This MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE Stunt Made Tom Cruise Pass Out

Published: February 11, 2025

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – JULY 03: Tom Cruise attends the Australian premiere of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” on July 03, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

This MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE Stunt Made Tom Cruise Pass Out

By Movieguide® Contributor

Tom Cruise lost consciousness while filming an intense plane scene for his new movie, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING.

“When you stick your face out, going over 120 to 130 miles an hour, you’re not getting oxygen,” said Cruise, notorious for doing all of his own stunts. “So I had to train myself how to breathe. There were times I would pass out physically; I was unable to get back into the cockpit.”

“There are stunts in this movie that will melt your brain,” said director and writer Christopher McQuarrie. “There would be a day in Africa — any day in Africa — where Tom would go out and do something that topped anything he had ever done before.”

About one intense scene, he said, “I truly want to puke thinking about the stress. It was intense.”

There was concern about Cruise’s breathing in his movie, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT, too.

He attempted a HALO jump, where he jumped between 25,000 and 40,000 feet and waited until he was about 800 feet above ground to release the parachute. Cruise had to wear a specially made helmet that had a windshield and provided oxygen.

“The aircraft is going between these C-17s between 160 and 200 miles an hour, so at that level of turbulence, we had to find a way to exit the aircraft,” Cruise said of the movie. “Then it was, we only got one take a day. I spent the whole day training and at night we would get that one take, and if there was one mistake, that was it, the take was gone.”

Cruise did over 100 takes for that scene. In MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE — DEAD RECKONING, Cruise’s big stunt was driving a motorcycle off a cliff and parachuting to safety. It was the first scene the crew shot.

“I was training and I was ready,” Cruise explained. “You have to be razor sharp when you’re doing something like that. It was very important as we were prepping the film that it was actually the first thing.”

“I don’t want to drop that and go shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else,” he continued. “Everyone was prepped. Let’s just get it done.”

The Super Bowl LIX displayed a trailer for THE FINAL RECKONING on Sunday. It reveals that Cruise will be joined by some familiar faces in the franchise: Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames and Pom Lkementieff.

The movie comes out May 23.