Henry Cavill's Mission: Impossible character change

22 November 2018

Henry Cavill's 'Mission: Impossible - Fallout' character didn't start off as a "formidable opponent".

Henry Cavill

The 35-year-old actor stars as villain August Walker in the sixth instalment of the popular spy film franchise - which stars Tom Cruise as protagonist Ethan Hunt, and was released over the summer - and has said his character began life as just a "thorn in the side" of Ethan, but became much more fleshed out when director and writer Christopher McQuarrie made some changes in the middle of shooting.

When asked by CinemaBlend.com what the biggest changes made to his character were, he said: "The biggest change I would say was the threat level of Walker. He began as more of a thorn in the side of Hunt and ultimately became a formidable opponent with a driving story by the time McQ was done with him."

His comments come after director Christopher recently praised him as "the man" for having a can-do attitude on the movie's set.

He said: "Henry is the man. He's really ... and more so, he would come to work every day and find out that whatever his character was the day before was not that character anymore.

"'Ah, we rethought that, it didn't work, it's a whole other thing,' and Henry would say, 'Well, can I do this? Yeah? Can I do that? Yeah? Okay.' And then he would just go off to work, and he'd never complain."

Christopher also hailed Henry as the "unsung hero" of a dramatic helicopter sequence in the movie, which was shot in the winter in New Zealand.

He said: "You know, when they say everything Fred Astaire did, Ginger Rogers did backwards and in high heels, everything Tom Cruise is doing, Henry is doing backwards with the doors open in sub-zero temperatures. Freezing his eyeballs."

Mission Impossible: Fallout is available now on Digital Download and on Blu-ray and DVD on December 3.