Why Isn't Emilio Estevez Credited In Mission: Impossible?
While director Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 movie classic "The Outsiders" touted a huge ensemble of actors on the rise, including Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, and Tom Cruise, the next two times Estevez and Cruise appeared in a film together came with little fanfare.
Five years after the release of "The Outsiders," Estevez and Cruise reunited, albeit very briefly, in "Young Guns," when Cruise appeared in an uncredited cameo. Then in 1996, it was Estevez who appeared in an uncredited turn — although a significantly more sizable role — in Cruise's first "Mission: Impossible" movie. Estevez's Impossible Mission Force character opposite Cruise's Ethan Hunt even has a name: Jack Harmon, as opposed to Cruise's nondescript "Henchman Shot off of Roof" listing on IMDb.
In an interview with Estevez, Uproxx asked the actor if his short "Mission: Impossible" appearance — which ends in grisly fashion while sitting atop an elevator — was some sort of friendly payback for Cruise getting killed off so quickly in "Young Guns."
"No, it wasn't that at all," Estevez recalled. "The way Tom had explained it, he said, 'Look, I'd love for you to come and join the cast. The whole opening number where everybody gets wiped out, it's going to be a lot of well-known people and all of them are going to go uncredited and it's really going to set up the level of peril for Ethan.' And I said, 'I'm in. You don't have to ask me twice, I'm in.' And then afterwards, obviously, the movie's a giant hit."
While it made for great drama in the first mission of the movie, the "Mission: Impossible" scene that kills Estevez's Jack was something that Cruise came to regret.
Mission: Impossible wasn't the only hit film in 1996 to kill off a big star early
While Emilio Estevez's quick exit from "Mission: Impossible" threw audiences for a loop, he wasn't the only big-name star killed off early on in a hit film in 1996. Drew Barrymore — who was one of the high-profile actresses who almost starred in "Scream" as Sidney Prescott before Neve Campbell was cast — remained in the film's cast in what turned out to be a small role.
Unlike Estevez, though, Barrymore was billed as a major member of the cast of "Scream," so it came as a shock to the audience when her character, Casey Becker, dies at the hands of Ghostface in the opening scene of the film. Since Estevez's and Barrymore's movie deaths are so vividly detailed, any conversation about bringing the characters back for sequels was a nonstarter.
Estevez said the subject of Jack's death in "Mission: Impossible" came up between him and Cruise a year after the release of the film. "Tom was like, we were doing a run the year after that and he says, 'Man, we made such a mistake killing you off,'" the actor recalled for Uproxx.
Estevez said Cruise went so far as to attempt to fix that mistake in 2000's "Mission: Impossible II" to no avail. "He and [director] John Woo were trying to figure out a way to bring me back for part two, but it just didn't make sense. I thought you could have because with all the masks, right?" Estevez asked, referring to Ethan Hunt's key method of impersonating people.
Perhaps Estevez is dangling a carrot for 2024's "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 2"? In the meantime, "Dead Reckoning Part 1" opens in theaters July 12.