Tom Cruise On Every Mission: Impossible Movie’s Wild Stunt

In every Mission: Impossible movie, there’s a moment where you gasp. Several, most likely. And the majority of those moments involve Tom Cruise himself pulling off some ludicrously dangerous-looking feat, all in the name of our entertainment – creating iconic images and breathtaking sequences that have made Mission one of the most mind-blowing action franchises around. In the run-up to Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Empire spoke to Cruise himself, who looked back on his memories of shooting every single Mission so far, bringing those astonishing moments to life.

This article was originally published in the April 2025 issue of Empire.

Mission: Impossible

(1996, Brian De Palma)

The Langley Heist

For some, it’s still the signature sequence of the Mission: Impossible series, even though it doesn’t involve a life-threatening stunt. Ethan Hunt infiltrates the CIA headquarters at Langley, to retrieve vital information from a high-tech, temperature-controlled computer vault that is seemingly impossible to access. Enter Ethan, gliding down from the ceiling in complete silence, showing perfect balance and poise before making off with the info…

“I was in Japan promoting a film, and De Palma called me and pitched me this. It was Rififi, but how do we do it? I knew this rig and I came back and showed him the rig that I wanted to wear. I was showing him different kinds of equipment and movement, and I would find out, ‘What could I do? How could I move through this space? What looks elegant?’ I would practise to make it look elegant. And we were testing different metals (to hold Cruise in place).

“The first metal I tested was soft, and it broke. If I’m up high and it breaks that’s a problem. I’ll never forget that day, because when I go from the computer down to the floor, it was very challenging, physically. We wanted it all to be in one shot. And my face kept hitting the ground as I went down. So I went to the crew guys and said, ‘Empty your pockets’, and put British [bank] notes in my toes, and balanced myself. And I went from the computer down, and didn’t hit the ground. I’m holding, I’m holding, I’m holding it, and I was sweating. Everyone’s holding their breath, and then I could hear Brian start laughing. He goes. ‘Alright! Cut!’ And we both laughed and hugged each other.”

Read the Empire review of Mission: Impossible

Mission: Impossible II

(2002, John Woo)

Hanging Tough

The second Mission movie’s introduction to Ethan is a belter, as we find the IMF’s golden boy on a busman’s holiday, enjoying a spot of free climbing in Moab, Utah. Cruise, naturally, did the climbing himself. The result is a clammy-palmed cracker.

“I wanted to do a climbing sequence. Throughout filming in Australia, there were weather challenges. It rained for 40 days. I felt like Noah. And the studio was like, ‘Listen, because of the rain, and [because] the schedule is over, let’s find another opening to the movie.’ Every day people were coming in with different pitches. I was like, ‘I don’t know how else to open the movie.’ So, now we’re into the winter months in Moab, I’ve flown all the way from Australia, and there are gale force winds. So we can’t even have my crew up on the mountain. I have pushed the studio for the opening of this movie, and you can’t even get there to set up the camera. I am so exhausted from jet lag, and I don’t know how to call the studio, and I’m not shooting, and you feel the pressure of shooting something, and for six months they’ve been wanting me to change the opening sequence. And what happened is, I remember waking up the next day, and I was just like, ‘You have to confront this.’ And the sun was coming up, and the wind was gone, and the temperatures had come up. So I was like, ‘Let’s get to the top of the mountain and just start shooting it now.’

“This is back in the days where you didn’t have radios, and I’m free climbing as I’m going up to where I need to be for that opening shot. I had to pace myself, because I had to climb down afterwards, and if I fall, there’s a cable that’s going to get me, but I’m going to be slamming up against the mountain. And the rock is very soft rock. At certain times you’re going, ‘Jesus, I’m sliding, it’s breaking away.’ As I’m doing the Iron Cross (a move where he is suspended between two pieces of rock), I’m actually hanging there, but it isn’t quite right, and you can see it. I was like, ‘Just tell me this is the shot, because I can’t do it again.’”

