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09th Jun 2017

The ladies of The Mummy talk about what it feels like to kick Tom Cruise’s ass

Rory Cashin

Action-horror blockbuster The Mummy is in Irish cinemas right now, and we got to talk to some of the stars of the movie, and one of the things that came up was… what it feels like to kick Tom Cruise’s butt.

The Cruiser is helping to kick off Universal’s Dark Universe by taking on The Mummy – which, to be fair, he does accidentally unleash himself, so we guess he had it coming – and we chatted to both The Mummy herself Sofia Boutella, and the lady who can help him potential bring the creature’s tyrannical reign to end, played by Annabelle Wallis.

First up we’ve got Sofia Boutella, perhaps best known for playing the knife-legged villain in Kingsman: The Secret Service, or the white-faced heroine from Star Trek Beyond.

How did it feel to kick Tom Cruise’s butt up and down England in this film? “Yeah, that was quite fun. You never see him being mistreated in that way in films before. It was a lot of fun, we enjoyed doing all of these scenes together.”

Next up we chatted to Annabelle Wallis, who you might know best from playing Grace Brugess in Peaky Blinders. Wallis plays Jenny Halsey in The Mummy, an archaeologist who has a bit of a complicated past with Cruise’s character, and as such, when we first meet her in the movie, she strolls right up to him and slaps him across the face. Hard.

So how did that feel? “It was pretty overwhelming. It was something we’d talked about, and we knew she had to arrive in a very strong way. I think it was a testament to my relationship with Tom and my friendship with Tom that he trusted me going into it, and not taking advantage of the moment… I might have asked for one or two extra takes…”

With The Mummy due to set up the rest of the Dark Universe movies include Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man, Javier Bardem as Frankenstein’s Monster, Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll/Mr.Hyde, and more besides – including rumours of Scarlet Johannson as The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and our own Michael Fassbender as The Phantom Of The Opera – we’re fully looking forward to chatting to a few more movie monsters over the next few years.

Clip via Universal Pictures

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