Hayley Atwell recalls mortifying pet dog incident with Tom Cruise

Hayley Atwell’s pet dogs embarrassed her in front of Tom Cruise.

During her appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Atwell recalled bringing her French bulldogs to meet Cruise at his home "to watch movies together and build up this kind of rapport, this understanding of film language."

"He said, 'I hear you have dogs. You should bring them over.' And I thought, 'Well that's quite a good test of character,' because if a dog likes you, then you're a pretty solid guy, I think. They don't lie," she said. "So I brought them over and they loved him, and they insisted on sitting on him for the duration of the movie."

The bulldogs, who are known for being "very potent farters," didn’t shy away from farting on the actor throughout the party, which took place when she first joined the franchise ahead of Dead Reckoning.

"So we're watching [a movie] and they're sitting on [Cruise] and they were farting on him the whole way through the movie," she said.

"And I'm sat there and I'm like oh my God, and I'm looking around and there's some other people who are gagging," she recalled.

However, the Top Gun star was "discreet" about the smell.

"He's enjoying the movie and eating popcorn and at one point I thought, 'I've got to say something, I'm so embarrassed,' " Atwell continued. "There was a lull in the film and I just turned to him at one point and I said, 'Sorry for all the tooting.' "

"He was like, 'Uhh, yeah,' and went back to the movie, and I was like, 'That's more awkward than the farting!' " she said with a laugh.

Hayley Atwell is also part of the cast in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.