Tom Cruise Forces Director to Walk Plane Wing in Stunt Proof

Legendary actor Tom Cruise has once again pushed the boundaries of what's possible in the Mission: Impossible series with the eighth installment, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. In a recent press conference in Tokyo, Cruise revealed that director Christopher McQuarrie challenged him with stunts that seemed genuinely impossible. To demonstrate the difficulty, McQuarrie even tried the stunts himself.

"And then we talked about the story and [McQuarrie] was like, 'Okay, I want you to go from here to here in a couple of seconds,'" Cruise recounted. "I was like, 'I can't do that.' He's like, 'Okay, well, I want you to do this and this.' I was like, 'I really can't do that.'"

McQuarrie described the stunt that stumped Cruise as deceptively simple. "Anything you'd describe, [he'd] say, 'No, you actually can't do that.' And I don't hear 'can't' from him," McQuarrie added, highlighting Cruise's usual determination.

Cruise, with his extensive experience in performing death-defying stunts for the M:I series, explained the physical limitations he faced. "I said, 'Just in terms of the speed, because the force of the air, for me to move quickly on the wing was… You just can't do it,'" he noted, adding that a "20-minute tutorial" helped McQuarrie understand the challenge. "You're limited by the physics of how fast the aircraft is traveling and the force of the wind, that was utterly brutal. So I just said, 'Listen, I think the best thing is if you just do it. Go out, sit in the airplane, go out on the wing, and feel it. Feel the pressure. So, here I am, training him."

McQuarrie, after experiencing the stunt himself, found it exhilarating. "It was great, actually," he said. "Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I would definitely do it again." Cruise also mentioned that he had been training for this particular stunt for years, emphasizing the importance of selecting the right aircraft to make it feasible.

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival from May 13 to May 24, 2025, before hitting theaters worldwide on May 23, 2025.