Jonna Mendez, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has revealed that the spycraft scene in Mission Impossible is not just Hollywood fantasy but is actually rooted in real surveillance techniques used by the agency.
While conversing with Radar Online, the CIA’s erstwhile disguise chief and author said a lot of the wild action in the Mission Impossible movies, including the new Final Reckoning, seems impossible, but the films actually get some things right about real spy work.
The 80-year-old quipped that the well-known Mission Impossible “mask reveals” when Tom Cruise or other actors pull off their masks that look just like real faces are based on real spying methods.
She shared, “The idea of a mask that you could quickly put on, quickly take off, was very real. We used it with some discretion, but we used it when we needed it and got great results.”
Menez, who worked as a spy for 27 years and later became the CIA Chief of Disguise, once tricked President George H.W. Bush and top government officials by going to a White House meeting wearing a lifelike mask that hid her age, skin color, and expressions and no one knew until she pulled it off.
She noted, “No one had any idea until I took it off,” and added that even though CIA masks are not made to last long, an agent could put one on quickly, even “in a parking garage without a mirror in the dark.”
