Say what you want about Tom Cruise, there’s one inarguable point: the man makes great movies. Part of that is his dedication to real stunts, and they certainly push the boundaries with each film’s release. He also costs studios millions in insurance.
The Top Gun icon made headlines when it was revealed he’d be doing a spectacular performance at the Closing Ceremony of the Paris Olympics as a way to the flag onto Los Angeles, which hosts the Games in 2028.
TMZ first reported that his participation “involves Tom rappelling down from the top of Stade de France … landing on the stadium field and carrying the official Olympic flag” and skydiving “down to the Hollywood sign.” But how many of those incredible feats are actually Tom?
Does Tom Cruise do his own stunts?
Yes, rather famously, he does pretty much all of his own stuntwork—and it can cost movie studios millions. Notably, Cruise broke his ankle while filming Mission: Impossible–Fallout (2018) which caused production to stall for nine weeks and added $70 million to the budget, per The Hollywood Reporter. “If you want to be in business with him, you kind of have to let him do what he wants to do,” Tim O’Hair, a film executive, producer, and financier, told TheWrap.com in October 2023.
Cruise learned his lesson on that one. For the film’s follow-up, Mission Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part I (2023), Cruise took his stuntwork a step further, riding a motorcycle down a ramp, off the edge of a cliff, and parachuting to safety. They shot it on the first day of filming and there’s good reason for that.
The reason for it being done on the first day, as Variety observed, “If production on the $200 million-plus tentpole was already underway and Cruise got severely injured or died because of the motorcycle stunt, then a lot of money would’ve been wasted.”
“I was training and I was ready,” Cruise told Entertainment Weekly of his most dangerous stunt to date—training involved 500 hours of skydiving training and 13,000 motorbike jumps. “You have to be razor sharp when you’re doing something like that. It was very important as we were prepping the film that it was actually the first thing. I don’t want to drop that and go shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else. Everyone was prepped. Let’s just get it done.”
Cruise also obtained his pilot’s license in 1994, with the certification to fly helicopters, fighter jets, private planes, and even commercial flights. He even created a flight training program for his fellow cast members in Top Gun: Maverick.
“Every time we went up there you have to mentally brace for a fight,” he said. “You get on the ground and you’re exhausted. That’s what’s impressive about Tom. He’s flying more than anyone in the movie — he would fly three times a day,” Glen Powell told The Ringer.
According to Powell, Cruise gave “all the young guns” in the film an iPad with Ground School, which would allow them to study to become pilots in real life. “I started flying on my own, and Tom was with me every step of the way,” he said. “After I got my private pilot’s license, there was a note waiting for me on the ground from Tom that said, ‘Welcome to the Skies.’”
