Michelle Monaghan is opening up about her unique “honeymoon” on the set of Mission: Impossible III opposite her movie love interest, Tom Cruise.
Monaghan, 47, married artist Peter White on August 12, 2005, and rushed to film the blockbuster action movie immediately afterward, leaving no time for a traditional honeymoon.
“I remember going to work, and Tom [Cruise] and I had kind of an intimate scene, and of course that was the first scene,” Monaghan recalled to Collider on December 14. Her new husband wasn’t worried, though. Monaghan shared that White, 47, joked at the time, “How cool is it that you were making out with Tom Cruise on our honeymoon?”
While promoting their new film, The Family Plan, Monaghan and Mark Wahlberg reflected on the movies they were most nervous to shoot. For Monaghan, Mission Impossible was an easy answer.
“It was J. J. Abrams. It was such a big film,” she said. “I came home from work, I was so nervous, and my husband was like, ‘Don’t worry, you’re gonna follow [Cruise’s] lead. You’re gonna have a great time. It’s going to be wonderful.”
Monaghan played Cruise’s onscreen fiancée, Julia Meade, in Mission: Impossible III (2006). At the beginning of the movie, Meade is unaware of Ethan Hunt’s real job as an IMF (Impossible Mission Force) agent, but she is eventually forced to enter the action herself. Fact blurred with fiction when Monaghan and Cruise’s characters leave for their own honeymoon at the end of the film.
Monaghan reprised her role in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) and Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018). Despite her onscreen chemistry with Cruise, her job never got in the way of her marriage.
“[Peter and I are] just such fans [of Tom],” Monaghan said. “[Peter is] learning things. But that is a testament to the man that I married, who has just been totally supportive and is excited and jazzed for the opportunities.”
Wahlberg asked if White was ever jealous, Monaghan replied, “No, he was just so proud.”
Monaghan and White share two children: daughter Willow Katherine, born November 2008, and son Tommy Francis, born October 2013.
“I worked hard to get that role, and it was just one of those things,” Monaghan added. “We just got married and really discovered our careers in New York together, and so that was really special. But I was very nervous, of course, the night before, and then proceeded to have just an amazing shoot with J. J. and Tom, and I have all the respect for them and that franchise. I can’t believe I shared that story, but it’s the truth.”
