Tom Cruise ‘passed out’ filming plane stunt for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
“When you stick your face out, going over 120 to 130 miles an hour [193km/h to 210km/h], you’re not getting oxygen,” he said about filming the plane scene.
“So I had to train myself how to breathe. There were times I would pass out physically; I was unable to get back into the cockpit.”
The Final Reckoning director and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, who also led work on the last three Mission: Impossible films, shared his admiration of Cruise with Empire.
“There are stunts in this movie that will melt your brain,” McQuarrie said. “There would be a day in Africa – any day in Africa – where Tom would go out and do something that topped anything he had ever done before.”
McQuarrie also mentioned another explosive scene that fans can expect from the upcoming film. He didn’t let any details slip, apart from saying: “I truly want to puke thinking about the stress. It was intense.”
Cruise has taken on a plethora of strongman characters with military backgrounds over his acting years, most notably playing Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun and Jack Reacher in the book’s film adaptations.
The star shot portions of an earlier Mission: Impossible film, Fallout, in the South Island in 2017, where the sweeping valleys in the Southern Alps were used to mimic the geography of Kashmir, India.
“Thank you to the amazing people of New Zealand! I’ve had a great time filming the next Mission: Impossible here,” Cruise shared on Twitter (now X) after they’d wrapped up production in the country.
One stunt Cruise shot for Fallout also managed to prove difficult to film after it obstructed his breathing.
Cruise filmed a scene performing a Halo (high altitude, low opening) jump. Mainly used by special forces to avoid radar detection, it’s a military skydive that involves jumping out of a plane at a higher altitude than usual and opening the parachute far closer to the ground than you would on a normal jump.
The production crew were concerned Cruise could lose oxygen if he performed the jump, so a custom helmet fitted with an oxygen mask and windshield was designed for the actor, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“The aircraft is going between these C-17s between 160 and 200 miles an hour [260 km/h to 320 km/h], so at that level of turbulence, we had to find a way to exit the aircraft,” Cruise said in the film’s behind-the-scenes footage.
“Then it was, we only got one take a day. I spent the whole day training and at night we would get that one take, and if there was one mistake, that was it, the take was gone.”
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is set for release in New Zealand cinemas on May 23, 2025.