Man behind the madness

Tom Cruise on his thirst for death-defying action stunts

When it comes to stunt work in Hollywood, no one quite compares to Tom Cruise. The 62 year-old icon, who’s been leaping from buildings and hanging off airplanes as superspy Ethan Hunt since 1996, is once again pushing the limits in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, out May 23. But in a rare and candid interview with PEOPLE, Cruise pulls back the curtain on the sheer intensity behind those jaw-dropping scenes, and how he unwinds when the cameras stop rolling.

“If it was easy, I guess we wouldn’t want to do it,” Cruise says simply, summing up the daredevil ethos that has fueled the Mission: Impossible franchise for nearly three decades. “We want the audience to feel the stakes. And that means I’ve got to actually do it.”

Cruise’s latest feat is climbing along the wings of a 1940s-era biplane soaring over South Africa’s Drakensberg mountains, an aerial stunt he’s dreamed of since childhood.

“I remember watching those old wing-walking reels from the 1930s,” Cruise says. “They were slow, almost theatrical. I thought: What if we did that but at modern speeds, with modern cameras, and no wires?”

Modern speeds, indeed. “Those aircraft were only going 40 or 50 miles an hour. This one was going over 120. Going out there, I was realising, it takes your breath away. Literally.”

Director Christopher McQuarrie, Cruise’s longtime collaborator, adds: “Tom rehearsed that stunt for months. He practiced on a mock-up wing in wind tunnels, then graduated to actual flights. He’s relentless.”

Zero green screen

For Cruise, realism is non-negotiable. “We don’t cheat the audience,” he says. “When you see me on a wing, or hanging off a cliff, or under water; it’s all happening. No green screens. No CGI crutches.”

Stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood echoes that commitment. “Everyone assumes there’s some safety trick. But every single frame was done practically. If Tom’s flying a plane, he’s the one flying it. If he’s underwater, he’s holding his breath.”

So how does one prepare to dangle from a cliff or walk on a wing in high-speed air?

“I eat a massive breakfast,” Cruise reveals with a grin. “We’re talking sausage, almost a dozen eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, fluids. When you’re flying at high altitude, your body burns through calories like crazy.”

He adds that stunt days often start as early as three in the morning “We’re losing light, we’re chasing wind conditions; it’s like a ballet, but with a thousand moving parts and no margin for error.”

Underwater mayhem

Not all the danger happens in the air. One of Final Reckoning’s most harrowing sequences was filmed in a specially built 40,000-gallon water tank rigged to rotate 360 degrees, mimicking the interior of a capsizing submarine.

“We called it ‘the washing machine,'” Cruise says. “Everything in the scene, including me, gets turned upside down, over and over.”