Henry Cavill Wasn’t Allowed to do The HALO Jump Stunt with Tom Cruise

Cavill and Cruise star in this month’s highly anticipated “Mission Impossible: Fallout,” which, among the most impressive stunts, includes an actual HALO jump performed by Tom Cruise. He received a lot of media attention and praise for it, and Cavill is now saying he could’ve too – if only he’d been allowed to do the stunt.

Speaking on talk show Good Morning America, Cavill says he did the bulk of his stunts on “Fallout,” which was one of the conditions he put when he signed on for the part. He wanted to do his own stunts, as long as it was legal and he had guarantees other people wouldn’t be hurt if they went wrong, he says.

One stunt he wasn’t allowed to do was the HALO jump, Cavill says, as cited by People Magazine. Also known as High-Altitude Low-Open jump, it saw Cruise jump from 25,000 feet from a military plane with a custom-made oxygen mask. He had to do hundreds of hours of rehearsals to prepare for the scene, first on the ground and then in the air.

In total, Cavill says, Cruise probably did about 106 jumps, including rehearsals and double takes. It was one of the most difficult scenes in the movie to shoot, partly because director Chris McQuarrie wanted to shoot it as sunset.

Cavill wanted to do the jump as well, but he wasn’t allowed because it would have put Cruise’s life at risk.

“[The one] I could not do – and this is the most heartbreaking thing for me, because it is 100 per cent on my bucket list – was the HALO (high altitude-low opening) jump,” he explains. “[Getting to] jump out of the back of a C-17 at dusk was my idea of magic, and I was praying… they would let me do it, begging Tom.”

“Tom eventually said to me, ‘Look, Henry, I understand what you’re saying, I would love, love, love for you to do it, but if you do, the chances are that you will kill me and everyone else in the process!’,” Cavill adds.

Here’s a video of Cruise doing the HALO jump, just to get you an idea of what Cavill missed out on.