Tom Cruise famously does nearly all of his own stunts throughout the "Mission: Impossible" series and is constantly finding ways to elevate them to new levels.
In "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000), he free-solo climbed on camera, a stunt which was originally supposed to be done by a professional climber. In "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" (2011), Cruise climbed on the side of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is the world's tallest building. For the action scenes in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation" (2015), he clung to the side of an airplane flying 1,000 feet in the air and then trained alongside co-star Rebecca Ferguson to hold his breath underwater for an extended period of time.
In "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" (2018), he performed a HALO jump on camera from 25,000 feet in the air, trained 16 hours a day to fly a helicopter, and then rode a motorcycle at up to 100 mph in Paris.
In the latest installment, "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" (2023), Cruise's stunts involve a motorbike jump off a mountain, a one-handed car chase while handcuffed to actress Hayley Atwell, intense fight choreography in Venice's narrow alleyways, and a fight scene on top of a moving train.
In "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000), he free-solo climbed on camera, a stunt which was originally supposed to be done by a professional climber. In "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" (2011), Cruise climbed on the side of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is the world's tallest building. For the action scenes in "Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation" (2015), he clung to the side of an airplane flying 1,000 feet in the air and then trained alongside co-star Rebecca Ferguson to hold his breath underwater for an extended period of time.
In "Mission: Impossible — Fallout" (2018), he performed a HALO jump on camera from 25,000 feet in the air, trained 16 hours a day to fly a helicopter, and then rode a motorcycle at up to 100 mph in Paris.
In the latest installment, "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" (2023), Cruise's stunts involve a motorbike jump off a mountain, a one-handed car chase while handcuffed to actress Hayley Atwell, intense fight choreography in Venice's narrow alleyways, and a fight scene on top of a moving train.
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00:00 [upbeat music]
00:02 To pull off this stunt with no strings attached
00:04 in the new "Mission Impossible" movie,
00:06 Tom Cruise practiced by doing 13,000 motocross jumps
00:11 and 500 skydives.
00:13 He jumped out of a plane 100 times
00:16 before becoming the first actor to be filmed
00:18 performing a halo jump for the sixth movie in the franchise.
00:22 And nailing this stunt on the side of the Burj Khalifa
00:25 in Dubai for the fourth film
00:27 required 200 hours of rehearsal.
00:30 These are the lengths Cruise has to go
00:31 to consistently raise the bar
00:33 of what Ethan Hunt can achieve
00:35 in the "Mission Impossible" franchise.
00:37 Here's how Tom Cruise pulled off
00:39 12 of the most dangerous "Mission Impossible" stunts.
00:42 In "Dead Reckoning Part I,"
00:45 Ethan Hunt fights on top of a moving train,
00:48 but because it would careen off of a cliff
00:50 at the end of the sequence,
00:52 the crew had trouble finding an actual train for the shoot.
00:55 So instead, they built their own steam locomotive
00:58 from scratch.
01:00 The train ran along a 25-mile-long train track
01:03 at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour.
01:06 The crew also constructed these flatbed carriages
01:09 equipped with techno-cranes that could shoot over the roof.
01:12 But the shots of Cruise and actress Sy Morales
01:15 duking it out on the top and side of the train
01:17 had to be captured handheld by this camera operator.
01:21 But don't worry.
01:22 When it came time for the train to drop off a 200-foot cliff,
01:26 the actors watched from the side.
01:28 Cruise works 16 hours a day
01:35 to hone his helicopter-flying skills
01:37 for this aerial chase in "Fallout."
01:39 While he had flown helicopters before,
01:42 Cruise took 2,000 hours of flight school
01:44 to learn some new maneuvers.
01:46 For example, this corkscrew turn.
01:49 To complete the 360-degree move on camera,
01:52 Cruise first started with a descent,
01:55 then rolled into a turn,
01:56 and then held that turn as he went down.
01:59 Keep in mind that Cruise had to stay in character
02:01 and never take his hands off the controls.
02:04 Perhaps the scariest of all
02:05 was just jumping onto the helicopter.
02:08 - When my foot touches the skid,
02:10 I'm gonna, I'll drop back like this.
02:12 - According to stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood,
02:15 several of the film's co-stars had no idea
02:17 this 40-foot plummet was actually intentional.
02:20 According to director Christopher McQuarrie,
02:25 this scene from "Dead Reckoning Part I,"
02:27 where Ethan Hunt rides a motorcycle off a cliff
02:30 and then base jumps 4,000 feet,
02:32 was the most dangerous he and Cruise
02:34 had ever filmed doing this franchise.
02:36 But thanks to a year of training in several disciplines
02:39 and planning down to the precise measurement,
02:42 the duo made movie history.
02:44 Cruise prepared for his motorcycle trick
02:46 by doing over 13,000 motocross jumps.
02:50 For the base jump, he got himself comfortable
02:52 by doing 30 jumps a day,
02:55 adding up to 500 skydives by the time he was ready to shoot.
02:59 In the final scene, Cruise jumps off a cliff.
