17 Actors You Forgot Were In Spy Movies

Mission: Impossible 2 sees Tom Cruise return as Ethan Hunt to the stunt-filled spy series, teaming up with Nyah Nordoff-Hall (Thandiwe Newton) to find Chimera, a genetically modified disease held by a rogue former member of the Impossible Missions Force, who just so happens to be Nordoff-Hall's former lover.

Brendan Gleeson plays John McCloy, the CEO of an Australian pharmaceutical firm, Biocyte Pharmaceuticals. He's also responsible for developing Chimera in an attempt to create a new disease only he and his firm could treat, so he unleashed it to prove how effective his medicine could be for the world. Gleeson's career was already decades-long and considerably strong, with him probably best known for his work in Braveheart, Lake Placid, and Michael Collins. This film was the second of three Gleeson did with Cruise; the actors worked together on Far and Away eight years earlier and Edge of Tomorrow 14 years later.

XXX: State of the Union is the second film in the XXX franchise, though this 2005 sequel swaps from featuring Vin Diesel as the lead to Ice Cube. The story sees Darius Stone (Ice Cube) teaming up with colleague Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) as they investigate an attack on an NSA bunker. The movie was a box-office flop, though fans of spy action can still find plenty to love in the fights and stunts.

Willem Dafoe plays General George Deckert, the Secretary of Defense, and the film's main antagonist, who plans a coup to usurp the current President. Dafoe was already quite famous for roles in The Last Temptation of Christ and Mississippi Burning, among others. It's easy to forget about Dafoe's involvement in XXX: State of the Union because the movie was lambasted upon release. Fortunately, this sequel's lack of success didn't dampen Dafoe's career, nor that of other veteran player Jackson. 

In the third installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise, released in 2006, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is forced back into active duty to capture an elusive arms dealer named Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The film is very different in tone from the previous one, thanks to the changing of directors from John Woo to J.J. Abrams. 

Coming off her notable TV run as the the title character on Felicity, Keri Russell turns up playing Lindsay Farris, another operative in the Impossible Mission Force who was Hunt's protégé. Her role here is easily forgotten in light of her much more memorable espionage-themed role as lead Elizabeth Jennings in the 2013-2018 TV series The Americans, for which she received multiple Emmy nominations.

2008's Quantum of Solace is a direct sequel to its predecessor, Casino Royale. The film centers around Bond (Daniel Craig) teaming up with Bolivian agent Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko) to stop businessman Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) from pulling off a successful coup in Bolivia as a distraction so he can access the nation's natural reserves.

David Harbour crops up briefly as Gregg Beam, a corrupt CIA section Chief who is allied with Greene. Beam negotiates a deal with Greene to ignore the coup in exchange for access to Bolivian oil. Harbour began working in film and TV around the turn of the century and had numerous TV appearances and feature film roles leading up to Quantum of Solace. However, his greatest leap to widespread recognition came in 2016 with his main role in Stranger Things as Jim Hopper. 

The 2000 film Charlie's Angels adapts the series from the 1970s into a turn-of-the-millennium take, featuring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu as the titular trio of “Angels.” The film revolves around a plot by Eric Knox (Sam Rockwell) to find and kill the elusive Charlie; he sets up his own kidnapping in order to get close to the Angels, and thus, Charlie. 

Rockwell worked primarily in independent films before joining the Charlie's Angels cast, though some of his best-known prior credits are The Green Mile and Galaxy Quest. Since playing Knox, Rockwell has only become more successful, appearing in films like Moon, Iron Man 2, and Jojo Rabbit, among many others. 

Kingsman: The Secret Service is the first of several film adaptations of Mark Millar's graphic novel series. The 2014 spy comedy begins with Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) plotting to turn humanity against itself, requiring powerful and influential people to do it. One such person is Professor James Arnold, who is kidnapped by Valentine, and later released, only to be killed with an exploding microchip in his neck.

The Professor is played by none other than Mark Hamill, though he doesn't have as much screen time as his fans may have liked. Hamill's career is defined by his role as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, but he has also done much more.  He has lent his voice to countless animated characters, including most animated portrayals of the Joker in Batman properties. It's natural that this supporting role in Kingsman is forgotten among Hamill's other work.