Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning could be the final time Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie work together on the titular action series. But as the lead actor and director prepare to unveil the eighth Mission: Impossible movie, they're also sharing how they've developed a strong creative partnership that goes beyond the acclaimed franchise.

Speaking as a surprise guest at a Cannes Film Festival masterclass celebrating McQuarrie (via Deadline), Cruise compared the director to a "Swiss watch," hailing his ability to clock into the intricacies of storytelling and add layers to the characters he presents on-screen. “I’ve studied his career before we met. I read his scripts, and I think that the thing that we always talk about when I read his scripts was you could hear it. You can see it. I felt the filmmakers’ mind in the story, the craftsmanship of his work, where he’s writing it editorially,...