Tom Cruise's seventh film playing super spy Ethan Hunt finds the IMF team of Hunt, Ving Rhames' Luther Stickell, Simon Pegg's Benji Dunn, and Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust's going up against both Esai Morales' antagonist and a character played by Guardians of Galaxy franchise star Pom Klementieff.

"She is somebody who, at the start of our story, is partnered with Esai and represents this malevolent force that Ethan is opposed to," McQuarrie recently told EW.

In the footage, Cruise's Ethan rides a motorcycle straight off a cliff before (hopefully) pulling his parachute, as well as trashing a speeding train — two of the adrenaline-junkie stunts previously teased for the movie.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout actress Vanessa Kirby once again portrays arms dealer Alanna Mitsopolis (a.k.a. The White Widow), while Henry Czerny reprises his role of government agent Eugene Kittridge, which he played way back in the very first film in the franchise. This time, Kittridge partners with characters played by Shea Whigham and Cruise's Top Gun: Maverick costar Greg Tarzan Davis.

"Shea and Tarzan represent the government," says McQuarrie. "They're allies with Henry Czerny in the story and are the opposition to Tom and to the IMF."

Christian Black/Paramount Pictures and Skydance Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One'

The director confirmed to EW that MCU actress Hayley Atwell has a major role in the film but declines to elaborate too much on its nature.

"The less I tell you about Hayley Atwell, the better," said McQuarrie. "Hayley represents a stranger in a strange land — she's somebody who does not come from this world, she's not a spy, she's not an agent. If anything, she's an agent of chaos, and is something of a random element that's thrown into this story."

The Mission: Impossible franchise has become famous for its practical stunts. This time around, Cruise repeatedly rode a motorbike off a cliff while McQuarrie trashed a 70-ton train.

"At the start of this movie, I said to Tom, 'What do you want to do?'" recalled McQuarrie, who directed the previous two films in the blockbuster franchise, 2015's Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and 2018's Mission: Impossible – Fallout. "He said, 'I want to drive a motorcycle off of a cliff. What do you want to do?' And I said, 'I want to wreck a train.' We're enormous fans of Buster Keaton, John Frankenheimer, David Lean, all of these filmmakers who at one time or another had a fabulous train wreck. I thought, I've earned that, I want to wreck one too."

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is released in cinemas July 12. Watch the film's new trailer above.