“Mission: Impossible ”turns 30! See Tom Cruise and the original cast, then and now

Skyler Trepel, Kevin JacobsenMon, May 18, 2026 at 4:45 PM UTC

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Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt and Emmanuelle Béart as Claire Phelps in 'Mission: Impossible'
Credit: Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Thirty years ago, the Mission: Impossible film franchise was born. Tom Cruise made a strong first impression as Ethan Hunt, an Impossible Missions Force agent who tries to uncover a mole threatening to leak a list of the agency’s undercover agents. Framed for the murder of his teammates, Ethan goes on a daring mission to find the real culprit.

The first Mission: Impossible may be remembered more for its set pieces — like the CIA vault heist and the fight atop a speeding train — but moviegoers also found themselves enthralled by Cruise's commitment to the role and movie itself. Cruise helped turn the film into a franchise, with seven sequels spanning nearly three decades.

Ahead, we're looking at where the cast of the original Mission: Impossible is now — 30 years after its theatrical release.

Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt)

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in 'Mission: Impossible'; Tom Cruise attends the U.S. premiere of 'Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One' at the Rose Theatern at Jazz at Lincoln Center on July 10, 2023, in New York City
Credit: Murray Close/Getty; Bryan Bedder/Getty

In what doubled as his producing debut, Tom Cruise headlined Mission: Impossible as super-spy extraordinaire Ethan Hunt.

The role gave the daredevil actor a stunt that remains one of his most iconic moments: the vault heist, with Cruise famously dangling by a cable. As he detailed in 2021, shooting the scene — without touching the floor — was even harder than it looked. “I remember we were running out of time and I went down to the floor and I kept hitting my face,” he said. The solution? Put coins in his shoes to help balance his body. “I put the pound coins in and I hung on the cable to see if I was level. And I had to make it. Brian [De Palma] was like, ‘One more and I'm going to cut into it,’ and I said, ‘I can do it.’”

The rest is spy movie history.

Cruise has continued to run, jump, motorcycle, and skydive his way through the M:I franchise. In between, he collaborated with Steven Spielberg for Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005), went dark in Collateral (2004), was unrecognizable in Tropic Thunder (2008), and died over and over again in Edge of Tomorrow (2014). Then he saved Hollywood with the record-setting Top Gun: Maverick (2022). His next project is Digger, an anticipated collaboration with Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

Cruise’s three high-profile marriages — to Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, and Katie Holmes — all ended in divorce. He has three children: two with Kidman and one with Holmes.

Jon Voight (Jim Phelps)

Jon Voight as Jim Phelps in 'Mission: Impossible'; Jon Voight attends the Los Angeles premiere of 'Reagan' at TCL Chinese Theatre on Aug. 20, 2024, in Hollywood, Calif.
Credit: Richard Blanshard/Getty; Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage

Jon Voight had decades of stardom under his belt when he played the only returning character from the original series: team leader Jim Phelps. There’s a twist, of course — this Phelps is the villain, double-crossing his team and selling out the IMF.

Following Mission: Impossible, Voight nabbed roles in Varsity Blues (1999), Holes (2003), and National Treasure (2004). His career got a second wind on the small screen when he played Mickey Donovan, the intimidating father of the titular character on Ray Donovan. He won a Golden Globe for the role.

Still active in the film business, he popped up in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) and had a crucial role in Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis (2024).

Voight wed actress Marcheline Bertrand in 1971, his second marriage. Before splitting in 1980, Voight and Bertrand welcomed two children: James Haven and Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie.

Emmanuelle Béart (Claire Phelps)

Emmanuelle Béart as Claire Phelps in 'Mission: Impossible'; Emmanuelle Béart attends the Closing Ceremony during the 38th Cabourg Film Festival on June 15, 2024, in Cabourg, France
Credit: Murray Close/Getty; Dominique Charriau/WireImage

French actress Emmanuelle Béart made a rare foray into Hollywood to play Jim Phelps’ wife, Claire. She handles transportation in the first mission, fakes her death, and reunites with Ethan to (presumably) prove his innocence.

She auditioned at Cruise’s apartment, where she had to push him against a wall. Béart said the actor was impressed by her ability to be forceful and aggressive despite her slender frame.

“I was told to pin this young man against the wall and put a gun to his head. And since I have good energy, let’s say, I said to myself, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ And so I caught him, but I think he wasn’t expecting it,” she told a French talk show, per France’s Elle magazine. “I was hired immediately.”

