'Garfield' star Hannah Waddingham spoke with ET at the premiere of her new animated comedy.
The Mission: Impossible series has become one of the biggest and most acclaimed blockbuster franchises in Hollywood, and Ted Lasso alum Hannah Waddingham is set to make her Mission: Impossible debut in the forthcoming eighth installment.
Waddingham walked the orange carpet at the world premiere of her new animated kids film, The Garfield Movie, at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, and she spoke with ET's Kevin Frazier about the upcoming Mission Impossible film.
"We're just about to start shooting again on Mission, yes," Waddingham confirmed. The film was originally slated for release on June 28, 2024, but had to be pushed back almost an entire year to May 23, 2025 due to the SAG and WGA labor strikes in 2023.
While Waddingham said of the story, "I can't tell you too much, I'll get told off," she had no shortage of praise for her co-star, Tom Cruise, calling him "gorgeous and inspirational."
She also opened up about "spending five days on the [USS] George H.W. Bush fighter carrier."
"We were in an Osprey [helicopter], we landed on a moving vessel with four and a half thousand Naval men and women on it and spent five days [aboard]," Waddingham recalled. "I can't tell you how inspired I came away by Tom and [director] Chris McQuarrie."
While her role remains undisclosed, the actress said her character is quite different from her breakthrough role on Ted Lesso, in which she played wealthy football club owner Rebecca Welton.
"She's a powerful woman," Waddingham said of her Mission: Impossible character. "And she's quite functional."
Long before fans get a chance to see Waddingham share the screen with Cruise, she'll be sharing scenes -- albeit in cartoon animal form -- with Chris Pratt in the latest adaptation of the beloved comic strip, Garfield.
In The Garfield Movie, Waddingham provides the voice of an antagonistic and fiendish Persian cat named Jinx -- an experience the actress said she had a lot of fun with.
"They sent me the initial pencil sketches -- which is such a privilege to see, you don't get to see that -- and it was so complete so quickly that I was just like, 'Her voice has to be as volatile as these sketches are. The frenetic kind of nature of them,'" Waddingham recalled. "So it was a real, immediate [connection]."
"I just knew who she should be, you know? Revolting and such a b**ch," she added with a laugh.
The actress also explained that her 9-year-old daughter, Kitty, saw a preview screening and "she loved it."
"We had a private screening. Sony put on screening for her and all her whole year at school, which was incredible," Waddingham said. "The Mommy points I scored? I mean, I feel like I don't need to take her on any holidays! It was really, really cool."
"But that's what it's all about. Right? It's about [your kids]," she added. "I want to be immortalized as a big fluffy white cat for her."
The Garfield Movie hits theaters May 24.
RELATED CONTENT:
