Impossible Stunt Really Was Explained In Eyewatering Terms By Director

Christopher McQuarrie explained how dangerous Tom Cruise’s wing walking stunt in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning really was. In the film, Cruise spends a significant amount of time hanging from the wing of a biplane, and even executes a jump onto another plane.

In an interview with Collider ahead of the release of Mission: Impossible 8, McQuarrie claimed that it was terrifying to watch Cruise do the wing walking stunt while filming the movie. He explained that Cruise would sometimes be on the wing of the plane for over 12 minutes, which would leave him completely exhausted. According to the director, Cruise didn’t even have the strength to pull himself back into the plane after some takes. Read McQuarrie’s full comments below:

The really terrifying part of that is that when Tom climbs out onto the wing of that plane, he’s immediately being hit with wind going 140 miles an hour. You can’t breathe. I’m saying this from experience. I did it as well, and it’s pretty extraordinary. But what would happen is we’d have a timer. Mary Boulding, my assistant director, would be sitting next to me in the helicopter, and as soon as Tom climbed out on the wing, she would start a timer. It was her job to tell me, counting off every minute that he was on the wing. So imagine you’re hearing in your headphones as you’re watching the sequence, “One minute on the wing, two minutes on the wing.”

We knew at 12 minutes, between the physical exertion and the lack of oxygen, that Tom was starting to lose strength rapidly. There were times when Tom wanted to complete the action, but had gone way past the 12-minute mark, and was so physically exhausted he couldn’t get back into the plane. You can’t land the plane if Tom is on the wing of the plane, and there were times we were up there long enough that there was not enough fuel in the plane. Fuel was running out, and Tom was laying on the wing, and it was like watching a Mission: Impossible movie of, “Is he going to get back into the cockpit in time for them to land the plane?” Those were pretty intense days. That’s a snapshot.

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