By this point, Béart was well-known in her native country. She has worked with several of France’s most prominent filmmakers, including Jacques Rivette (La Belle Noiseuse), Claude Chabrol (L’enfer), Olivier Assayas (Les Destinées), and François Ozon (8 Women).

Béart was married to actor-director Daniel Auteuil before her three-year marriage to Michaël Cohen. She has three children.

Henry Czerny (Eugene Kittridge)

Henry Czerny as Eugene Kittridge in 'Mission: Impossible'; Henry Czerny attends the global premiere of 'Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One' at Auditorium della Conciliazione on June 19, 2023, in Rome, Italy
Credit: Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett; Daniele Venturelli/Getty

Henry Czerny got the call to play subtly nefarious IMF director Eugene Kittridge after breaking out as a similarly sneaky character in Harrison Ford’s hit Clear and Present Danger (1994). He nearly passed up the role while sleep-deprived, but his agent insisted he take it.

The Toronto native was well-established in Canadian theater and television before Hollywood took notice. Following Mission: Impossible,he joined the star-studded ensemble of Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm (1997) and later appeared in The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), The Pink Panther (2006), and The A-Team (2010). Recent credits include Ready or Not (2019), Scream VI (2023), and ABC’s soapy thriller Revenge.

Czerny returned to the franchise in Mission: Impossible — Dead ReckoningPart One (2023), with Kittridge playing a small but consequential role.

“In the first one, he is new,” Czerny told UPROXX in 2023. “He’s the new head of the IMF and cocky. And he has his ego hurt when he discovers this kid’s the mole, even though it’s erroneous. And so that Kittridge has been chiseled away at, and a new one has emerged.”

Henry is married to Claudine Cassidy, with whom he shares a son, Cameron.

Vanessa Redgrave (Max)

Vanessa Redgrave as Max in 'Mission: Impossible'; Vanessa Redgrave attends the Shakespeare birthday lunch hosted by Pragnell at Avonbank Gardens on April 20, 2024, in Stratford-upon-Avon, England
Credit: Murray Close/Getty; Dave Benett/Getty

Vanessa Redgrave played Max, an illegal arms dealer known for keeping herself anonymous and corrupting susceptible IMF agents. She partners with Ethan… but it’s impossible to tell where her allegiances lie.

By that point in her career, Redgrave was already an accomplished actress. With an Oscar and an Emmy under her belt, she completed the Triple Crown of Acting in 2003 by winning a Tony for her performance in Long Day’s Journey into Night.

Redgrave's notable 21st century credits include Atonement(2007) and Foxcatcher (2014). She continues to voice the older version of Jennifer Worth on Call the Midwife and was recently in Cold Storage (2026) alongside her former son-in-law, Liam Neeson.

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The British actress is part of the famous Redgrave family with her mother Rachel, father Michael, and sister Lynn. She shares two children, actresses Joely Richardson and the late Natasha Richardson, with her ex-husband, director Tony Richardson. She has been married to Italian actor Franco Nero since 2006. They share a son, born in 1969, from their earlier relationship.

Jean Reno (Franz Krieger)

Jean Reno as Franz Krieger in 'Mission: Impossible'; Jean Reno attends the 'Loups-Garous' Netflix premiere on Oct. 19, 2024, in Strasbourg, France
Credit: Murray Close/Getty; Marc Piasecki/Getty

Jean Reno played Franz Krieger, a disavowed IMF agent and helicopter pilot who was recruited by Ethan but was in cahoots with Phelps all along.

The French star is a three-time César nominee, and was introduced to American audiences in The Professional (1994), opposite Gary Oldman and Natalie Portman. He has rotated between Europe and Hollywood ever since, booking supporting roles in Godzilla (1998), Ronin (1998), and The Da Vinci Code (2006).

In recent years, Reno played as a shady businessman in Spike Lee’s Vietnam-themed heist movie Da 5 Bloods (2020), and voiced multiple characters in Disney's Zootopia 2 (2025).

Reno has been married three times and has six children — two from each marriage. His current wife is British model Zofia Borucka, whom he married in 2006.

Ving Rhames (Luther Stickell)

Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell in 'Mission: Impossible'; Ving Rhames attends the premiere of 'The Uppercut' at Kulturbrauerei on Jan. 17, 2025, in Berlin, Germany
Credit: Murray Close/Getty; Matthias Nareyek/Getty

Known for his deep voice and imposing stature, Ving Rhames starred as the savvy hacker Luther Stickell. Producer Paula Wagner told EW in 1996that her team wanted to cast Rhames against type. He’s made IMF a second home ever since, appearing in every installment.