“What people don’t know is that there’s a section where I’m jumping high to low, but my foot was broken. And I never mentioned it to anyone. Some of these injuries, what’s the point? You just keep going. So I’m jumping, and my foot wasn’t right. John Woo was like, ‘We’ve got the shot.’ I was like, ‘No, we want it in one shot, I gotta keep doing it.’ And that’s the shot that’s in the movie. But it was so much fun working with John, doing that sequence, because I knew it was our [marketing] campaign.”

Read the Empire review of Mission: Impossible II

Mission: Impossible III

(2006, J.J. Abrams)

On The Run

The threequel brought Ethan out of retirement and placed him at the head of a new team, searching for something called the Rabbit’s Foot. Luck certainly needed to be on Cruise’s side for a memorable sequence in which Ethan winds up in China, and finds himself on the run. What, did you think we were going to compile a list of Mission: Impossible’s greatest moments and not include one where Ethan Hunt runs (and runs, and runs some more)?

“At that time, we were the first big American movie in China, we were working with the Chinese community and film community, and that was really wonderful. We shot in Xitang, a 2,000-year-old fishing village, and I’m coming out of a building and jumping down, in one shot. That’s such a long sprinting shot, particularly at the end of a movie, when my body needs a little bit of rehab and rest. All of those people [Ethan runs past] are actually from the village and I’m in front of their homes, and it was a very narrow walkway.

“That shot only works if you set it all in one. It was a very challenging shot to get, because I had to know how fast the camera could go, and they had to know how fast I’m going to go, so I had to go full speed for a long, long period of time and do it over and over and over again until we got our rhythm and timing right. If I slow down, that camera is not with me. And if someone in that community stepped in front of me, there’s no possible way I could have stopped. So I walked all along that walkway with my Chinese translator, and made sure I spent time with them, telling them what we were going to do, and asking them to please stay in their position. And everyone was so helpful. It was beautiful.”

Read the Empire review of Mission: Impossible III

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

(2011, Brad Bird)

Getting High

The Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, is the world’s tallest man-made structure, narrowly eclipsing Peter Crouch. But it’s arguably more famous for being the setting of the most dangerous stunt in Cruise’s career up until that point, as Ethan must, for reasons, climb up and along its exterior, with nothing more than a malfunctioning glove standing between him and a short but eventful plummet.

“When I got to Ghost Protocol, I said, ‘I want to make a movie on that building.’ I saw architecturally what they were doing. The sequence that Brad Bird designed is beautiful. He understood the physics of it. What’s amazing is his opening frame, when I’m going out the window. That’s the shot that sells the vertigo. To get that IMAX camera there to get that shot was very complex. I had to figure out how to do it, so I built, on a soundstage, an entire wall of metal and glass, and we had it as hot as it could be. I knew I needed gloves, because of the heat of the building. What happens if it’s so hot I can’t touch it? What’s the wind like? So I would sprint up and down the building on the soundstage, just to get used to it.

“When we got to Dubai, I only had one night to rehearse on the actual building itself. I padded up – on the day I’m doing it, I don’t have pads – and the sun is starting to set. I’ve spent time climbing the building, but this is me running across the building, holding on, and then going across. So I start sprinting, holding on to this rope, on a very small single pick. And the wire is so tiny. Before I go, I look down at this little bolt and, for the first time, start recognising, ‘Well, that’s very small! I didn’t realise how small it is!’ And your mind starts thinking about things like this. But I push off, and suddenly I’m out there in space, and I’m arcing, and I feel the wind and I’m picking up speed. I’m headed toward the building, and I thought I was going to be able to naturally slow and land on my feet, but I realise the impact is going to be on my skull and my neck and I’m going to have compression. At the last second, I was able to wrench my body around and go, like Wile E. Coyote, bang into this picture-window glass. I hit it so hard. I saw stars. I could even see the windows vibrating. And I checked my body. Nothing’s broken. And then I see all the crew look at me with big eyes going, ‘Oh my God.’ And it’s okay. I’m okay.

“I wake up in the morning and the sun is bright, and I have no pads, and I go out and I was able to do it correctly. It’s such a beautiful sequence. It was a privilege.”

