She found fame playing party-loving Princess Margaret – but Vanessa Kirby had to raise her game to compete with Hollywood royalty.
The Crown actress had to become fitter than ever to keep up with Tom Cruise, who is 26 years her senior, in the latest Mission: Impossible film.
Vanessa, 35, reprises her role as arms dealer the White Widow in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, out this week.
And she joked: “Tom is the best runner in the world, so if you are suddenly asked to run next to him, you can’t be flagging behind like I was at sports day at school.
“You have to really step up and be ready. But the physical aspect of the role is a very beautiful gift because you have to learn about your physicality. That is something I didn’t have before.”
The British star became a household name playing Margaret in Netflix hit The Crown and made her Hollywood debut as the White Widow in 2018.
She explained: “Going straight from The Crown to Mission: Impossible – Fallout was overwhelming at that time but it was also such an amazing initiation into filmmaking.
“The Crown had epic scale but these films are something else. It’s Tom Cruise with huge movie sets, massive stunts and so many cast and crew.”
She admitted seeing Cruise, 61, do his own stunts as secret agent Ethan Hunt shocked her at first. But she said: “Now I’m just used to him going beyond what I could ever imagine him doing. “
"When you are around someone like Tom, who is such a cinephile and loves what he does so much, it’s life-changing.
“What he does is so epic. If you don’t see it on a big screen, you are missing the opportunity of literally feeling like you are falling off of a train or like you are flying through the air on a motorbike. Only one man on Earth can do that, I think.”
