10 Things You Need To Know About Mission Impossible 7

Talk about a blast from the past. Two-and-a-half decades after he made his one and only franchise appearance - in the original Mission: Impossible, long before it became one of the action genre's preeminent offerings - former IMF director Eugene Kittridge is set to return in the seventh installment, played once again by Henry Czerny.

The veteran Canadian actor was on hand for the first entry where he accused Ethan Hunt of being a mole within his organisation after he was the lone survivor of a botched mission, forcing Hunt to elude him with the help of an explosively memorable fish tank. Once the real traitor had been uncovered though, Kittridge was on hand to help take him down too and reinstate his former agent back to active service.

Given the merry-go-round within IMF leadership - Alec Baldwin's Alan Hunley was the first secretary to make more than one appearance - it was a bolt from the blue when Czerny, most recently seen by audiences in Ready or Not, was confirmed to be making a long-awaited return. He will likely be at the top of the pile again, bringing his smug officiousness to bear on Hunt's methods - though having come good when needed previously, don't be surprised if he proves to be a much-needed ally when the going gets tough too.