Tom Cruise Always Makes One Mistake When Doing Stunts
Tom Cruise loves doing stunts but can't stop making this mistake.
This article is more than 2 years old
It’s well-documented that Tom Cruise prefers to do his own stunts. He has dangled from a plane for the Mission Impossible series. He scaled skyscrapers-also for that same franchise. It seems like there really is not much the A-lister isn’t willing to do or try. What is not as well-known, though, is the fact that the actor consistently makes one mistake while doing his stunts. Without reading any further, can you guess what it is?
During a recent interview on The Graham Norton Show (via Collider), Tom Cruise said that he has broken a few bones during his numerous stunt performances, but he also said that has not stopped him. In fact, he said he enjoys stunt work so much that he often has the crew reminding him to not smile when risking his life. That’s right, smiling is the actor’s most common stuntwork error.
Expending further, Tom Cruise said that he loves the adrenaline rush he feels when doing these stunts, calling himself a “very physical actor.” Honestly, from what we know about the actor and his partiality toward the dangerous and death-defying, that seems to be true. Several years ago, he was on the same show sharing slow-motion footage of how he broke his ankle.
A majority of Tom Cruise’s most famous stunts were filmed for the Mission Impossible franchise. It seems that, like the Fast and the Furious films, the cast and crew want to go bigger and better with each successive installment. His most recent outing as his Mission Impossible character, 2018’s Mission Impossible: Fallout, saw him doing some of his best-and craziest-stunts ever. We can only imagine how he will top them in its upcoming sequel. We only know that he will top them.
Part of the excitement of these movies is watching Tom Cruise do things we would never do, and on the big screen, no less. It is a special kind of thrill, watching him perform these stunts. Without them, the Mission Impossible movies would just be run-of-the-mill action flicks that have little to offer beyond some sporadically fun quips and the occasional high-stakes fight scene. Perhaps Cruise knows that he is almost single-handedly elevating these movies, and that is why he is smiling. The guy is approaching 60, so the fact that he is still able to do these stunts at all is pretty freakin’ incredible. That could be another reason why he’s cheesin’ it up while actively putting himself in danger. He wouldn’t know mortal peril if it stared him in the face. Or maybe he would, and just does not care.
Up next for Tom Cruise is Top Gun: Maverick, which has seen several delays but is now slated for release on November 19, 2021. After that, he will be returning as the globe-trotting Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible 7. That film is now scheduled to be released in May 2022. Its follow-up, Mission Impossible 8, will hit theaters the following year, in July 2023. It will be interesting to see just how wild his stunts for those films turn out to be. Regardless of what the role requires him to do or risk, you know that he will smile his way through whatever is asked of him.
