McQ: Simon is an enormously, enormously, underrated dramatic actor.
Tom: Oh my god, he's brilliant.
McQ: He's incredible at genre storytelling.
Tom: And when you have Simon, and you've got Ethan, both of them feeling uncomfortable, they both know "what we're saying is outrageous".
McQ: I also feel the buddy relationship even though you're not in the same room. I feel the two of you are -
Tom: Yes, that's it. 'Cause I know how Simon's gonna act it. And I'm giving that and he's giving -
McQ: That's what's amazing. We shot that scene after but you are actually, your physicality, you are imbuing Simon.
Tom: And I know what he's - so as we're going through it you and I are talking and we know.
Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise commentary for Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
I love Tom saying how he knew to match Simon's acting even though they shot these scenes separately!
Watching the audio commentary for Rogue Nation and absolutely loving it. It's giving me so many thoughts about how much time, effort, and experience can really come through on the screen, and also how things differ between movies and TV.
Thanks so much to @calkale for recommending it to me!
Tom and McQ's messages to each other at the end of the Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning bts commentary
aka these two complimenting each other for almost five minutes
[transcript under the cut]
Tom: And McQ I want to thank you because throughout it and all the way to the end you just never, ever give up. You never give in. You never give up. You never sacrifice quality, your own personal integrity of what you feel is right.
McQ: [softly] Wow, thank you.
Tom: You know, when you look at even the music cues at the end and the mix our whole team it was - and all of this - and every time you just set the bar and go "we can do better, we can do better" and all the way to the end getting it. And at the end of finishing a movie it just blooms and the last days you could just feel the movie just bloom into what it is.
I'm so grateful to know you. I'm so grateful to have this partnership -
McQ: [softly] Wow. That's kind of you to say.
Tom:- this friendship, you know. And to your family who were there and support us throughout this entire period.
McQ: Yours as well.
Tom: Our friends and our family - and - I can't tell you enough of how privileged I feel to be able to have this life. And your partnership. I can't even describe all of the things that you do and how much you have brought to my life, and in turn to cinema.
McQ: [softly] Wow.
Tom: And those of you, it's like my Cinema Con speech for McQ, is just a snapshot of that. You're an absolute brilliant man and a humanitarian.
McQ: [softly] Wow.
Tom: And I'm very grateful. It's in every frame of your films and every frame of this movie so thank you my friend. And thank you to our crew and everyone.
McQ: Thank you. I will ... I will say that's what happens when you work on a Tom Cruise movie.
[both laugh]
McQ: Because if I didn't do that I wouldn't be around.
[both continue laughing]
McQ: I don't think I would have lasted.
Tom: Twenty years we've been doing this. One thing after the next.
McQ: No, but I'm serious you lead by example and you demand the best from people and you push people to do things that they - you inspire people to do things - and every person here and how hard they work, they know that when they come to work they're making something that is ... that no one else can make and that is going to stand the test of time. And you feel it. You feel it when you come to work in the morning. There are days that are exhausting. There are days that are - we're in the Arctic! And people are on the verge of getting frostbite - and no one did by the way -
Tom: No. And the aerial stuff where you and I wake up when it was raining -
McQ: - and in the desert.
Tom: - when it was raining we would be like -
McQ: Oh, every day it would rain we would be like "thank god, thank god it's raining. I can't fly today. Please can it rain for three more days." You know you can't fight the weather. What are you going to do?
Tom: [laughs] No.
McQ: But you know these are all people who come to work, genuinely inspired, knowing that they're doing something that is, it's a very precarious and endangered art form. We live in a time when all of this - when the movie that you're watching right now is rare and it's getting rarer, and it exists because you show up to work every day taking the beating that you're taking. He's not doing this to show off, folks. He's doing it because he loves this craft. He loves this art form. He loves knowing that there is an audience out there sitting in a theater together - not at home - and that they're out there meeting other people and because the power this medium has to bring people together, to inspire people, and to unite them. It's something he takes very, very, very seriously.
Tom: [softly] Thank you my friend.
McQ: I really admire that about you. I've watched you, you know, it's not something you take lightly. And I've watched you fight for this medium, for this industry, for the twenty years that I've known you. And I know you did it for the twenty years before that. This movie exists because of what you're willing to put into it and I don't know another human in this century that would do that.
Tom: [softly] Thank you my friend.
McQ: And that's not hyperbole.
Tom and McQ: [in sync] Thank you my friend.
Tom: Thank you.
McQ: It's been an adventure.
Tom: Thank you.
McQ: Thank you.
Tom: And the adventures continue.
McQ: Oh my god.
Tom: [laughs] For the next and the next and the next! It shall go on.
McQ: Oh my god. [both laugh] To be continued.
Tom: To be continued.
---
[note: transcript edited to remove some "umms" and repeat words. also this was during the end credits with the crew names onscreen so I made it an mp3 version]
McQ: Everything that's happening in this scene, except for two moments, this is all exposition. This is all information. This is pure vegetables. It's the stuff you have to know. But Simon Pegg is so good -
Tom: Look at him!
McQ: - at taking that and communicating it in a way that is compelling rather than just blatantly necessary. And he is so underrated as an actor. He's so effective.
Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise complimenting Simon Pegg during their commentary for Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
