Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt has been carrying out IMF (Impossible Mission Forces) missions for over 20 years, and he's not ending his spy career anytime soon. Next year's Mission: Impossible 6 will see Hunt alongside an assortment of familiar faces and brand new players. With the blockbuster a little over a month into its shoot, a new name has been announced for the latter category, as Golden Globe-winning actress Angela Bassett has been added to the cast.
According to Deadline, Angela Bassett has boarded Mission: Impossible 6 as the director of the CIA. That position previously belonged to Alec Baldwin's Alan Hunley, but since Hunley became the new IMF secretary at the end of 2015's Rogue Nation, it looks like Bassett's unnamed character scored that vacant spot. No other details were provided about Bassett's role, but considering the actress' fame and the prestige of being CIA director, one would imagine she'll have a decent amount of screen time in Mission: Impossible 6. That said, we're hoping that Bassett's character won't be simple confined behind a desk and delivering orders, and that she'll have an opportunity to take part in the action.
Angela Bassett has been a Hollywood icon for over 30 years, with her notable credits including What's Love Got to Do With It (for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy), Malcolm X, Panther, The Jacksons: An American Dream, Contact, Notorious, Green Lantern and Olympus Has Fallen (and its sequel). In recent years she's been an Emmy-nominated cast member in FX's American Horror Story, and she popped up in an episode in the just-released Master of None Season 2. Along with Mission: Impossible 6 Bassett will also appear in Black Panther next year as Ramonda, T'Challa's mother. After completing work on Mission: Impossible 6, she'll start working on her 911 series for Fox, which she's starring in and executive producing.
No plot details about Mission: Impossible 6 have been revealed yet, but as per usual, it will see Ethan Hunt and the gang going on missions across the globes filled with suspense, intrigue, high stakes and dangerous stunts. Along with Tom Cruise, the sixth entry of the series will see the return of Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, Ving Rhames as Luther Stickell, Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, Alec Baldwin as Alan Hunley and Sean Harris as Solomon Lane. Joining Angela Bassett as newcomers are Man of Steel's Henry Cavill, Sherlock's Sian Brooke and Supergirl's Frederick Schmidt. Jeremy Renner was unable to reprise William Brandt due to his involvement in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 as Hawkeye causing scheduling conflicts with Mission: Impossible 6's filming.
Written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, Mission: Impossible 6 hits theaters on July 27, 2018.
