Legendary actor Tom Cruise has truly redefined the boundaries of what's possible with the Mission: Impossible series, but with the eighth installment, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, he's taken things to a whole new level. During a recent press conference in Tokyo, Cruise revealed that director Christopher McQuarrie challenged him with stunts that were, quite literally, impossible. To demonstrate the difficulty, McQuarrie himself attempted the stunt.
"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 chimed in, highlighting the simplicity of the stunt that stumped Cruise. "Anything you'd describe, [he'd] say, 'No, you actually can't do that.' And I don't hear 'can't' from him."
Despite his extensive experience with death-defying stunts in the M:I films, Cruise found the physics of this particular challenge insurmountable. "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 explained. He even provided McQuarrie with a "20-minute tutorial" to illustrate 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.'"
To his surprise, McQuarrie enjoyed the experience. "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 stunt for years, emphasizing the importance of choosing the right aircraft to make it work.
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, running from May 13 to May 24, 2025, before hitting theaters worldwide on May 23, 2025.
