Where will Tom Cruise jump from next? A space station? The moon? The only logical leaps after what he’s accomplished in Mission: Impossible, though going by one particular stunt, his journey for the best action movie scene might be getting a bit too dangerous.
Cruise broke down the infamous cliff jump from the Dead Reckoning – Part One trailers for Entertainment Tonight, and it sounds terrifying. “I’m thinking, first of all, [director Christopher McQuarrie] and I, we come up with something and then go, ‘how do we do it?’ and we break it down,” he explains. “Luckily, like I’ve been skydiving for years and [riding] motorcycles and [doing] jumps, but you’ve got to hone it and make it perfect. I’m thinking about performance, I’m thinking about where’s that helicopter going across the stuff to make sure I don’t get blown off of the ramp.”
Across the Mission: Impossible movies, Cruise has tackled a lot of inadvisable activities. Remember when he hung out for a plane for Rogue Nation? Even then, this particular thriller movie could’ve been his end.
“I don’t want to get blown off that ramp. And once I hit it, I don’t want that drone to hit me, you know?” he continues. “And then when my chute opens and you can see it in EPK when I’m in the bowl and I was testing the wind in that bowl and I jumped out of the helicopter… you can see when I opened it, I was in the wrong position and I opened the parachute, and the parachute turned into the side of the mountain.”
Things almost went sideways. “I could just at the last second, I was very close. My chute was pretty close to the side of the mountain. So you really have to watch every aspect of that,” Cruise finishes. We’re sweating just thinking about it.
You can see the fruits of his labors when the Mission: Impossible 7 release date rolls around. You can check out all the previous installments on Paramount Plus, through the free trial above. Check out our list of the best drama movies if this is too much adrenaline for you, and our new movies and best movies lists have other prime viewing options.