Tom Cruise takes on a variety of dangerous stunts for the eighth installment of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.
In “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” Cruise debuts one stunt he’s been wanting to try since he was a child: wing-walking. For this, he actually moves about on the wing of an airplane while in flight. To complete daring stunts like wing-walking, the action star makes sure to fuel his body for the intense training.
“I actually eat a massive breakfast,” the 62-year-old actor told People. “The amount of energy it takes – I train so hard for that wing-walking. I’ll eat, like, sausage and almost a dozen eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and fluids. Oh, I’m eating! Picture: It’s cold up there. We’re at high altitude. My body is burning a lot.”
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The actor is “constantly training,” explaining that “whether it’s the piano or having more time to dance. Or parachuting or flying airplanes or helicopters. The wonderful thing is you’re never there. It can always be better.” Cruise has found that he’s not as good at some skills, like piano, as others. “I wouldn’t say ‘play.’ I enjoy hitting the keys … I find it relaxing.”
As for what inspired him to want to try wing-walking for the upcoming film, he explained, “I remember seeing old footage of wing-walking. Those aircraft were only traveling at, I don’t know, 40, 50 miles an hour. This aircraft is up to over 120 miles an hour. Going out there, I was realizing that it takes your breath away.”
“Mission: Impossible” stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood noted that every single aerial sequence with the plane was shot in flight.
“Everyone will think we did some on green screen on the ground,” he told the outlet. “I guarantee there was not one single shot that was not on a plane flying for real.”
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Cruise has always chosen to perform his own movie stunts. “Anytime you see Tom in the plane, he’s at the controls,” director and writer Christopher McQuarrie emphasized. “He’s basically a one-man film crew: operating the camera, acting and flying.”
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Cruise takes pride in his realistic work. For an underwater scene, the actor had to breathe his own carbon dioxide to get an unobstructed shot of his face.
“You’re not going to feel as connected with the character if I went with a regular mask and a thing in my mouth to breathe,” Cruise told People. “Luckily when you’re flying jets you train for hypoxia and for carbon dioxide buildup. You start to be able to perceive your body and how it’s reacting so that I knew when to stop.”
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Cruise has been making “Mission: Impossible” movies since 1996. However, he still has moments of awe.
“I love making movies,” he noted. “It’s not what I do. It’s who I am.”
“The Final Reckoning” follows Cruise’s seventh installment in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise. “Dead Reckoning Part One” premiered in theaters in July 2023. The movie brought in $565.7 million, according to Screenrant.
The eighth installment is a direct sequel to “Dead Reckoning Part One,” picking up from the cliffhanger ending. Cruise’s Ethan Hunt has been working to defeat the AI villain, “The Entity.”
“The Final Reckoning” hits theaters May 23.
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Cruise previously revealed that he works seven days a week, mostly acting and producing, but he also spends time training for the crazy stunts included in his films.
“Look, as an actor and just in my life, I’ve always trained just to make movies,” Cruise told Fandango in 2023. “I train in many things – singing, dancing, motorcycles, cars – and also my personal life. I like skydiving and speed-flying and all these things. And I like to then go learn these things and then apply it to the movies.”
“But it is a real trick, and I have gone through to figure out, ‘How do I train? How do I maintain? How do you hit peak right at the moment?’ Because also when I’m doing a sprinting scene, I don’t just run once. Sometimes I’ve done 50 sprints in one day.”
