Tom Cruise is willing to do a lot of crazy stuff to make sure his action movies are of the highest quality. Off the top of my head, he’s strapped himself to a plane during take-off, climbed the Burj Khalifa, and even broke his leg while leaping from roof to roof in London.
Incredibly all of those stunts took place while making the Mission: Impossible movies; we didn’t even touch on Top Gun or any of the other films he’s made. Still, the Mission: Impossible franchise seems like the series Cruise is most dedicated to giving his fans get the most out of these incredible spy movies.
In fact, he once nearly got arrested while making the very first Mission: Impossible movie. Yes, really. During an interview with Vanity Fair to promote the first spy thriller movie in the franchise, Cruise admitted he had a run-in with a rather rude cop in Prague, and it nearly got him in a lot of trouble.
According to the piece, Cruise was heading to his trailer after a long stunt-filled shoot when a police officer stopped him and asked if he could see his papers.
“He was speaking in Czech,” Cruise explained. “I said, ‘My papers? What do you mean my papers? We’re in Prague, you know. Communism is about two miles back, pal.'” Apparently, the situation was only resolved when a police chief working on the set was brought over to talk to the officer.
“He was just being a bully,” Cruise continued. “But it was like, ‘what else can happen?”‘ While it’s possible Cruise may have overreacted to an over-enthusiastic police officer, there was a lot of pressure on the star, according to the Mission: Impossible writer Robert Towne.
“Tom was really under the gun with this picture,” Towne explained. “It was the kind that could have gone over $100 million just by batting your eyelashes the wrong way. We were working in countries where the governments and civil service were barely under control, with a script that wasn’t finished and a lot of high-tech shit to shoot… It was a lot to handle.”
If you love Cruise, check out our guide to the Mission Impossible 7 release date. If you fancy a break from all the stunts, we also have a list of the best drama movies for you to enjoy, and if that’s not enough, we have an article breaking down the greatest comedy movies ever made.