With each successiveMission: Impossiblemovie,Tom Cruisehas made a habit of putting his life in danger for the sake of audience entertainment. This all really began withMission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, for which Cruise dangled off the tallest building in the world for a high-flying set piece that made viewers positively nauseous. ForMission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, he attached himself to the outside of an airplane while it lifted off a runway. And forMission: Impossible – Fallout, he both dangled below a helicopter and also flew a helicopter himself for the thrilling finale set piece. But forMission: Impossible 7, he’s outdone himself.
You may recall that set photos revealed Cruise riding a motorcycle up a ramp, flying off a cliff, and then immediately pulling a parachute to safely make his way down to the ground. That is indeed one of the central set pieces ofMission: Impossible 7(for whichRogue NationandFalloutfilmmakerChristopher McQuarriereturns), and now Cruise is pulling back the curtain on why it’s the most dangerous stunt of his career.
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Speaking to Empire, Cruise broke down the challenging logistics of riding a motorcycle off a cliff:
“If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp,” he explains. “The helicopter [filming the stunt] was a problem, because I didn’t want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone. Or if I departed in a weird way, we didn’t know what was going to happen with the bike. I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don’t want to get tangled in the bike. If I do, that’s not going to end well.”
The actor and producer said the pressure was on, largely because he pushed to resume production safely onMission: Impossible 7during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to get people back to work and ensure theaters would be supplied with a big blockbuster to lure folks back to theaters:
“All those emotions were going through my mind,” he says. “I was thinking about the people I work with, and my industry. And for the whole crew to know that we’d started rolling on a movie was just a huge relief. It was very emotional, I gotta tell you.”
This will surely make for a hell of a behind-the-scenes documentary, so here’s hoping McQuarrie and/or Paramount Pictures had someone onhand to chronicle the challenging production ofMission: Impossible 7, which is being shot back-to-back withMission: Impossible 8. Filming is still ongoing at this moment in time, but McQuarrie and Cruise have a bit more time to put the finishing touches on the first sequel before it hits theaters –M:I 7’s release datewas recently delayedto July 26, 2025.
KEEP READING:Tom Cruise Says He Was Told to Lose the Smile While Filming Death-Defying Stunts
