Martin Landau Didn't Mince Words About Reprising His Role In Mission: Impossible
I think we often lose sight of the fact that the "Mission: Impossible" film series is adapted from a CBS television show. Because the films star Tom Cruise — one of our last movie stars — and features some of the most breathlessly exciting big screen action set pieces of the last 30 years, it almost seems impossible that it began on the small screen, if you'll pardon the pun. And yet nearly all of the DNA of those movies can be found in the show. You have the team of spies, the masks, the self-destructing messages, and, of course, that tremendous theme music. The main thing that separates the two are the films' ultra-reliance on their stunts-based spectacle. That and the central team at the heart of the films is completely different from the original show.
In fact, Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt character is not even in the original show. The only character from the original show to appear in the films was the lead Jim Phelps, who acted as the villain of the first "Mission: Impossible" film. Instead of being played by Peter Graves, who originated the role, Jon Voight took up the mantle, and if Twitter existed back in 1996, I'm sure the widespread fan vitriol about "Ruining the legacy of Jim Phelps" would be one of the more annoying Internet discourses.
In the early stages of development, though, Phelps was not going to be the sole character from the show in the films. They wanted to get the whole team back, which would have included Martin Landau returning as Rollin Hand, the team's consummate actor. However, when Landau learned what was in store for Hand and the team, he was not too keen on participating. And you can understand why.
'They wanted the entire team to be destroyed'
One of the more shocking elements of the first "Mission: Impossible" movie is that in the first act, nearly all of Ethan Hunt's team is killed in a mission gone wrong. They brought in ringers like Emilio Estevez and Kristin Scott Thomas to be recognizable faces to swiftly meet their ends, raising the stakes of the world in a major way. Well, in the original conception of that scenario, these deaths weren't going to be surprising because of bigger name talent. They were to be surprising because the people dying were supposed to be the original team for the show. Speaking with MTV News back in 2009, Martin Landau cited this as to why he wasn't in the films:
"When they were working on an early incarnation of the first one — not the script they ultimately did — they wanted the entire team to be destroyed, done away with one at a time, and I was against that. [...] It was basically an action-adventure movie and not 'Mission.' 'Mission' was a mind game. The ideal mission was getting in and getting out without anyone ever knowing we were there. So the whole texture changed. Why volunteer to essentially have our characters [die by] suicide? I passed on it. I said, 'It's crazy to do this.' The script wasn't that good either!"
As the series progressed and the importance of the team became its core, Landau still said he wouldn't come in "unless it was a great part" and not a cameo. We now live in a world where so many actors are revisiting parts they played decades earlier, and I admire the fact that Landau put his foot down. An artist should do what is creatively fulfilling to them, and getting killed off wasn't for him.