Tom Cruise recalls ‘brutal’ biplane scene in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning that separated the joints in his fingers

Tom Cruise's hands were swollen and he almost broke his back while filming the popular biplane action sequence in his latest release, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning.

The fingers in Tom Cruise's hands got separated while filming the biplane action sequence in Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning.

Tom Cruise continues to defy gravity by doing most of his epic, death-defying action sequences by himself. With his recent release, Christopher McQuarrie’s spy thriller Mission: Impossible – The Dead Reckoning, Cruise even earned a Guinness World Record for most burning parachute jumps after jumping out of a helicopter 16 times.

Cruise spent a lot of his time in the air for the sequel Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, including the memorable sequence in which he dangles off the side of a biplane. “Oh, this almost broke my back,” Cruise said. “You’re talking about a lot of pain here,” added McQuarrie. As if that wasn’t enough, Cruise went through hell while holding onto the strap of the biplane seatbelt in mid-air.

“Oh God, that was brutal,” Cruise told Entertainment Weekly as McQuarrie adds, “This separated the joints in Tom’s fingers from the force, so by the time we finished this sequence, your hands were absolutely swollen — oh my God, it was so painful to watch.” Cruise and the stunt team spent weeks preparing for the action in Drakensberg, South Africa, before ascending more than 75,000 feet in the helicopter.

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The high-speed stunt, where Cruise’s face was exposed to the wind at speeds of over 120 miles per hour, presented another serious challenge for the actor. “When you stick your face out, going over 120 to 130 miles an hour, you’re not getting oxygen. So I had to train myself how to breathe. There were times I would pass out physically; I was unable to get back into the cockpit,” he said.

Cruise’s commitment to performing dangerous stunts has earned him a legendary status in Hollywood, but it has also led to several physical challenges over the years. From scaling the Burj Khalifa in Dubai to holding his breath for over six minutes underwater, Cruise’s passion for thrilling action sequences has often amazed his fans.

Cruise‘s fellow action star Brad Pitt, who reunited with his Interview With Vampire (1994) co-star at the premiere of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, recently claimed cheekily that he’d love to collaborate with Cruise again as long as he stays on the ground. “Well, I’m not gonna hang my a*s off airplanes and sh*t like that, so when he does something again that’s on the ground,” he said.

Also Read — Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, in all its exhaustive and bloated messiness, stands as a tribute to the myth of Tom Cruise

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Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is co-written by McQuarrie and Erik Jendresen. Cruise reprised his renowned role as Ethan Hunt in the dramatic ending to the Mission: Impossible franchise after eight movies. The cast also includes Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn, Ving Rhames as Luther Strickell, Vanessa Kirby as Alanna Mitsopolis, Hayley Atwell as Grace, Esai Morales as the antagonist Gabriel, Shea Wigham as Jasper Briggs, Greg Tarzan Davis as Degas, and Pom Klementieff as the assassin Paris.

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