The Fallout Guy

Henry Cavill on joining the Mission: Impossible series, Tom Cruise, and that infamous ’tache.

- Chris Hewitt

There’s something about being a secret agent that clearly appeals to Henry Cavill. After coming within an exploding pen’s width of being James Bond circa Casino Royale, the British actor’s day job over the last five years has been as Superman. But when he hasn’t been leaping tall buildings in a single bound, he’s thrown himself into the movie-spy business. First there was his turn as Napoleon Solo in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and now Mission: Impossible — Fallout sees him join the Tom Cruise franchise as mysterious CIA agent August Walker, a human battering ram sent in to keep an eye on Ethan Hunt. It’s the role for which Cavill grew arguably the most famous moustache this side of Tom Selleck; the one that he was unable to shave during Justice League reshoots as Fallout was still filming, prompting a CG cover-up that was less than well-received.

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: the moustache that launched a thousand headlines. Why did you go down that road? 

I felt there had to be something which made Walker different. There’s something about a moustache that says, “I’m a man who makes decisions by myself.” I showed Chris McQuarrie a piece of art from my favourite Superman comic-book, Absolute Superman For Tomorrow. It’s based on one of the characters in that, Elias Orr, a CIA-type character who is in the middle of all the plots, but not necessarily a good guy or a bad guy. That’s where the look first started and it evolved from there.

Were you surprised by the furore that arose from simply growing a ’tache?