Mission Impossible 6: Michelle Monaghan will return as Ethan Hunt's wife

She was first introduced in Mission Impossible: III, before making a brief appearance in Ghost Protocol and sitting Rogue Nation out

Linda Meade-Hunt, who wedded Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible: III and has probably been in a constant state of agitation since then, will be returning for Mission Impossible 6.

Director-writer Christopher McQuarrie casually revealed her involvement in a series of portraits of the film's cast, including the first look at Henry Cavill's addition the franchise, complete with a rather dashing moustache.

Monaghan made a brief cameo in Ghost Protocol, before sitting out entirely of its sequel Rogue Nation; she'll join the already returning cast of Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, and Alec Baldwin.

It seems to be fulfilling McQuarrie's promise, made on the Empire podcast, that the film would see the return of some familiar faces, "including people you would not expect to be back".

He also promised a "very different Ethan Hunt"; adding, "I’ve seen five of these movies and I don’t know who Ethan Hunt is. One movie sort of dealt with his personal life; the other movies are about people speculating what’s really going on in Ethan’s head. I want to know who Ethan is in this movie, I want an emotional journey for this character, and Tom really embraced it."

"His approach this time, then, was to say 'I don’t want to string together a bunch of action scenes, I want to actually deal with character'. So I put Ethan in a bunch of complicated moral quandaries, and I’m trying to find ways to connect them – and then, ironically, the way to connect them was through giant action scenes."

Mission Impossible 6 hits UK cinemas 27 July 2018.