Mission: Impossible's Hayley Atwell Slams “Invasive” Tom Cruise Romance Rumors

Hayley Atwell's newest mission? Dispelling rumors.

The actress got candid about romance rumors that popped up between her and her costar Tom Cruise while they filmed Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, the seventh film in the franchise, and how it felt to be filming amid the gossip.

"I would be like, ‘Ooh, there's some weird rumors, and it feels base, it feels a little dirty, it feels grubby, it's not what I'm about,'" she told The Independent in an interview published July 8. "Why are things being assumed or projected onto me about my relationship with my work colleague and boss?" 

She added it was particularly upsetting because not only does she view Tom an "uncle" figure, but that the rumors involved "people in my actual life, my personal life, who have to be on the receiving end of that. It becomes invasive."

But the 41-year-old, who is engaged to music producer Ned Wolfgang Kelly, said the Risky Business actor knew exactly what to say whenever she went to him for advice over the situation.

"When I've talked to him about it," she recalled, "he'd be like 'You know exactly who you are. You know what you're about. And that is the only thing that matters. It doesn't matter what people think of you, if you are in integrity with yourself, if you know what your value system is.'"

And when it came to working alongside Tom, Hayley knew his value before she even stepped foot onto the action film's set.

"I had read with Tom before, I knew that he was very present," the actress previously told E!. "He was very professional and he goes out of the way to make sure anyone around him in working capacity makes them feel very safe."

Her feelings about the 61-year-old are echoed by others in the cast, too. 

"Of all the mist of stuff that's around him, in the center of that mist is a generous, sweet guy who looks after everybody," Simon Pegg shared. "He leads from the top down. And he's kind of inspiring to be around. There's no one else like him, he's the last movie star of the old kind."

And for him, knowing the man behind the actor has been a true privilege.

"Over the 17 years that we've been friends, I feel lucky to get to see a part of him that everyone else wants to see, which is just the guy," he continued. "And he is just a guy. He's an extraordinary guy. He's a guy who feels the obligation to the audience to risk his life for them to kind of entertain them."

And don't miss Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One, in theaters starting Monday July 10.