26-05-2025
Tom Cruise ‘had to be carried off the plane' as one ‘Mission: Impossible' stunt exhausted him
Even for a Hollywood popular star, stunts could exceed limits. Tom Cruise was physically fatigued from acting a daring sequence for Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning that his crew had to carry him off a plane. He got exhausted in the eighth (and seemingly final) instalment of his hit film, which included him walking on the wing of a small biplane mid-air.
'It beat the hell out of him. The wind hitting him, and the blast of the propeller, particles hitting him. It was the hardest workout you could ever do, it was very dangerous and very exhausting for him. Many times we were carrying him off the wing because he was so tired. And he was flying all day,' Longtime stunt coordinator and second unit director Wade Eastwood informed The Times Of London newspaper.
Eastwood and Cruise have worked together since 2013, after meeting during the filming of Edge of Tomorrow. He was a stunt coordinator on the last four Mission: Impossible films and reminisces his most-liked moment of all, which came in the seventh film Dead Reckoning Part One. Tom rode a cliff-edge motorbike stunt.
On the actor's risk tolerance and performing his own stunts, Eastwood said, "Tom doesn't show fear, Tom shows competence. He had fun during all his stunts, even when it was exhausting. He's always positive, he'll always put on a smile, and he genuinely enjoys it.'
The actor spent over a year training in motocross and skydiving to prepare for the stunt, completing more than 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps, he disclosed. 'No, no chance. He's a machine. He acts like a 20-year-old. And there's no magic there, it's just hard work and discipline with his food, nutrition and training," Eastwood said when he was asked whether Cruise might soon step back from such physically demanding roles.
Released on May 17, Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning casts Hayley Atwell, Pom Klementieff, Mariela Garriga, Esai Morales besides Cruise. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, it shows Cruise's character Ethan Hunt and the IMF team rush to stop the Entity, a rogue AI that can annihilate mankind. It saw an opening to a series-best $77 million domestically and $190 million globally.
