Brian De Palma's 1996 blockbuster, Mission: Impossible, marked a turning point in Tom Cruise's career, transforming him from a popular character actor into a full-blown action star. The spy franchise has continued to refine its formula with each passing film, combining Cruise's increasingly outlandish stunts with a team of trusted collaborators, including writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and respected actors like Rebecca Ferguson. However, one of the property's most important mainstays -- Ving Rhames' Luther Stickell -- nearly died in the first movie.
In a 2015 interview with BuzzFeed, Rhams confirmed his suave computer expert character was originally slated to die in the first fifteen minutes of De Palma's Mission: Impossible, along with the rest of Ethan Hunt's (Cruise) initial Impossible Missions Force (IMF) team. "I remember saying to [De Palma], 'Look, why is it that the [Black] man dies 15 pages into the [script]?'" Rhames explained. "I said that kind of jokingly, but it was the truth in many films." Agreeing with him, De Palma had the script changed, allowing Luther to make it out of the movie alive.
Rather than making Luther a member of Ethan's doomed crew, Mission: Impossible introduced the character as a disavowed IMF agent who Ethan later recruits to help him steal the orginization's Non-Official Cover (NOC) List from the CIA. The film ended with both Ethan and Luther being reinstated as IMF agents, paving the way for the pair to reunite on an official task for the agency in 2000's Mission: Impossible II. At the same time, Luther functioned as more of a comedic sidekick in that sequel, rather than the stylish and mysterious operative he had been in the first movie.
That changed with 2006's Mission: Impossible III, with Simon Pegg's IMF tech specialist Benji Dunn serving as the comic relief and Luther acting more like the version of the character from the original film. After that point, though, Luther only made a brief cameo at the end of 2011's Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol, allegedly because Rhames wanted to be paid more for the movie than Paramount was willing to give him. Fortunately, the behind-the-scenes issues were dealt with and Luther then returned as a full-time member of Ethan's IMF team in both 2015's Rogue Nation and 2018's Fallout.
Luther is set to return in the upcoming Mission: Impossible 7 and 8, and for good reason. Over the course of his appearances, he's not only become an invaluable part of the IMFbut also a trusted friend to Ethan, who brings out the best in him, such as when Ethan purposely thwarts a mission rather than allowing Luther to be captured and killed at the start of Mission: Impossible Fallout. Rhames told BuzzFeed that chemistry extends off-screen, explaining that he and Cruise are "on a similar level, on a spiritual level, as far as how we talk and how we think about life and what have you.”
What's more, Rhames noted his casting as Luther defied stereotypes about who could and couldn't play a convincing computer hacker when he made the first Mission: Impossible film. Even to this day, he remains one of a select number of Black actors with a longstanding recurring role in a major Hollywood franchise. That's all the more impressive after considering his character almost bit the dust fifteen minutes after his debut.
Mission: Impossible 7 stars Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Vanessa Kirby, Henry Czerny, Esai Morales, Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff and Shea Whigham. The film arrives in theaters on Nov. 19, 2021, while Mission: Impossible 8 releases on Nov. 4, 2022.