Tom Cruise is finally revealing what it takes to pull off his high-flying, death-defying stunts: a great big breakfast.
The box office powerhouse explained how he fuels up for his over-the-top action scenes in an interview with PEOPLE for its new Mission: Impossible special issue.
“I actually eat a massive breakfast,” Cruise said of his ritual before hanging off a biplane and wing-walking for a key Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning set piece. “The amount of energy it takes — I train so hard for that wing-walking. I’ll eat, like, sausage and almost a dozen eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and fluids. Oh, I’m eating! Picture: It’s cold up there. We’re at high altitude. My body is burning a lot.”
Paramount Pictures and Skydance
Tom Cruise hanging off a plane in ‘Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning’
Cruise said he’s wanted to emulate wing-walkers — daredevil performers who would stand upon and jump between biplane wings beginning in the early days of aviation — since he was a child. “I remember seeing old footage of wing-walking,” he told PEOPLE. “Those aircraft were only traveling at, I don’t know, 40, 50 miles an hour. This aircraft is up to over 120 miles an hour. Going out there, I was realizing that it takes your breath away.”
The Final Reckoning wing-walking stunt marks a further escalation of Cruise’s airborne antics, which have also included a daring helicopter chase and a HALO jump in Mission: Impossible — Fallout, fighter jet dogfights in Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick, and clinging to the side of a military plane during takeoff in Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.
Cruise told PEOPLE that his late mother was glad she didn’t know the details about that last sequence until after it was completed. “Oh, honey, I’m so glad you didn’t fill me in on that one beforehand,” the actor remembered his mother telling him.
The Final Reckoning also features an extended underwater sequence, and Cruise said his aviation experience helped prepare him for the stunt, which limited his oxygen intake and shows the actor’s face through a clear mask rather than a traditional scuba mouthpiece.
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“You’re not going to feel as connected with the character if I went with a regular mask and a thing in my mouth to breathe,” he said. “Luckily when you’re flying jets you train for hypoxia and for carbon dioxide buildup. You start to be able to perceive your body and how it’s reacting so that I knew when to stop.”
Cruise acknowledged that his stunt work is frequently difficult, but that’s part of the appeal. “On Mission, if it was easy, I guess we wouldn’t want to do it,” he said.
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning hits theaters May 23.
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