Making “Mission: Impossible” movies have become just as insane as what audiences see on the big screen, and some of that wildness stems directly from what Tom Cruise attempts to get away with in those action films in terms of stunts and pushing his 62-year-old body to it’s limit. Always, the showman, Cruise understands what gets people talking about the franchise is what he’s willing to do stunt-wise, and a key one in “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” coming to theaters on May 23 is bordering on a death wish.
While speaking with Empire Magazine, Cruise admitted that he was breathing his own carbon dioxide (we should note this is ill-advised and dangerous for others to attempt) during the upcoming sequel’s underwater sequences. Something that sounds counterintuitive to anyone with common sense given you can very much DIE from overexposure to carbon dioxide.
“I’m breathing in my own carbon dioxide,” Cruise says of shooting the new underwater sequence in “The Final Reckoning.” “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,” Cruise told Empire.
We should add some context within the movie that The Entity, the artificial intelligence threat, resides in the scuttled Sevastopol submarine and the only way to access it, of course, is by diving into the freezing waters. For the submarine sequence, Cruise wears a specially-designed suit and mask, that has an illuminated helmet involved to show audiences (readable on camera) that it really is him in the middle of the maelstrom scene. The actor can only wear the diving gear for 10 minutes at a time, before suffering from hypoxia, which is an absence of oxygen in the body.
This level of risk and danger isn’t lost on writer/director Christopher McQuarrie as he called the scenes “so challenging and so terrifying.” This wasn’t only “really physically punishing” for Cruise, but making the camera shots legible on screen, and, most importantly, not turning quickly into a deathtrap was quite the task for the stunt team. “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,” explains the director and longtime pal of Cruise, “but in a way that you could repeat, and that Tom could navigate, and survive.”
At 62, how much further could Cruise really push his body?
That remains to be seen and he doesn’t seem all that interested in ending his action-star status anytime soon. Could these hard-insure hijinks be one of the reasons that they’re wrapping things up and Cruise’s new deal with Warner Bros.? Potentially, that would be a much deeper question as you have to believe that Cruise and McQuarrie are attacking these event films at a completely different level than what the studio is likely comfortable with.
You can watch the latest trailer and TV spot for “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” below:
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