Rhames’s breakout role was gangster Marsellus Wallace in Quentin Tarantino’s classic Pulp Fiction (1994). He immediately became an in-demand actor, with roles in Con Air (1997), Out of Sight (1998), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), and the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. He won a Golden Globe for playing the title role in Don King: Made in America (1997).

The actor’s commanding, resonant voice has also been put to use in animated films like Lilo & Stitch (2002) and The Wild Robot (2024).

Rhames married Deborah Reed in 2000. They have two children together.

Kristin Scott Thomas (Sarah Davies)

Kristin Scott Thomas as Sarah Davies in 'Mission: Impossible'; Kristin Scott Thomas attends the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Peacock Theater on Sept. 15, 2024, in Los Angeles, Calif.
Credit: Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett; Kevin Mazur/Getty

Kristin Scott Thomas had a brief appearance as Sarah Davies, an undercover IMF agent posing as the Washington visitor liaison.

The character is killed during the initial mission, but for Scott Thomas, it was an ideal scenario. “I enjoy making brief apparitions in movies,” the actress told Numéro in 2020. “You get all the fun of shooting, with none of the responsibility. If you’re clever — and I think I always have been — you can craft quite a complex character in just four or five scenes.”

The same year as Mission: Impossible, Scott Thomas starred opposite Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient (1996), for which she received her first Oscar nomination. She continued to book prestigious Hollywood roles — among them The Horse Whisperer (1998) and Gosford Park (2001) — while staying in high demand in both the U.K. and France.

Following her appearance as Winston Churchill’s wife in Darkest Hour(2017), she reunited with Gary Oldman — and returned to espionage — with a main role on Apple TV's Slow Horses.

Scott Thomas was previously married to French obstetrician François Olivennes, with whom she shares three children. She wed Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait in 2024.

Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė (Hannah Williams)

Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė as Hannah Williams in 'Mission: Impossible'; Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė attends the screening of 'Ash Is the Purest White' during the 71st annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 11, 2018, in Cannes, France
Credit: Richard Blanshard/Getty; George Pimentel/WireImage

Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė was Hannah Williams, a member of Ethan’s ill-fated original team. Hannah handles surveillance and spies on their target’s whereabouts, tracking him before getting into a supposed getaway car with Claire Phelps.

The Lithuanian actress was already successful in Eastern European cinema, including the Oscar-winning Russian drama Burnt by the Sun (1994), before Mission: Impossible introduced her to American audiences.

She went on to play Brad Pitt’s wife in Seven Years in Tibet (1997) and Hannibal Lecter’s mother in Hannibal Rising (2007). She most recently appeared in the Amazon action comedy Heads of State (2025).

Off-screen, Dapkūnaitė formed a lengthy creative partnership with John Malkovich after the two starred in the 1992 play Slip of the Tongue. They went on to collaborate in multiple stage productions over the years.

The actress has been married three times, most recently to Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Yampolsky, with whom she has one son.

Emilio Estevez (Jack Harmon)

Emilio Estevez as Jack Harmon in 'Mission: Impossible'; Emilio Estevez visits the SiriusXM Studios on April 3, 2019, in New York City
Credit: Murray Close/Getty; Taylor Hill/Getty

To help pull off the movie’s opening surprise, Cruise recruited Emilio Estevez to play hacker Jack Harmon, who meets a shocking end in an elevator shaft.

“The way Tom had explained it, he said, ‘Look, I’d love for you to come and join the cast. The whole opening number where everybody gets wiped out, it’s going to be a lot of well-known people and all of them are going to go uncredited and it’s really going to set up the level of peril for Ethan,” Estevez told UPROXX in a 2023 interview. “And I said, ‘I’m in. You don’t have to ask me twice, I’m in.’”

The Brat Pack member turned to directing such films as Bobby (2006) and The Public (2018), among others. In 2021, he reprised his Mighty Ducks role as Coach Bombay in season 1 of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers.

Estevez is the son of Martin Sheen and brother of Charlie Sheen. He shares two children with model Carey Salley and was later married to pop star Paula Abdul for two years.

Where can I watch Mission: Impossible?

Mission: Impossible is currently available to stream on Paramount+.

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