Tom Cruise is renowned for performing all of his own death-defying stunts — often resulting in some brutal injuries. His latest Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, released in May, was no exception.
In new bonus content included with the film’s digital release, out today, Cruise, 63, sat down with his longtime director, Christopher McQuarrie, to discuss the movie’s thrilling plane sequence.
According to Entertainment Weekly, while watching the moment his field agent, Ethan Hunt, clings to the side of his enemy’s biplane, Cruise confessed: “Oh, this almost broke my back.”
“You’re talking about a lot of pain here,” McQuarrie added. “Now watch this: The thing we haven’t talked about, holding on to this belt.”
The scene continued with Hunt climbing the wing as the villainous Gabriel (Esai Morales) flips the plane upside down, nearly throwing Hunt to his death. Hunt quickly grabs hold of the seatbelt, hanging on for dear life.
“Oh God, that was brutal,” Cruise remembered as the director noted: “This separated the joints in Tom’s fingers from the force, so by the time we finished this sequence, your hands were absolutely swollen — oh my God, it was so painful to watch.”
The epic aerial stunt was just one of many featured in the supposedly final Mission: Impossible installment. In the same scene, Hunt walks on the wings of the plane.
“I remember seeing black and white footage of the very early days of wing walk, and I just thought: ‘I’d love to do that.’ I was a little kid,” Cruise said on a May episode of The Tonight Show.
“McQ and I were just talking, we discussed doing an aerial sequence... and I wanted to do wing walking,” he said, revealing, “It took decades to figure it out, honestly.”
Filming that same scene also caused him to pass out.
“When you stick your face out [of an airplane], going over 120 to 130 miles an hour, you’re not getting oxygen,” Cruise told Empire in February. “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.”
Earlier this summer, he was awarded the Guinness World Record for “most burning parachute jumps by an individual” for the stunt in which Hunt jumps from the damaged plane after his mid-air battle with Gabriel.
During production of the film, the Top Gun star leapt out of a helicopter 16 times while strapped to a burning parachute.
“Tom doesn’t just play action heroes — he is an action hero!” Guinness World Records editor-in-chief Craig Glenday said in a statement at the time.
“A large part of his success can be chalked up to his absolute focus on authenticity and pushing the boundaries of what a leading man can do. It’s an honor to be able to recognize his utter fearlessness with this new Guinness World Records title.”
The Final Reckoning is the eighth Mission: Impossible film, a series that began in 1996 and has helped establish Cruise as one of the leading action stars in Hollywood.
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