20 Declassified Facts About The Mission: Impossible Series
7. Vanessa Redgrave's Part Was Written For A Man
Call it a rare victory in the ongoing struggle to get better roles for older actresses. The resourceful villain Max from the first film was a man in early drafts, until Cruise suggested to De Palma that it might be fun to cast "someone like Vanessa Redgrave." And you can't get more Redgrave than Redgrave.
"I was rather pleased to play a rather wicked lady who was an arms dealer and British," Redgrave later told 60 Minutes. Though some critics like Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly found her performance a bit distracting ("like the madam of a West End brothel"), most felt that she brought some charm and pizzazz to a role that otherwise could have felt flat.