The Pretty Woman famed actress Julia Roberts nearly co-starred with Hollywood legend Tom Cruise in his recently released seventh installment in the Mission Impossible franchise: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. Roberts is an incredibly talented star who has worked across multiple-genre films.

According to the latest reports, the beautiful Georgia native actress almost starred in the lucrative American action spy film, as director Christopher McQuarrie revealed that he wanted to cast her by de-aging her and Cruise for a scene in the flick.

Nevertheless, McQuarrie shared that they rejected the sequence and dropped the plans for several reasons.

For instance, he claimed it would be too distracting for the viewers to watch the cast with the de-aged versions, even for a short period.

Julia Roberts Nearly Co-starred With Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 7

Julia Roberts is one of the most successful and magnificent stars whose rich and lengthy filmography holds numerous fascinating films. She has worked with many big banner production houses and stars, and even many top directors have expressed their desire to work with her. Director Christopher McQuarrie recently revealed that he wanted to cast Roberts in his recently released Tom Cruise-led 2023 action spy flick Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

On the Empire Spoiler Special podcast, McQuarrie opened up about the now scrapped scene in which the filmmaker envisioned the Notting Hill movie actress with Cruise in the project by using a de-aged tool technique. However, he dropped the idea assuming the audience would feel too distracted.

“I said, ‘Ok, if I were doing this sequence, it would be Tom in, say, 1989. It would be Tony Scott’s Mission: Impossible. That’s who would have been directing the movie before Brian De Palma, you know, in that era,” he said.

McQuarrie continued,

“We looked at ‘Days of Thunder’ and we looked at the style of it, and we started thinking what would it look like if Tony Scott had shot this, and who would it have been? I looked back at who was the ingenue, who was the breakout star in 1989. And right around then was Mystic Pizza. And I was like, ‘Oh my God. Julia Roberts, a then-pre-‘Pretty Woman’ Julia Roberts, as this young woman.’”

Christopher McQuarrie claimed he considered including Julia Roberts as Tom Cruise’s love interest role in the flashback scene. He wanted to use the de-aged tool to show the stars in the flashback scene.

Nevertheless, due to exorbitant cost and other reasons, he dropped the plan, and ultimately Mariela Garriga played the role of his lover in the now-released Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.

The cost of De-aging Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise was Too High

In the interview, Christopher McQuarrie further revealed that the cost of the de-aging tool was overpriced. He said he had to convince Julia Roberts to play the minor role of Marie in the film, but because her part requires them to film a flashback scene, he had to use the de-age technique, and its cost was exorbitant, so this sequence was dropped.

He said,

“The only way I could have seen doing the sequence justice [using de-aging] was to somehow convince Julia Roberts to come in and be this small role at the beginning of this story.”

McQuarrie continued,

“I got the bill for de-aging those people before their salaries were even factored into it. And if you put two of them in a shot together, or three of them in a shot together, it would have been as expensive as the train by the time we were done.”

The film carries an estimated budget of $291 million, making it one of the most expensive projects in the Mission: Impossible franchise. It featured a star-studded ensemble including Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Mariela Garriga, and Henry Czerny.

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is now available in theaters.