Hayley Atwell found Tom Cruise dating rumours 'upsetting'

Hayley Atwell found the rumours suggesting she was dating her co-star Tom Cruise "upsetting" and "invasive".

Back in late 2020, it was reported that the Captain America actress was in a romance with her Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One co-star, and Atwell addressed the speculation for the first time in an interview with The Independent over the weekend.

"I would be like, 'Ooh, there's some weird rumours, and it feels base, it feels a little dirty, it feels grubby, it's not what I'm about,'" she explained. "Why are things being assumed or projected onto me about my relationship with my work colleague and boss?"

The British actress insisted that she sees Cruise and their director Christopher McQuarrie as "sort of two uncles" and admitted she found the situation "upsetting" because of its impact on her private life.

"It's involving people in my actual life, my personal life, who have to be on the receiving end of that. It becomes invasive," she added.

The 41-year-old, who is engaged to songwriter/composer Ned Wolfgang Kelly, revealed that she talked to Cruise about the speculation and he told her to ignore outside opinions.

"When I've talked to him about it, he'd be like, 'You know exactly who you are. You know what you're about. And that is the only thing that matters. It doesn't matter what people think of you, if you are in integrity with yourself, if you know what your value system is,'" she recalled.

Atwell plays a new character named Grace alongside Cruise as Ethan Hunt in the seventh Mission: Impossible movie, which is in cinemas now.