| By Fred Topel
In Stores Theaters May 5
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Besides Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames is the only actor to appear in all three Mission: Impossible films. In the first two, Rhames was happy to sit in the van monitoring Ethan Hunt’s dangerous stunts. Now that he’s had a taste of a bigger role in Mission: Impossible III, he won’t go back to the sidelines.
“First of all, it's closer to the television series,” Rhames said. “I quote J.J. Abrams, ‘Lookm when you have Ving Rhames, use him.’ What we see in this one is that it's a little more team-oriented, a little more ensemble-oriented. Of course, Tom's the lead but I think we took full use of the skills of the other members of the team. What J.J. Abrams brought to it as a television director, is a freshness and enthusiasm for it and it has more of an ensemble feel. With his television background with Lost and Alias, of course there's always some lead character, but you get to know the lead character by the way the other characters react to him, and I think we captured that in Mission III.”
It helps that Rhames and Cruise have developed their own rapport over the previous two films. When called upon to display it in the third, they just unleashed the natural chemistry. “You get to see more of that in this film. As a matter of fact, the conversations we have in this one, it could be two friends at a bar having these conversations. We have them in the middle of a dangerous situation, but this is truer to how men and friends relate to one another. Through that you learn more about who Ethan is. You learn more about his past, his present with the love interest story line. The audience will invest more in his character because you know more about his personal life as opposed to the other two. It dealt more with Ethan as the Impossible Mission Force leader. Rarely did you get to see him in a situation outside of action hero.”
Rhames’ character, Luther Stickell, still provides the comic relief n Mission: Impossible III, but that just comes naturally to Rhames. “I try to play the truth of the moment, the situation. Nine times out of ten, when you're watching the film, I'm not trying to be funny. I try to be as honest. More than anything, I'm more of the straight man. I've been amused by the audience response to my character and his relationship to Ethan. I've been taught to play the truth of the situation, and if comedy comes out of that or drama, whatever comes out, at least I'm playing the truth of the moment to moment reality. That's what I try to do as an actor.”
Joined by series newcomers Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Maggie Q, Rhames felt the new IMF crew benefited the latest Mission. “Having the new actors come along, I think they added something we didn't have in the first two. One, is women who could do stunts very well and play action well. We didn't have that in the first one. With Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, we have a very talented young actor who has won a Golden Globe. On the first day of filming, we filmed on the Tiber River. We spent 12 hours of Tom's character driving us on the speed boat up and down the river, so we got a chance to bond, and for Tom and I to get to know the other two actors. In that case it was Maggie and Jonathan. I really think we were fortunate that the new members we brought on, we all get along.”
Shooting all over the world, from Rome to Shanghai was almost like a paid vacation for Rhames. “I only worked one or two days in Rome and I was there about 10. We did the whole historic sites and what have you. A lot of nice restaurants. In Shanghai, because of the Olympics, it’s going through a lot of building. It was a little more hectic because there was construction all over the place. We got to see all of the historical sites there. Every place I go, I always try to get a sense of the culture and the architecture of the buildings and what have you. It was quite enjoyable.”
That’s not to say it was all easy. Sometimes foreign locations can be physically demanding on the actor’s body clock. “Maybe Shanghai [was a challenge], because we were filming at 5 a.m. and it was cold. There's quite a bit of smog in Shanghai. I flew in and got in at 10 p.m. and had to be on set at 4 or 5 a.m. That was the most challenging for me.”
Still, Cruise does the heavy lifting stunt-wise. Rhames just gets to watch the show. “When Tom jumps off that 100 story building, I was on the roof with him, and he did it anywhere between 6-10 times. I was pretty amazed that he wanted to do it even more. That, to me, just watching J.J. shoot that touched me the most. Really, the editing of the whole sequence at the Vatican is probably my favorite.”
Such stunts gave Rhames mixed feelings, because it’s never all fun and games. “With Tom jumping off the roof I was a little more nervous than the others. It brought up feelings of, people don't like to talk about this, but what happens if a stunt goes wrong. Maybe the first time or second or third time, but the more you do a stunt, the more you risk something happening. The great thing was a stunt guy, the whole team, were excellent. We were very fortunate that nothing went wrong. People don't realize there is that possibility. Something could happen.”
With filming safely completed, Rhames could comfortably assert that the film’s stunts combined with its characters make it a successful Mission. “I'll sum it up by saying this. I don't want to use the word best, but I think this stands out over and above the other two, given that it's a human story with tons of action. The other ones, I think the action may have come before the story.”
Mission: Impossible III opens May 5. |
