Los Angeles, Jun 23 (IANS): Hollywood star Tom Cruise, who has done a death-defying stunt by jumping a motocross bike off a cliff for his upcoming 'Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning', refused to kick his co-star Pom Klementieff while filming a fight scene for the film.

In 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One', the seventh film in the 'Mission: Impossible franchise', Cruise's character Ethan Hunt is faced with a new adversary, Paris, portrayed by Pom Klementieff. The fight scene apparently involved a kick to the gut at one point.

But while Klementieff, 37, practically begged Cruise, 60, to kick her for the sake of making their scene look realistic, her request was firmly denied.

Indicating her midsection, Klementieff told Entertainment Weekly: "I kept telling him to just kick me here. I was squeezing abs. (I said), 'You can just go for it.' He was like 'No, no, no, no, no.' I was like, 'But it's going to help me!' But he wouldn't do it."

Director Christopher McQuarrie described her character as "chaotic" and a "rebel".

The filmmaker said: "(Paris is) very, very, very much a chaotic element in the story. It doesn't matter how deep in the background she is, you're going to be watching her at all times and wondering what she's going to do."

Klementieff added: "(She) destroys everything in her path. She's a rebel, she's a killer, she's extremely skilled and quite lonely too. She's very different style-wise from every other actress in the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise."