A surprising aspect of Ethan Hunt’s methods in the Mission: Impossible movies may be more accurate to real life than most would expect. A staple of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies is Ethan Hunt’s ability to go undercover. After all, the death-defying jumps and all the fighting only accounts for a part of Ethan Hunt’s skillset. Another important factor that made some of his many accomplishments impossible is his ability to create disguises, and that’s one that goes back to the Mission: Impossible show that inspired it. Ethan Hunt has always been shown to be a master at impersonating others.

One of the many instances where a disguise helped Ethan Hunt complete an objective was in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. In one scene, he uses a disguise to infiltrate a party, before abruptly pulling off his mask and jumping into action, using gas to incapacitate his surrounding enemies. In a video, former director of the CIA’s science and technology department Dawn Meyerriecks dissects this particular scene, and acknowledges that at least parts of this particular approach is actually quite realistic.

Certain Elements of Ethan Hunt’s Disguise Tactic Appear To Have A Strong Basis In Real Life

Good Acting Is The Key To Going Undercover

Meyyeriecks quickly pointed out that Ethan Hunt’s sudden attack on the people in the party isn’t accurate at all, considering that his actions aren’t in any way “clandestine.” However, what happens before that does strike Meyyeriecks as something with a great resemblance to what undercover agents would do in real life in terms of how Ethan Hunt becomes the person he’s using as his disguise. That’s not to say they use hyper-realistic masks of other people’s faces, of course.

“I love the disguise, with the smoke bomb-slash-knock-everybody-out exception. Because there’s nothing clandestine about knocking a room full of people out. That’s exactly why we hire people from Hollywood. Actually, the disguise is the least of it. It’s where the case officer goes in their head. And how they comport themselves. So I think a lot of people, and actually Tom Cruise does this well, they’re acting. You have to actually assume the character of the person that you’re emulating. Because it changes the way you carry yourself. So I love that he was who he was purporting himself to be right up until the moment he pulled [the mask] off.”

As Meyyeriecks points out, acting is fundamental to undercover work. Similar to what Ethan Hunt does, the case officer must fully adopt another person’s identity in order to blend in and avoid suspicion. This is exactly what Ethan Hunt does in the Mission: Impossible movies; he takes on different mannerisms, attitudes, and changes the way he speaks to embrace every facet of his chosen disguise’s persona, all the way down to the smallest, seemingly minute details.

Our Take On Mission: Impossible’s Disguises

It Shows How Talented Ethan Hunt Truly Is

It’s no surprise that elements of Ethan Hunt’s disguise technique aren’t based in reality, given that it’s natural for an action movie franchise such as Mission: Impossible to infuse its stories with a level of dramatic flair. But what’s most important is that the basic idea behind it does indeed have some realism to it. As a movie, it can capture this method perfectly simply because good acting is at the heart of what these kinds of spies do in the field.