14 DAY TRIAL // Tom Cruise may be 52 years old, but he insists on doing most of his own stunts in his movies: after all, a good action movie star has to earn his reputation, doesn’t he? In the upcoming “Mission: Impossible 5 - Rogue Nation,” Cruise pulled off what he describes in a new interview as “undoubtedly the most dangerous stunt ever.”
You can see it in the trailer below, when he’s shown hanging on the side of a military plane, an Airbus A400M plane, that takes off with him outside. Speaking with Yahoo! Movies, Cruise says that the stunt was “intense” and highly dangerous, and that he’d probably not do it again.
Scene required 8 takes, was very challenging
Still, he had the most fun while doing it, even though he was running a lot of risks, including that of being hit by birds or debris thrown by the plane as it was taxiing, or inhaling the toxic fumes from the engine.
Cruise describes the experience as a very grueling one, that required a lot of preparation on behalf of the team - and even with that, he could still have gotten hurt because of how many unknowns there were in the equation.
He couldn’t get off the plane halfway or get the pilot to stop so he could run to safety, he tells the publication with a smile. Once he strapped himself in, he was in for the entire ride. They needed 8 takes of the same scene before they were satisfied.
Cruise jokes that he would probably not do it again, but considering he did it because he felt like he had to top the Burj Khalifa climb and action scene in the previous installment, “Ghost Protocol,” if he’s asked back for another movie after “Rogue Nation,” he will probably agree to do something even crazier.
“I’ve never been more stressed in my entire life”
“Rogue Nation” is directed by writer-director Christopher McQuarrie, who previously worked with Cruise on “Jack Reacher.” In other words, he knew the lengths his leading man would go to in order to give the role his best, and he knew that there were few things he wouldn’t do on camera.
Still, McQuarrie reveals for the publication, there were so many things that could go wrong with this stunt, that he was terrified one would.
“I’ve never been more stressed my entire life than I was watching that plane take off and land. True to form, the big note that Tom gave me before we took off was ‘Just remember: If I look like I’m panicking, I’m acting! Do not cut unless I do this’ - and he touched the top of his head,” he says. “Sometimes it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. But the truth of the matter is he had a great time doing it.”
Paparazzi had photos of Cruise doing the stunt last November, but it wasn’t until the release of the trailer that we got a first proper look at the entire thing. So here it is: Cruise and McQuarrie seem to think it was worth the risk, do you?
