.” She revealed she still has “another kind of main scene” to shoot with Cruise once production restarts now that the Hollywood strikes are over.

“I have to say, I have a real problem with anybody that goes at [Tom Cruise] now,” Waddingham added at the time. “Having met him and having spent five days intensely…He is without doubt one of the loveliest and encouraging, positive and inspiring human beings I have ever met. Isn’t he gorgeous? I have no time for anyone saying anything about him.”

While “Mission: Impossible 8” was supposed to open in theaters on June 28, 2024, Paramount Pictures recently delayed the film by nearly a year to May 23, 2025, due to strike-related production delays. The most recent recent “Mission: Impossible” film, “Dead Reckoning Part One,” opened in theaters last year to positive reviews but fell short of box office expectations with $567 million globally.

Before Waddingham stars in “Mission: Impossible 8,” she’ll appear opposite Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt in the action comedy “The Fall Guy,” opening May 3 from Universal Pictures.

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