Julia Roberts was listed for 'Mission Impossible 7' role

Mission Impossible 7 filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie revealed he mulled digitally de-aged Julia Roberts for the role of Tom Cruise's girlfriend in the flashback scenes.

During an interview with Empire Spoiler Special film podcast, the director revealed, "If you hire Esai Morales and Tom Cruise and de-age them, and then hire some 23-year-old woman to be their confidant in Berlin in 1989, that's bulls."

He continued, "We started looking at it and saying, 'Who's Marie going to be? Who from that era would Marie have been? It would be Tom in, say, 1989, it would be Tony Scott's Mission: Impossible — that's who would have been directing the movie before Brian De Palma in that era... I looked back at who was the ingenue, who was the breakout star in 1989? And right around then was Mystic Pizza, and I was like, 'Oh my God. Julia Roberts. A then-pre-Pretty Woman Julia Roberts as this young woman.'"

McQuarrie revealed another obstacle in the way of the digitally de-aged idea was too much money.

"I got the bill for de-aging those people before their salaries were even factored into it," he continued.

"And if you put two of them in a shot together, or three of them in a shot together, it would have been as expensive as the [massive third act action scene set on the] train by the time we were done."

In Mission Impossible 7, Cruise's dead girlfriend was played by Mariela Garriga.