"Biggest Stunt in Cinema History" or Massive Ego Trip? Tom Cruise Is Still the Man Anyway

A true movie star is a Tom Cruise, or the other way around. In his fourth decade of acting – and sixth of life – the two have become interchangeable, and Tom Cruise is now regarded as one of the last few remaining movie stars in showbiz. He walks in fine company: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Jake Gyllenhaal, and a few others. But he’s the craziest one, by a long shot.

Ask any other actor whether they’d ever consider doing all their stunts on a film, and you will get a mixture of disbelief and amusement as a reply. After George Clooney was nearly killed on the way to work at a movie set, when a car crashed into his scooter, many actors were asked this question, especially in relation to Tom Cruise, a fellow artist who, in recent years, has built his entire reputation around the fact that he does not use a stunt double.

Some of us snicker at the image of Cruise jumping like a teenager on Oprah’s couch, professing his love for then-girlfriend Katie Holmes. Others find the idea of him always wearing lifts and demanding that his co-stars either take their heels off or stand on a lower plane than him, so they appear of equal height, terribly amusing. Then, there’s his association with the Church of Scientology and all the evils that it’s been accused of, but that’s too complicated a story to even get into.

But no one is laughing at Tom Cruise when he has a new movie coming out, and we’re entertained in advance with tales of his stunts, his training, and the high opinion his other team members hold of him. The fact that he chooses to do his own stunts, which brings about bureaucratic and insurance hell with the studios, doesn’t make him better than other actors, nor worse. It just makes him richer.

Industry estimates say that Tom Cruise is ringing in the New Year as Hollywood’s highest-paid and most bankable actor of 2022, with a paycheck of over $100 million and a $1.4 billion opening with Top Gun: Maverick. Many factors have contributed to that, not the least being a collective thirst for classic action movies after a two-year period in which we weren’t allowed to even set foot in a theater. That said, the number one contributor to this kind of success is Cruise himself. He and the reportedly massive ego that’s always driving him to outdo himself.

Earlier this month, Cruise and Universal Pictures put out a new promotional video for the upcoming Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, which will open on July 14, 2023. It’s billed the video about “the biggest stunt in cinema” and, strangely enough, it offers nothing new in terms of information. That stunt is of Cruise riding a Honda dirtbike off a platform on a mountain top in Norway, and BASE-jumping to safety down below.

As the kids today would say, the jump is old news: Cruise did it in 2020, when the world was still in lockdown and, before we even got to call our mothers to say hello that day, we already knew everything about it because it was all over the socials. Since then, Cruise has spoken about it some more, describing it as his most dangerous stunt, as well as among the most expensive.

The video below shows why that was, and how the production team first built a set for Cruise in the UK, where he trained with the dirtbike, doing the jumps, and learning to feel the machine. That part of the production was also riddled with issues, including when a section of the set caught on fire when one of the bikes ignited the cardboard on which it landed after the jump. But now, we get to see Cruise doing it, over and over again.

Then, production moved to Norway. Before the actual shot, there were more rehearsals, more simulations, and more calculations, and Cruise was in the eye of the storm. He skydived, he BASE-jumped, he talked to stunt coordinators and specialists, he consulted the weather forecast – and that’s just the part shown on camera, not including the special physical training or the dieting or what have you.

The tally is impressive: 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps before the actual shot. And that one too, Cruise insisted they did it several times that day, because – as he says repeatedly in the video – he wanted to make sure he offered audiences the most immersive and impressive cinematic experience ever.

Watching the video, there’s a feeling that he’s putting on a show. It wouldn’t be that far-fetched to believe it: the world’s biggest action movie star is still performing for the camera, pretending he’s risking his life for the audience. But this doesn’t change the fact that, even if Cruise’s insane stunt work is the result of an overinflated ego, his work ethic and his commitment are almost unmatched in showbiz. He is the man other male actors look up to when they’re doing an action film – even when they laugh at the idea of doing their own stunts, for whatever reason.

Tom Cruise has driven, ridden, and jumped more cars and motorcycles in more spectacular fashion than any other actor. He’s piloted and jumped out of airplanes, scaled buildings, and ran marathons against the most varied backdrops. He’s rescued damsels in distress and the world at large with equal nonchalance, and he will continue to do so hopefully for many years to come.

Up next, he’s BASE-jumping with a dirtbike, and then he’s heading to the International Space Station to write another record, that of being the first American actor to shoot a movie in space. Whatever your thoughts on Cruise as a person, he sure does bring the entertainment to the big screen in a way only he can.