Jeremy Renner turned down a chance to return in ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ because William Brandt was set to be killed off.
Renner appeared as Brandt in ‘Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’ (2011) and ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’ (2015). But he decided not to join the cast again when he learned about the planned fate for his character. He recently told the Happy Sad Confused podcast that the filmmakers wanted him to come over for a week just to kill his character:
“I remember they tried to bring me overseas] for a week so they could kill my character, and I was like, ‘No, you don’t get to do that. You’re not going to drag me over there and just kill my character,’ like get out of here! If you’re going to do this and you’re going to use my character, you’re going to do it right.”
He also said that he had a heated conversation with director Christopher McQuarrie about it:
“I yelled at him. Dude, you’re not going to do this to me like that; you’re not going to do me wrong.”
You can watch the full interview below.
Renner May Consider Returning In The Future
In a recent interview with Collider, he explained that his decision to step away was also due to the time commitment and wanting to spend time with his daughter. Now that his daughter is older, he said he may consider coming back:
“Yeah. I had to leave that. I was supposed to do more with them. I love those guys. I love Tom [Cruise] so much. We had so much fun, and I love that character a lot. It requires a lot of time away. It’s all in London. I had to go be a dad. It just wasn’t gonna work out then… Maybe now that my daughter is older that could happen. I’d always jump into a ‘Mission: Impossible’ anytime and back into Brandt. It’s great.”
‘Mission: Impossible 8’ will continue the story from ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning.’ The plot follows Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team as they try to stop terrorist Gabriel from obtaining a key that controls a powerful AI. This AI could become a dangerous weapon in cyber warfare.
Familiar faces will return in ‘Mission: Impossible 8,’ including Ving Rhames, Henry Czerny, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, and Pom Klementieff. New cast members include Holt McCallany, Nick Offerman, Janet McTeer, Hannah Waddingham, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Katy O’Brian, and Tramell Tillman.