03:02 In reality, Cruise hopped a 443-foot-long,
03:06 35-foot-high ramp built on the side of the mountain.
03:10 At just 10 feet wide, there was very little room for error.
03:14 So before flying the ramp piece by piece
03:16 to Norway, the crew built a replica of the ramp
03:19 in a quarry in England,
03:21 where Cruise could practice the stunt over and over.
03:24 At the same time, McQuarrie used digital ramp models
03:27 of varying degrees to nail Cruise's trajectory.
03:30 While Cruise and the bike were attached
03:32 to separate cables during rehearsals,
03:34 that was not the case during the final shot.
03:37 The key to riding the bike off the ramp
03:39 and then separating from it?
03:41 According to Cruise, leaning out and cupping his chest
03:44 helped give him enough lift.
03:46 He then had just six seconds to deploy his parachute.
03:49 Cruise felt satisfied with his work
03:51 after completing the jump six times.
03:53 According to McQuarrie, Rome is a tough city to film in
03:59 because of its many traffic-clogged and cobblestone streets.
04:02 So of course, the "Dead Reckoning" Part 1 crew
04:05 thought it was the perfect place to shoot a car chase.
04:08 The cobblestone made it especially hard for Cruise
04:11 to drift while behind the wheel.
04:13 To add another obstacle on top of that,
04:15 Cruise was handcuffed to co-star Hayley Atwell.
04:18 Hayley Atwell: You'll drive it.
04:19 Narrator: Meaning he would have to drive one-handed.
04:23 Atwell: The key is, don't crash.
04:24 Narrator: As Atwell and Cruise took turns at the wheel,
04:29 they also had a narrow field of vision
04:31 thanks to the cameras attached to the front of the car.
04:34 During the chase, they switched from a BMW
04:37 to a tiny Fiat 500, which the crew built from scratch,
04:41 fitting it with an electric motor
04:42 so the car could race like this.
04:45 [car beeps]
04:47 Five years earlier, in "Fallout,"
04:49 the franchise took Hunt to the streets of Paris,
04:52 where he'd have to switch between a car and a motorcycle.
04:55 Like in "Rome," Paris' slippery cobblestone streets
04:58 posed a safety risk for the motorcycle stunts,
05:01 as the actor would be speeding up to 100 miles per hour
05:04 with no helmet on.
05:06 To give Cruise more control over the bike,
05:08 the crew would change out the tires on cold days,
05:11 allowing them to stick better to the road.
05:14 It wasn't just the cobblestone that was tricky.
05:16 In this shot, Cruise had to drive a car backwards
05:19 off a five-foot staircase.
05:21 Here, the crew was given just one hour
05:23 to shoot around the iconic Arc de Triomphe.
05:26 Cruise had to ride his bike against traffic.
05:29 That required four lanes of stunt drivers
05:31 and perfect timing between Cruise and the stunt performers
05:34 so they wouldn't collide.
05:36 [car beeps]
05:37 "Dead Reckoning" added a new skill
05:40 to Ethan Hunt's resume, speed flying.
05:42 Unlike skydiving, speed flying
05:45 is just a few feet off the ground
05:47 and involves a much smaller canopy.
05:49 Even a slight gust of wind can knock you off course.
05:53 Cruise prepared for this stunt for three years,
05:56 training on a variety of different terrains.
05:59 Perhaps even trickier than performing the stunt,
06:01 filming it properly.
06:03 While most aerial stunts can be shot
06:05 from a helicopter or drone,
06:07 those methods couldn't get close enough to the actor.
06:10 So instead, the crew built a gimbal rig
06:12 with two cameras on either side
06:14 worn by a camera operator flying alongside Cruise.
06:18 The cameras themselves were controlled
06:19 from a helicopter high above the action,
06:21 while the gimbal itself could tilt
06:23 and maneuver the rocky path.
06:25 After spiraling in the air,
06:27 Cruise would have to land at 50 miles per hour
06:30 in front of this camera vehicle.
06:32 Thanks to all those years of training,
06:34 Cruise hit his mark precisely.
06:36 (beep)
06:38 The fifth mission film kicked off
06:40 with Cruise clinging to an Airbus A400M mid-flight.
06:45 To keep him from being ripped away
06:46 while at 1,000 feet in the air,
06:48 Cruise was attached to a wire connected to the plane's door,
06:52 which was erased in post-production.
06:54 While he was safely attached,
06:55 the plane would be flying at 100 knots.
06:58 Any gusts of wind and flying debris posed a huge risk,
07:02 so Cruise wore these special contact lenses
07:04 that kept his eyes protected during the stunt.
07:07 Cruise was in the air for six to eight minutes at a time.
07:11 In the end, Cruise went for this wild ride eight times
07:14 before they got the right take.
07:15 (beep)
07:19 In the fourth mission installment,
07:20 Cruise scaled the Burj Khalifa in Dubai,
07:23 which stands at an intimidating 2,717 feet tall.
07:28 It wasn't just about swinging around 1,700 feet in the air,
07:33 but making falling look like an accident.
