Pom Klementieff took inspiration from Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood for her villain in 'Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One'.

The 37-year-old star plays assassin Paris in the new action blockbuster as she attempts to kill Tom Cruise's hero Ethan Hunt and was guided by legends of cinema for the part.

Speaking to Variety, Pom explained: "I watched movies with Bruce Lee, with Jackie Chan and some French movies as well, because it was not just about the fight and the physicality – it was also the way the character walks.

"I was inspired by movies with Jean-Paul Belmondo to find a cockiness to the character. And movies with Clint Eastwood, Takeshi Kitano, all these beautiful characters that barely speak but convey so many emotions as well."

Pom explained how she spent years training for the stunts performed in the action franchise and had "manifested" a role in the picture.

The 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' star recalled: "We trained very hard with (stunt coordinator) Wade Eastwood. But I had been training for years with a martial artist who taught me how to punch, how to kick, so I had been doing kickboxing, boxing, taekwondo.

"It was my dream to be part of 'Mission: Impossible'. When I was training several years ago, sometimes in my schedule, instead of writing 'martial arts' or 'stunt training', I would write 'Mission: Impossible', because I wanted to manifest it."

Pom was pleased that she got a lot of creative input into her alter ego thanks to the freedom provided by Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie.

She said: "My character, I think, is on a path of destruction and she's a very skilled fighter, and she enjoys to fight and to kill people. But there is also an underlying feeling of betrayal and of loneliness from being an orphan, so there's a deep wound underneath.

"There's a lot of things that I came up with myself, because what Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise do is cast the actors, and then they build the character around the actor's abilities."