Tom Cruise isn’t one to do things halfway.
The actor spoke to Empire about filming the latest “Mission: Impossible” installment, “The Final Reckoning,” which is set to be released in theaters this May.
During the interview, he revealed just how intense some of his stunts in the movie were to film.
In one scene, shown on the cover of Empire, Cruise can be seen holding onto a 1930s biplane as it flies through the air. True to Cruise’s typical style, he filmed the scene himself.
TOM CRUISE’S OLYMPIC STUNT FOLLOWS DECADES OF DEATH-DEFYING PERFORMANCES
“When you stick your face out, going over 120 to 130 miles an hour, you’re not getting oxygen,” he explained about the scene. “So I had to train myself how to breathe. There were times I would pass out physically; I was unable to get back into the cockpit.”
Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote and directed the film along with the previous three “Mission: Impossible” films, also spoke to Empire, claiming that the work Cruise did for the upcoming movie was remarkable.
“There are stunts in this movie that will melt your brain,” McQuarrie said. “There would be a day in Africa – any day in Africa – where Tom would go out and do something that topped anything he had ever done before.”
He teased another dramatic moment in the film, not giving any details besides saying, “I truly want to puke thinking about the stress. It was intense.”
An earlier stunt, one from 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” also caused issues with Cruise’s breathing – a stunt known as the HALO jump.
Usually conducted by military special forces, HALO stands for “high altitude, low opening.” During the parachute jump, an individual jumps out of a plane at an extremely high altitude, usually 25,000 to 40,000 feet, and doesn’t open their parachute until they’re about 800 feet from the ground. According to the National Air and Space Museum, an average skydiver will only go up to 15,000 feet and deploy their parachute at 3,000 feet.
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One of the biggest concerns about the stunt was the possibility of losing oxygen when jumping from such a height. According to the Hollywood Reporter, a special helmet was made to allow Cruise to execute the stunt, which also acted as an oxygen mask and a windshield to protect his face.
“The aircraft is going between these C-17s between 160 and 200 miles an hour, so at that level of turbulence, we had to find a way to exit the aircraft,” Cruise said in a behind-the-scenes feature for the movie. “Then it was, we only got one take a day. I spent the whole day training and at night we would get that one take, and if there was one mistake, that was it, the take was gone.”
They ended up doing more than 100 takes to get the shot just right.
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Business Insider reported at the time that the stunt, which was being filmed in England, almost didn’t happen because the Royal Air Force didn’t think it was safe and insisted they do the jump from a lower altitude.
“Tom didn’t want to fake it – he wanted to do it for real at 25,000 feet,” stunt coordinator Allan Hewitt told the outlet. “But the producers said they weren’t going to another country. It really looked like we were going to fake it with the RAF.”
They were eventually able to film the stunt the way they wanted it after production was halted due to Cruise injuring himself, causing them to miss the window of opportunity the RAF had set aside to film with them. They ended up filming the stunt in Abu Dhabi to get the scene.