07:36 What you're actually witnessing
07:37 is a carefully executed Australian rappel,
07:41 a move that required Cruise to run four stories down
07:44 the height of the building.
07:45 To prepare to climb the world's tallest building,
07:48 Cruise trained by climbing a glass wall.
07:51 A set of hot lights shining at the wall
07:53 helped to replicate the building's
07:55 scorching surface temperature.
07:57 The film's stunt coordinator says Cruise clocked
07:59 an estimated 200 hours of rehearsal time.
08:02 When it was time to shoot the actual scene,
08:05 the skyscraper needed some retrofitting.
08:07 In order to attach Cruise's harness
08:09 at certain strategic points,
08:11 the crew had to break 26 windows.
08:13 (beep)
08:18 In this sequence, Ethan Hunt has to sneak
08:20 into a building undetected,
08:22 so Cruise learned how to do a halo jump,
08:25 which stands for high altitude, low opening.
08:28 Cruise would have to jump out of a plane from 25,000 feet,
08:32 but he couldn't open up his parachute
08:33 until he was below 2,000 feet in the air.
08:36 Cruise started training for the high elevation jump
08:39 in a wind tunnel on set
08:40 before jumping out of a plane for real.
08:43 Stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood estimated
08:45 that Cruise jumped out of a plane 100 times
08:48 before he was ready to be the first actor
08:50 to do a halo jump on camera.
08:52 Jumping from 25,000 feet carries the risk
08:55 of decompression sickness,
08:57 so Cruise had to wear a helmet.
08:59 In order for the audience to see Cruise's face
09:01 from behind the visor,
09:02 the crew built this helmet with a light in it,
09:05 and this trained stunt cameraman
09:07 also jumped out of the plane with Cruise.
09:09 Once the two of them hit 20,000 feet in the air,
09:12 Cruise had to position himself
09:14 so he was exactly three feet away from the camera.
09:16 Cruise has spent a lot of his career in the air,
09:22 but for "Rogue Nation,"
09:23 he would have to perform long takes
09:25 of tiring action underwater,
09:27 so he got some help from the military.
09:30 More specifically, he and co-star Rebecca Ferguson
09:33 trained using a military program for breath holds.
09:36 These breathing exercises train the actors
09:39 to slow their heart rate and therefore use less oxygen.
09:42 Takes lasted anywhere between four and six minutes.
09:46 On top of that, Cruise would still have to hold his breath,
09:48 wait for any bubbles to clear from the shot,
09:51 and the crew to take their positions
09:52 before the stunt could actually start shooting.
09:55 For this, Cruise broke the record
09:57 for longest underwater breath hold on a feature film,
10:00 clocking in at six minutes.
10:02 That record would be broken by Kate Winslet,
10:05 who held her breath for 7 minutes and 14 seconds
10:08 on the set of "Avatar, The Way of Water."
10:10 "Mission Impossible II" opens with Ethan Hunt
10:15 free solo climbing Deadhorse Point in Utah
10:18 from 2,000 feet high.
10:20 Professional climber Ron Koch
10:22 gave Cruise a crash course in rock climbing.
10:25 Koch was originally supposed to do
10:26 a majority of the climbing on camera,
10:28 but according to stunt coordinator Brian Smurs,
10:31 the actor ended up doing all of it himself.
10:34 Like this iron cross, where he had to hold on
10:37 to the edge of the cliff with one hand
10:39 and then swing himself around
10:40 so he could grab on with both hands and face outwards.
10:44 Or here, where Cruise really was jumping 15 feet
10:47 from one part of the cliff to another.
10:49 For this whole opening sequence,
10:51 there was no safety net under Cruise
10:53 to catch him if he fell,
10:55 though he did wear a harness attached to a very thin cable.
10:59 It wasn't just the climbing
11:00 that posed a challenge for Cruise.
11:02 Director John Woo set up five cameras
11:04 on top of the cliff to film the stunt,
11:07 but none of them could get close enough
11:08 to get a close-up of Cruise.
11:10 So instead, Woo used a helicopter
11:13 with a camera on its nose to get the close-up.
11:15 According to the director,
11:16 the chopper got so close to Cruise
11:19 that the blade was moving his hair in the wind.
11:23 Cruise has shot car chases on streets of cities
11:26 all around the world,
11:27 but what made filming Venice different
11:29 was planning action in a city famous
11:31 for canals and narrow alleyways.
11:34 For starters, the crew had to bring in
11:36 all of their equipment by boat.
11:38 On top of that, the sequence takes place entirely at night,
11:42 and they shot in the cold winter.
11:44 Instead of cars and motorcycles,
11:46 it became a chase by foot.
11:48 While this might have made it a challenge
11:50 for the cast to find their way
11:51 around the maze-like streets,
11:53 the city's narrow corridors were the perfect setting
11:56 for the fighting, with each actor trained
11:58 in a different fighting style.
12:00 And it became a whole new place for Cruise
12:02 to show off his signature sprint,
12:04 because it wouldn't be a "Mission Impossible" film
12:07 without it.
12:08 (upbeat music)
12:10 (upbeat music)
12:13 (upbeat music)
12:15 you