Rebecca Ferguson left the Mission: Impossible franchise because she felt there wasn’t “enough space” for her character.

The Swedish actress revealed on the UnWrapped podcast that she chose to leave the action franchise after her three-picture deal expired, but writer/director Christopher McQuarrie decided how to write off her character Ilsa Faust in 2023’s Dead Reckoning.

Although she was “sad” about leaving her “fantastic” character behind, Ferguson felt there wasn’t “enough space” for Ilsa in future instalments.

“Ilsa was becoming a team player. And we all can want different things, but for me, Ilsa was rogue,” she explained. “Ilsa was naughty. Ilsa was unpredictable. There was a lot of characters coming in, not leaving enough space for what she had been.”

The Dune actress indicated that she didn’t like the prospect of spending a lot of time waiting in her trailer to shoot Ilsa’s scenes, noting that there is a lot of downtime on Mission shoots anyway because the production is “so extravagant”.

“Unless you’re going to have a lot of screen time, that’s a lot of time sitting around waiting to film a huge movie that could take over a year to film,” she continued. “There’s a moment where you think it needs to be worth it, not just to love the character and to embrace Tom (Cruise) and (McQuarrie) and the story. I want to work, man. I want to work.

“It is so intoxicatingly exciting when you’re rolling, but there’s a lot of waiting. And the more characters that are brought in, the more waiting.”

Cruise has been spotted shooting the follow-up in London this week.

The eighth instalment, which also stars Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg and Vanessa Kirby, is due to be released in May 2025.

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