Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One adds a familiar face from the very first movie

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One's cast gets bigger. It's now been confirmed that actor Rolf Saxon is on board, too.

If you're not familiar with the name, bear in mind that he played the small but pivotal role of William Donloe way back in the original 1996 Mission: Impossible movie. Donloe was the CIA analyst who featured during the movie's famous aerial break-in sequence, which saw Cruise's IMF agent Ethan Hunt dangling perilously over a motion-sensitive floor.

In the course of that sequence, Donloe was played like the proverbial violin as Hunt and his team escaped with the all-important NOC list. Donloe's punishment: re-assignment to a remote sub-station in Alaska. Dead Reckoning Part One's writer-director Christopher McQuarrie confirmed Saxon's return via Instagram, establishing another vital link between this particular movie and the origins of the big-screen franchise.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Christopher McQuarrie (@christophermcquarrie)

 

Saxon joins fellow Mission: Impossible alumnus Henry Czerny in Dead Reckoning Part One. The latter reprises his role as the slippery IMF section chief Eugene Kittridge who verbally sparred with Hunt before our hero escaped via means of an exploding fish tank.

 

We're yet to discover how Donloe and Kittridge will play a part in the gargantuan world of Dead Reckoning Part One. Ever since the inception of the series in 1996, things have got bigger and bigger, as exemplified by Tom Cruise's latest jaw-dropper of a stunt: a motorbike free-fall off a cliff that transitions into a base jump.

 

Rolf Saxon and Henry Czerny are flanked by a huge cast of new and familiar faces. The movie also showcases Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Vanessa Kirby, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales, Cary Elwes, Rob Delaney, Angela Bassett and Pom Klementieff.

Of course, the real star of the show is bound to be those sphincter-clenching stunts. McQuarrie and Cruise appear to have truly stepped up their game with car chases through Rome, a fight on top of a moving train in Norway and lots more logistically awesome set pieces.

We'll see if Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One lives up to its potential, and predecessors, when it's released in the UK on July 14th. In the meantime, Dead Reckoning Part Two is already filming with a cast that includes Ted Lasso's Hannah Waddingham. That movie will hit us in 2024.