The only stunt a director tried to talk Tom Cruise out of doing: “I was so scared I was sweating”
If there’s one thing Tom Cruise isn’t going to do, it’s half-ass a stunt when he could just do the real thing. Throughout his many decades devoted to the silver screen, he has proved that there is no hurdle too high to climb, collaborating with some of the most intensely driven auteurs of all time and pushing himself to the absolute limits in pursuit of artistic perfection.
Whether it be his groundbreaking performance in Eyes Wide Shut, the existential undercurrent to his character in Magnolia or the timeless impact of A Few Good Men, Cruise has consistently proven his dedication to the medium and his love for filmmaking, stretching his talents across all genres of storytelling.
However, he most definitely found a natural inclination towards one genre in particular, one that has led to jaw-dropping action sequences and genuinely dangerous stunts that have led audience members to question how the actor has managed to remain alive.
The action genre is full of traditional twists and turns that audiences love and come to expect, whether it be watching a secret agent jump from a burning building, high-stakes car chases on winding mountain roads or people who leap across rooftops during an escape. Whether it be Jason Statham, Tom Hardy or Keanu Reeves, there are many actors whose bread and butter is starring in this hairy format, forcing them to take risks that most actors would prefer to stay away from. After all, it is the medium of make-believe.
But for Tom Cruise, there is no task that he would more gladly take, building a reputation through his bone-chilling stunts and insistence on performing them himself, often refusing to use a stunt person and preferring to execute them himself. While in most workplaces this would be considered a ginormous safety hazard, for Cruise, this is just another day at the office.
While he has performed stunts of this nature in many projects, he is most known for his action work in the Mission: Impossible series, with the director of the second film reflecting on a stunt that he didn’t want Cruise to perform, becoming genuinely frightened that he might put his life in danger.
The stunt in question requires Cruise to dangle from a cliff edge while rock climbing, with the actor insisting on performing the sequence wearing only a thin safety cable, then climbing a small-scale cliff that the set department had constructed. While Cruise was guided by climbing experts, John Woo expressed his unease at this decision, saying, “I was really mad that he wanted to do it, but I tried to stop him and I couldn’t,” Woo says. “I was so scared I was sweating. I couldn’t even watch the monitor when we shot it.”
This might be an uncomfortable experience for any director as they anticipate the potential death of the lead actor, but luckily for Woo, Cruise was somewhat of an expert by this point and ready to take on any challenge, whether necessary or not.
