Tom Cruise 'passed out' filming new 'Mission: Impossible' stunt

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Tom Cruise is pushing himself to the edge to thrill audiences in the next Mission: Impossible film, hitting theatres in May.

In one sequence for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, already teased in the trailer, the 62-year-old action star dangles from the side of a 1930s biplane during an aerial scene that had him passing out from a lack of oxygen.

“When you stick your face out (of an airplane), going over 120 to 130 miles an hour, you’re not getting oxygen,” Cruise said in an interview with Empire magazine to preview the upcoming movie. “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.”

So far in the series, which kicked off in 1996, Cruise’s IMF agent Ethan Hunt has — among other things — been battered by a wind machine in the finale of the first film, ascended treacherous red rock peaks in Moab, Utah (2000’s Mission: Impossible II), climbed outside the 130th floor of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa (2010’s Ghost Protocol), clung to the side of an Airbus A400M as it was taking off (2015’s Rogue Nation), performed a dangerous HALO jump stunt and held his breath for six minutes (2018’s Fallout), and ridden a motorcycle off the face of a cliff 1,200-feet above sea level before opening his parachute just 500-feet from the ground (2023’s Dead Reckoning).  

Director Christopher McQuarrie says the franchise’s latest entry has scenes that kept him up at night. “I truly want to puke thinking about the stress.”

“There are stunts in this movie that will melt your brain,” McQuarrie, 56, told the outlet. “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.”

Last month, McQuarrie revealed that an audience member who got an early look at the film nearly had to be carted off to the hospital.

“We had a small screening, and someone said, ‘I was suffocating throughout the entire sequence. I almost had a heart attack.’ And I thought, ‘I guess we did something right,’” McQuarrie told Empire.

McQuarrie also said Cruise performed “the most difficult thing” they’ve ever filmed for the series, but wouldn’t reveal what the action sequence in question entailed. In the trailer for The Final Reckoning, which has racked up over 24 million views on YouTube, Cruise not only hangs off the side of a biplane, he dives underwater and performs other death-defying stunts.

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Another set-piece teased by Empire takes place underwater as Cruise explores the wreckage of a submarine. To film the scene, Cruise donned “a specially-designed suit and mask” that he was only able to wear for 10 minutes at a time before hypoxia (the absence of oxygen in the body tissue) set in.

“I’m breathing in my own carbon dioxide,” Cruise said (per Variety). “It builds up in the body and affects the muscles. You have to overcome all of that while you’re doing it, and be present.”

McQuarrie called the sequence “terrifying” to film and “really physically punishing” for Cruise.

“He’s in a rotating structure filled with debris, and you had to find a way to make that environment look as chaotic and unhinged as humanly possible,” McQuarrie said. “But in a way that you could repeat, and that Tom could navigate, and survive.”

In the follow-up to 2023’s Dead Reckoning, Ethan and his team of spies — which includes Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and new addition Hayley Atwell — go up against a world-ending artificial intelligence threat known as the Entity and a deadly assassin (Esai Morales) from Hunt’s past.

Speaking to Postmedia at the New York City premiere of Dead Reckoning, McQuarrie credited the franchise’s enduring popularity to Cruise’s commitment to finding new ways to thrill moviegoers.

“That’s all down to Tom. He’s all about entertaining the audience. He’s all about big-screen emotional shared experience,” he said.

For his part, Cruise said he hasn’t tired of the series because he and McQuarrie — who has been with the franchise since writing Ghost Protocol — keep coming up with new ways to challenge his hero.

“There’s constant adventures that we can take this character on,” Cruise told Postmedia. “And I get to travel the world. I always wanted to go make movies and travel the world. I wanted to be in other cultures, and not just visit. You get to know people by working with them, and then to be able to celebrate and show people things that we love in different countries and every time there’s always something new. To be able to have something that we can share and make for the big screen I think today it’s important to do that for audiences. That’s what I love doing.”

The eighth Mission: Impossible film hits theatres on May 23.

mdaniell@postmedia.com