Tom Cruise Wanted His Big Mission: Impossible 7 Stunt Filmed on Day 1 In Case It Killed Him
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One features one of Tom Cruise’s craziest stunts, and it turns out he wanted to film it on the production's very first day, just in case it killed him.
During an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Cruise explained why he was so keen to get that particular stunt out of the way.
“Well, we know either we will continue with the film or we’re not. Let’s know day one!” he explained. “Let us know day one what is going to happen: Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?”
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The now-infamous stunt sees Tom Cruise ride a motorbike off a cliff before parachuting to safety. It was revealed by Empire Magazine to have been filmed on the production’s very first day.
“Doing that on day one gave us all the time in the world to understand why he [Ethan] was doing what he was doing,” said director, Christopher McQuarrie. “If we sat around and tried to figure out these movies the old-fashioned way, you’d never find it, simply because it’s such a living, breathing thing.”
Cruise, however, saw things a bit more practically. If they shot the stunt on day one, there was no risk of grinding the production to a halt halfway through the shoot. If Cruise was injured or killed doing the stunt deep into production, it could have cost the studio time and money to put it right.
“I was training and I was ready,” added Cruise. “You have to be razor sharp when you’re doing something like that. It was very important as we were prepping the film that it was actually the first thing. I don’t want to drop that and go shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else. Everyone was prepped. Let’s just get it done.”
Still, Cruise's Mission: Impossible co-stars also admit they worry about his big set pieces. In a separate interview, Simon Pegg explained why he fears Cruise’s increasingly reckless stunts will one day go wrong.
“There’s always a sense that, you know, one day, something might go wrong, we might lose Tom, you know,” explained Pegg. “Anytime there’s a big stunt, we all have that sense of, you know, fear, but he always pulls it off.”
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One heads to theaters on July 14, 2023. Want to read more about Mission: Impossible? Check out how to watch the Mission: Impossible movies in order and find out more about the future of the Mission: Impossible franchise.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Source: IGN
