How Tom Cruise Pulled Off 8 Amazing Stunts | Movies Insider

In this scene from "Mission: Impossible - Fallout," Ethan Hunt jumps 25,000 feet from a plane before landing in Paris. A risky move like this would normally require a stuntman, but that's actually Tom Cruise, and the background behind him isn't green screen. The actor is famous for almost always doing his own

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, no matter how dangerous they are. From climbing the world's tallest building to hanging off the side of a plane and performing perhaps one of the most dangerous helicopter chases ever captured on film, Cruise is always finding new ways to outdo himself. And he won't stop anytime soon.

At over 2,700 feet, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest building in the world. So it was only a matter of time before Cruise decided to escalate it. For this trick, the actor had to climb 1,700 feet in the air, so he had to wear a special harness attached to strategic points in the building. To do this, the team needed to break 26 different windows, with permission, of course. This harness was so tight that Cruise said it cut off his circulation. The 65-millimeter IMAX cameras and additional helicopters filming the scene only had a limited amount of time to film, so they had to move quickly.

But Cruise didn't just scale the building. He also had to fall four stories and run across the surface of the building in a move known as Australian abseiling. All of this required a lot of preparation. Cruise practiced climbing a makeshift glass wall heated with artificial lights to replicate the hot temperature of the Burj Khalifa's windows. Stunt coordinator Gregg Smrz estimated that Cruise and the crew put in at least 200 hours of rehearsal. However, this is not Cruise's first experience climbing. In 2000's "Mission: Impossible 2," he scaled a 2,000-foot cliff in Utah tied only to a thin safety rope and had to jump 15 feet from cliff to cliff.

The

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in "Edge of Tomorrow" were difficult, but it was actually the costume that made it even more difficult. Throughout the film, Cruise's character wears metal exoskeleton armor, something that can usually be added via CGI. But Cruise wore a real suit, sometimes for up to six hours straight a day. One version weighed 85 pounds and another version weighed around 130 pounds, thanks to a sniper rifle and missile launcher on the back. This is what Cruise usually looks like running in a scene. Compare that to this shot of him and his co-star Emily Blunt running while they both wore the suits.

In another stunt from the film, the actor was tied to a cable and thrown across the room while he was wearing it. To take some of the weight off them and help them run more easily, Cruise and Blunt were often attached to cables. It took Cruise 30 minutes to put on the suit and 30 to get out. The team eventually narrowed it down to about 30 seconds. While Cruise had a lot of experience flying planes in "Top Gun," in "Rogue Nation" he decided to fly in an unconventional and scarier way. For the film's opening scene, he had to cling to the side of an Airbus A400M that took him 300 meters at a speed of 100 knots for six to eight minutes.

The plane took off, made a complete circuit, and landed, all with Tom Cruise secured to the side with this cable that would later be deleted in post-production. Because the plane rose so high into the air, Cruise had to wear special contact lenses to protect his eyes from flying debris and strong gusts of wind. Additionally, the crew had to ensure that takeoff conditions were absolutely clear. If they ran into even a single bird or a few rocks on the runway, the actor could be seriously injured. The trick had to be performed over and over again until the actor, director and crew felt they had gotten it right.

For Cruise, he didn't feel confident in the shot until he went up eight times. The fifth entry of "Mission" contained not one but two death-defying stunts, this one involving military-style preparation. In the movie, Ethan Hunt needs to open an underwater vault. The vault itself was created using CGI, but Cruise still needed to work underwater for the sequence, which lasts approximately six minutes. He began by jumping from a 120-foot ledge into a 20-foot-high water-filled tank. Cruise then had to film shots while holding his breath for four to six minutes. According to Cruise, in most of the underwater sequences the actor could hold his breath for up to 10 seconds, so this was definitely a challenge.

He trained with freediving expert Kirk Krack in a special operations freediving program designed for military personnel. Part of his training included breathing exercises that would lower his standard heart rate, essentially training his body to use less oxygen. And not only would he be sitting in the water during filming, but he would be swimming. Why so long? Well, they only had 10 days to film the sequence, so director Christopher McQuarrie filmed it in a series of continuous takes, which meant the actor couldn't easily catch his breath. While Cruise hasn't gone to space yet, he has performed a zero-gravity stunt.

In "The Mummy," he had to hold his breath once again underwater, dodge explosions and even fight Russell Crowe. The standout stunt was this sequence, in which a cargo plane falls to the ground. Cruise was offered the opportunity to shoot it on a soundstage, but he turned it down and opted for the real movie. To mimic the crash experience where the characters are floating in the air, they filmed on a plane that NASA often uses to train astronauts. They decorated the inside of the plane with padding to make it look like a real cargo plane. The plane couldn't enter zero-gravity mode until it was at about 25,000 feet.

Once in that position, it would free fall for 22 seconds. During that time, Cruise endured four high-altitude flights. The sequence was finally finished after a whopping 64 takes. And while Cruise's stunts typically require a lot of rehearsal, the actor said that was quite difficult here, since floating in the air makes things unpredictable. Cruise flew a plane and hung off the side of one, but for "Fallout," he also learned to fly a helicopter as part of an aerial chase sequence. The 2018 film includes a series of the actor's most daring stunts, such as this motorcycle chase, in which the actor traveled through the streets of Paris, sometimes at 160 kilometers per hour.

For the helicopter chase, Ethan Hunt flies through dangerous mountainous terrain to stop a nuclear bomb. Before filming, Cruise worked 16-hour days to achieve the required 2,000 hours of helicopter training. There would be up to 13 helicopters close to each other in the sky at a time, so Cruise and the stunt team carefully planned every small move in advance using these toy helicopters. And the actor needed all the preparation he could get, since he would be acting, piloting, and operating the cameras mounted on the front of his helicopter all at the same time. All that planning was crucial, particularly for this 360-degree corkscrew dive, a move that is challenging even for professional pilots.

According to Matt Evans, an instructor at the school where Cruise trained, the trick involves starting with a descent, rolling into a curve, and then maintaining the curve as you descend. While that happens, the actor can never take his hands off the controls. In "Mission: Impossible 2," Cruise's character jumps out of a helicopter, but that scene was filmed with a green screen. In "Fallout," Cruise decided to jump out of a plane and became the first actor to do a HALO jump on camera. HALO means high altitude, low aperture. He jumped from a height of more than 25,000 feet but did not open his parachute until he was below 2,000 feet.

This military move allows a soldier to jump into battle undetected. The actor practiced in a giant wind tunnel built on the set and then, according to stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood, he jumped out of a plane about 100 times. And a trained stunt camera operator also had to jump off the plane with Cruise to take the photo. To ensure that every facial expression was visible on camera, the team developed a special helmet for Cruise with a light that allowed him to breathe properly as he fell. In the long-awaited sequel to Tom Cruise's hit 1986 film, Cruise is back in the cockpit of a fighter jet.

The film was shot on real military aircraft carriers and Cruise flew on real planes. A new camera system allowed the crew to place six IMAX quality cameras inside the cabin. In the original "Top Gun", one of the F-14s had three cameras mounted in total. But it wasn't just Cruise who acted alone: ​​the rest of the cast trained alongside him. Cruise and the rest of the cast needed to fly for an even better viewing experience. Despite the potential risks, there are aspects of flying that one simply wouldn't be able to see if they used a green screen, like these face distortions.

What's your favorite Tom Cruise trick? Let us know in the comments.