Read the Empire review of Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

(2015, Christopher McQuarrie)

Full Throttle

The Burj Khalifa sequence effectively cemented the recent Mission tradition of having at least one insanely dangerous Cruise stunt. Here, the stakes were raised for the film’s cold open, in which Ethan finds himself clinging onto a giant A400M aircraft as it takes off. So, Cruise also found himself on the outside of a giant A400M aircraft as it took off.

“McQ was like, ‘Oh, look at this airplane, how would you like to hang off that airplane?’ I said, ‘Sure!’ He later told me he was joking. So we set it up. We’re doing it. We had to go through a tremendous amount of engineering to make sure that if anything happened, that the camera wouldn’t come off and hit me and kill me. There was a runway [at RAF Wittering] that we had to clean, to make sure there were no particles that could come up and hit me. And I came up with the idea of using square lenses to protect my eyes, so I could keep my eyes open for the close-up.

“On the day, it was freezing. I was strapped in, and we had hand signals for if I was in trouble. Once I am out there, you can’t get me in. I’m out there for the whole ride. So now I’m taxiing and I’m ingesting fuel because I’m right in the exhaust. Because he’s my friend, and I know he’s nervous, I call McQ and say, ‘Listen, man. No matter what, don’t stop. If I look scared, I’m acting. Don’t stop. I’m gonna do this.’ We’re at the top of the runway, and I could feel it. The pilot goes full throttle and I’m like, ‘Here we go.’ We start blasting down that runway, and I’m getting hit with the heat and the exhaust, and on the list take I got hit with something, some particle hit me in the ribs. It knocked the wind out of me. I didn’t tell anyone about the stone. What’s the point, you know? And so we didn’t get it on the first take. The more times you do it, you start to feel the performance, and when my feet should come off the ground. So we decided to hold on a little longer so we could get it when we’re off the ground. And then we finally got it.”

Read the Empire review of Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

Mission: Impossible – Fallout

(2018, Christopher McQuarrie)

Toilet Tear-Up

The most bruising bout in the entire franchise, as Ethan and Henry Cavill’s August Walker go toe-to-toe with Liang Yang’s ‘John Lark’ in a lavishly appointed bathroom that gets less and less lavishly appointed as it gets smashed along the way…

“That fight in the bathroom, how it evolved was, we have those shots that had to be able to play in long cuts. It was, ‘Cut when you want to, not when you have to.’ Ethan’s fighting style changes a little bit throughout each film, but you want that. Just like in a musical, the behaviour of the actors in a fight dictates actors. Liang’s a dervish. McQ came up with the idea that Henry was a hammer, and that dictated his fighting style. I love Henry pumping his arms. That guy is so talented. He didn’t back off. Being flipped is brutal, and he’s a big guy and he’s hitting the ground. But we all knew what we were going for. I got kicked in the stomach. That was real. Now, I know that the camera’s there, and I know the frame, and I went down. We didn’t want it to feel polished.”

Read the Empire review of Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

(2023, Christopher McQuarrie)

The Italian Job

There hadn’t been a standout car chase in the series until the impishly inventive one in Dead Reckoning, which sees Ethan Hunt and Grace (Hayley Atwell) trying to lose a posse of pursuers in Rome, while driving a frankly psychotic Fiat 500. Oh, and they’re handcuffed together, meaning Ethan is somewhat hampered…

“That car was very tricky to drive, because of the way it was set up. [At] high speed and drifting on cobblestones, there are moments in there that just happened, and we seized on it. It’s not like we have all day to shoot all this stuff in Rome. So the performances have to be there in the midst of a very high-speed car chase where I’m driving a car with one hand. I sleep better at night when it’s just me on a motorcycle, even if I’m going into traffic with cars coming at me. So I felt added responsibility when Hayley was there. When I was driving, I had not only the cameras hanging around the car so it’s difficult to see outside, but also, at times, a camera car with a camera right in front of us. There were times when Hayley was like, ‘That camera is really close!’ I was like, ‘It’s good, we’re good, don’t worry!’ Her performance is so alive and immediate and engaged. When you see a two-shot of two actors in a frame, and they’re living in that frame, it just has something that you can’t quantify. Lightning in a bottle.”

Read the Empire review of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning