Tom Cruise and his brand of performing over-the-top stunts go beyond the Mission: Impossible franchise. He has already climbed a mountain, faced a knife to his eye at a fatally close distance, held his breath underwater for six minutes, and rode off a cliff for the Mission: Impossible movies but even beyond his antics as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt, the action star has had a notorious history of performing thrillingly dangerous stunts. While he had been involved in such theatrics since the '80s and '90s, his “need for speed” only seems to have increased with age - just take into consideration how much Tom Cruise runs in every Mission: Impossible movie.
From Days of Thunder to The Last Samurai to the Top Gun movies, Cruise has a tendency to embark on adrenaline-pumping stunts, often with no stunt double. While some of these high-stakes challenges are executed without much trouble, others have found him battling for his life. And yet, the actor continues to smile his way through danger, only increasing the danger level of his stunts with every ing movie. Obviously, some amount of film editing wizardry is involved to make his stunts come off as smoother and effortless, but the grueling routines that Cruise subjects himself to are enough to scare his fellow cast and crew .
10 The Parachute Scene - Top Gun
Goose’s death in Top Gun is a particularly heartbreaking highlight of the 1986 summer blockbuster. As Goose dies upon his aircraft crashing into the ocean, his best friend Maverick cradles his body and waits for rescue. But in reality, as Top Gun actor Barry Tubb (who played fellow pilot Wolfman) revealed to the New York Post, the scene in reality could have killed Cruise. The crew had not anticipated that the water would fill Cruise’s parachute to the point of sinking. Somehow managing to stay afloat with the camera crews noticing later, Cruise’s parachute cord was eventually cut and he was pulled out safely.
9 Hoverpack Chase - Minority Report
A distinguished auteur like Steven Spielberg is definitely one of the best directors that Tom Cruise has worked with. But Cruise’s ever-dynamic energy prompted even Spielberg to subject him to some high-profile stuntwork in Minority Report. As Cruise’s fugitive law enforcer John Anderson is being chased by hoverpack-wearing assailants, the actor takes a stunt wire for a spin. An 80-foot rig was built for the chase sequence with Cruise dangling from 1.3 miles of cable. With eighteen crew handling the cable, Cruise successfully jumped, fell, and finally landed on a sound stage. He escaped unscathed but his usual quota of fast-paced jumping and running.
8 Exoskeleton Run - Edge Of Tomorrow
A lot of athletic alien-killing was in the plans for Tom Cruise’s Major William Cage in Edge of Tomorrow. But these mid-battle runs demanded some physical endurance for Cruise had to don exoskeletons, a version of which weighed nearly 85 pounds. In an era of CGI-driven filmmaking, many actors are fitted with motion-capture suits, but Cruise insisted on donning the heavy exoskeleton armor while filming. Holding weapons while dodging alien attacks would be another task while balancing his armor’s weight. But Cruise, who has time and again, proven his affinity for running in movies, managed to run effortlessly with the armor on.
7 Flight Scenes - Top Gun: Maverick
Despite being a licensed pilot, Tom Cruise wasn’t allowed to fly the F-18 fighter jet in Top Gun Maverick due to naval restrictions. But that doesn’t mean that he didn’t have to endure immense amounts of G-force to replicate the feeling of flying an actual fighter. In fact, he finally got special permission to fly a fighter jet at a low-level altitude. Flying any aircraft lower than 500 feet can be a dangerous task, but that didn't deter Cruise from flying below 50 feet at a stunning speed of 600 miles per hour. The scene takes place in the middle of the movie when Maverick decides to run a low-level course.
6 Car Crash - Collateral
Tom Cruise’s career involved numerous car crashes. Considering that Michael Mann’s neo-noir Collateral is primarily set in the confines of a Los Angeles cab, it is not surprising that Cruise faced yet another road mishap. With Cruise sitting in the backseat as an ominous gangster and Jamie Foxx playing the frantic cab driver, a particular night drive went awry with Foxx accidentally crashing the cab into a Mercedes. The car went off the set with Cruise being tossed around the car and then being thrown on the ground. While Cruise was immediately rescued, Foxx was almost convinced for a moment that he had killed his co-star.
5 Motorcycle Jump - Knight And Day
Knight and Day was popularly known for its thrilling motorcycle chase involving Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz as they ride through a bullfighting ceremony in Seville. But toward its third act, Cruise attempts to make the leap from a moving bike onto a moving car. With Diaz’s June held captive in a car, Cruise’s Roy Miller attempts to rescue her on a bike. But as he approaches the car, he lets go of the bike that goes flying into a nearby fountain. As revealed in the movie’s behind-the-scenes DVD commentary, Cruise pulled off this feat with minimal wirework, landing on to a car’s bonnet with much ease.
4 Fast Car Turn - Edge Of Tomorrow
In a high-octane car chase in Edge of Tomorrow, Emily Blunt was tasked with driving a car at breakneck speed while Tom Cruise was seated as her enger. But in a particular right turn, Cruise insisted her to brake even as Blunt continued driving. The miscalculated right turn ended with the vehicle crashing into a tree. While both actors were left unharmed, Blunt jokingly recalled the incident during her appearance on Conan O’Brien’s talk show (via YouTube). She added how Cruise was repeatedly telling her with bated breaths to hit the brake but with her finally pressing the brake pedal too late, she itted, “I almost killed Tom Cruise”.
3 Zero Gravity Plane Crash - The Mummy
While 2017’s The Mummy failed at the box office and couldn’t start Universal’s monster franchise, the movie still allowed its leading man to indulge in some death-defying stunt choreography. When a transport aircraft carrying the titular mummy’s sarcophagus is attacked by a flock of killer birds, the plane is supposed to crash in a dramatic, slowed-down fashion. To attain a realistic framing of this scene, Cruise and his crew were trained in the notorious “vomit comet,” a reduced-gravity vehicle meant to train NASA astronauts. The shot was achieved after 64 takes over two days. Cruise, who showed his endurance to high G-force in Top Gun accepted the zero gravity challenge.
2 Wrong Turn - Days Of Thunder
Prop cars in racing movies are mostly designed to turn left, a piece of advice that former NASCAR driver Hut Stricklin tried giving Tom Cruise. But with Cruise playing a cocky hotshot driver Cole Trickle in Tony Scott’s sports drama Days of Thunder, he seemed to ignore Stricklin’s words and still swerved right, leading to his car crashing into a wall. While Cruise survived the fatal accident, a camera worth $100,000 was damaged. Talking to For The Win, Stricklin recalled that even though Cruise’s speed limit wasn’t that high during filming, it was just the ill-timed swerve that caused the crash.
1 Samurai Duel - The Last Samurai
The true story behind The Last Samurai might have been fabricated for dramatic purposes but the movie stands as a cult favorite for its elaborate fighting sequences. One such scene involved Tom Cruise and co-star Hiroyuki Sanada engaging in a sword duel while riding their horses. The scene hardly had any chance of going south considering how both actors were placed on mechanical horses. But with Sanada’s horse malfunctioning to the point of moving a step more than expected, his sword landed an inch from Cruise’s neck. If the Japanese actor didn’t control his movements, Tom Cruise would have undergone a serious cut.
Source: New York Post, Team Coco, For The Win
