Simon Pegg and Pom Klementieff are sharing what it's like to work with and befriend Tom Cruise.
On Wednesday, May 21, Pegg, 55, and Klementieff, 39, sat down with PEOPLE's General Manager and Editor-in-Chief Charlotte Triggs for a moderated discussion following a screening of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning in New York City. During the panel, both actors recalled how they felt the first time they met Cruise, 62, as they joined the franchise.
"The first time I met him was at a screen test. He's very lovely, he's very warm and he looks you in the eye," Klementieff, whose Mission: Impossible character Paris was first introduced for 2023's Dead Reckoning, says. "It's just like he's always like 300% with the person he speaks to. So it's always amazing."
Pegg, who joined the series nearly 20 years ago as his character Benji was introduced for 2006's Mission: Impossible III, says that movie's director J.J. Abrams simply called him and asked if he would like to join the cast.
"I had never made a film in Hollywood. I'd only been to L.A. once, and I rocked up," Pegg recalls noting that he "was very hungover" on his flight from the U.K. to Los Angeles for his audition. "I got to L.A. and I paced around a hotel room for what felt like a week waiting to be called," he says, adding that he was given "a nine-page monologue" to memorize.
"I got on the set, I sat down and then Tom and [Ving Rhames] came out of this door on the set and just came over and went, 'Hey, how's it going? Nice to meet you.' And action," Pegg says. "And I was like, 'What the f--- is going on here?' But Tom was super sweet. Pom's absolutely right. When he fixes his gaze on you, it's like someone shining a very powerful spotlight in your eyes because he makes the moment all about you. He's very keen. . . He doesn't really want to talk about himself."
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Cruise is as famous in Hollywood for sending friends of his a coconut cake for the holidays every year as he is for the wild stunts he does himself for his movies.
"Oh, yeah. I like to slice it and freeze it," Klementieff says, when asked if she and Pegg are on Cruise's list of cake recipients. "And then I eat it frozen because it makes it less sweet and it's great with the coffee in the morning. And then you start the day with a lot of energy."
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is in theaters May 23.