The failed Tom Cruise stunt that made it into the ‘Mission: Impossible’ final cut
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment Tom Cruise decided he was going to push himself to the physical limits on any movie that features even the slightest action elements, but Mission: Impossible has become the go-to place for his marquee death-defying feats regardless.
Compared to what he’s gotten up to in the later instalments, running away from an exploding fish tank in Brian De Palma’s opener and having a knife hover perilously above his exposed eyeball in John Woo’s sequel seems positively quaint, with the ante being upped every single time.
Whether it’s the Burj Khalifa in Ghost Protocol, strapping himself to the outside of a cargo plane in Rogue Nation, dangling precariously underneath a moving helicopter in Fallout, or motorcycling off the edge of a cliff and parachuting to safety in Dead Reckoning, Ethan Hunt has become Cruise’s signature daredevil role.
It hasn’t been without its setbacks, though, with one particularly gnarly injury suspending production for weeks. At least it wasn’t for nothing, with the actor somehow managing to hold in his pain and anguish until he was off-camera, with Fallout director Christopher McQuarrie even using the incident as the shot that made it into the final cut.
Running has been a staple part of the Cruise arsenal dating back decades, but when he was required to leap from one building to another at the end of a sprint, he ended up colliding with the unforgiving exterior and shattering his ankle. It’s easy to pinpoint within the context of the film because the star is quite clearly seen hobbling out of shot.
Even though Cruise was ruled out of action for six weeks, McQuarrie used the downtime to capture second unit footage, with Fallout releasing on schedule. As admirable as it is for Cruise to continue laughing in the face of mortal danger, these types of injuries tend to take longer to recover from the older a person gets.
Obviously, the man clearly doesn’t care after shooting his climactic brawl opposite Henry Cavill on a mountaintop while still not fully recovered, never mind his antics on both sequels, Dead Reckoning and Top Gun: Maverick. If he gets his way, Cruise will even be heading beyond the stars to shoot an action-packed blockbuster in outer space, so he’s evidently got no inclinations of resting up and taking it any easier now that he’s into his 60s.
Ever the consummate professional, Cruise revealed that he was surprisingly calm in the aftermath. “I knew instantly my ankle was broken, and I really didn’t want to do it again so just got up and carried on with the take,” he explained. “I said, ‘It’s broken. That’s a wrap. Take me to hospital’, and then everyone got on the phone and made their vacation arrangement.”
