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otle of the l:'ito mennonedlnspector ThomP-srclnintheupcomingmation-capture film'IlleAdvmrures ofTmtt1" spokeby phonefront England w.ith r egu'lcr Newsdoy contributor&gt*Lovece.So. . . "Ghost Proto-col'Any zombies?No, ifs far too fast for zom-bies They would be left be-hfud in the dust.

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I saw the movie'sniAX dust storm. My eyesne srifl stittgrtC.Yeah, it was pretty fantastic.I remember when we wereshooting that stuff, and thecrew and [star] Tqm[Cruise] and everyone wereiust breathing it in. I think itras like wood splinteredinto tiny atomized Pieces,ad everyone was just cough-ing for days.

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and the part-CGl "The lronGiant"l.It was very important, I think,to Brad Bird and Tom thatthinss weresreal. There's athin! nowadays with cGI [inthatl- it does enable us to dopretty much anything andremove the leopardY fromcertain situations, and [view-ersl just think, "Oh,.it's beendone with computers"'Whereas if it's done for real,there's still that Presence Youcan get from actual PhYsicalthings happening. I thinkthatis whilhey used real dustand why Tom dangled offthat building.

By "dangled off that build-ing," you're referring toCruisa, himself, doing wire-wo* shniLs 2;7OO Seet'uP':"

well over half a mile in theair

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at the Buri KhalifaTower in Dubai. We've allseen the photographs of himdoing it, but. . . reallY?Seriously?Yes! I mea& obviously, thesafety measures were rigorousbecause we had a lot more of

the lilm to shoot, so ifhe fell it would havebeen a disaster formany reasons. But,yeah, he did it * andhe did it with a greatbig smile on his face! Itwas awe-inspiring towatch. I went up thereto check it all out, andit was kind of a hive ofsilent industry. Therewere all the stunt lcoor-dinatorsl with theharnesses and stuffandTom just out therehaving the time of hislife running around onthe outside of the tall-est building in theworld.

I have a quote from youthat sounds too good tobetrue: Did you actuaFly once say, when someone asked if you weregoing to leave Englandand go Hollywoc*|,"Well, it's not like l'mgoingto go do'Mission:lmpossible lll'! "

.It's true. The Britishpress canbe quite sortofpossessive and getannoyed at you ifyoushow any signs ofleav-ing. They considerHollywood the piruracleofsuccess, but at thesame time they see it asabetrayal, in somerespects. I always likedsaying, "Ob,I'mnotgoing to iust go awaYandbe in some block-buster," and theblock-buster I pickedwas thisimaginary "Mission:Impossible III." And sixmonths later, I get a call

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, fromJ.|.Abrams saYing"Would you like to be in'Mission: Impossible III'? "

Do you even nemember mak-ing that comment, or towhom?No, but I was reminded of itlater. That was the worldtelling me to nol be so full ofmyself.

Well, hey, it's not like You'regoing to go off and do "StarTrek 2." Oh, wait. . . !ll-aughs.l Yeah, that's some-thing I'm very much lookingforward to. I leave for LA. in|anuary, and I can't wait.We've been emailing eachother and stuff, and I'm veryexcited to see everybodyagain and get back tg_qhatparticular group, beciuse it's a161 gf{gr;t,' : :..ir3;'i? rr.

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i vqra think they would have, rEed CGl, espechlly given' tfiectorl Brad Bird's familiar-I lY with it [with such animat-i -* ri' nnrsa aTh*tcredibles"

See a trailerfor "Ghost Protocol"