Hollywood star Tom Cruise has become synonymous with some of the most daring and captivating stunts ever witnessed on the silver screen. The actor has brought numerous adrenaline-pumping adventures to life, particularly through the spy action franchise Mission Impossible. After climbing the Burj Khalifa and hanging onto a plane, the actor took on the task of executing a HALO jump for the sixth installment in the series, Mission: Impossible – Fallout.
Starring Henry Cavill alongside Cruise, the film required them to do a HALO jump over Paris. True to form, Cruise performed the entire sequence himself, which entailed a staggering total of 106 jumps to capture the whole sequence and significantly stressed out his co-star.
Tom Cruise Did 106 Takes For the HALO Jump Sequence For Fallout
Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout featured one of the most challenging and daring stunts in the franchise, the HALO jump over Paris. The planning and execution of the whole sequence took over a year and involved various tasks, from creating a new style of helmet to building the largest wind tunnels in the world for stunt practice.
And getting together the whole sequence, which was filmed in the United Arab Emirates, took over 100 attempts. One of the biggest challenging aspects of filming the sequence was the limited window of three minutes during the sunset.
Cruise has shared that they only had a “one-take a day” and he would spend the whole day training. However, the HALO jump was not the only sequence he had to train for as Cruise was required to do multiple stunt training for the film, including flying a Helicopter.
Craig O’Brien, an experienced skydiving camera operator, filmed the sequence where Cruise was required to keep a distance of precisely three feet from the camera. However, as per Business Insider, the filmmakers faced issues to focus the camera as they would often turn up with blurry footage.
Upon identifying that the focus puller on the plane was causing the problem and resolving it, they were finally able to capture all three parts of the HALO jump sequence after 106 jumps by the action Hollywood star.
Simon Pegg Revealed the Daily Stress of Working with Tom Cruise
Actor Simon Pegg, known for portraying the role of IMF technician Benji Dunn, has been very candid about his perspective on Cruise’s death-defying stunts. In a conversation with USA Today, Pegg highlighted the constant stress and uncertainty in working alongside the Top Gun star.
“It’s a daily stress going to work with him. You don’t know if you’ll see him tomorrow,” he said before asserting, “The difference is, you know he lived.” He even went on to mention that there have been instances when he feared for Cruise’s life.
“You hear us just go silent as we’re waiting to hear that he’s alive,” he said in a conversation with Collider. Pegg first joined Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in the third installment of the franchise. He has since starred in every Mission Impossible film and is set to reprise his role in the next and potentially last film of the franchise.
The Mission Impossible franchise is available to stream on Paramount+.
