Tom Cruise’s Death-Defying Stunts Front-and-Center in New ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’ Preview

He’s known for doing his own stunts, and the sixth installment of Mission: Impossible was no exception for Tom Cruise. Mission: Impossible – Fallout is being hailed as the most ambitious yet.

Franchise newcomer Henry Cavill said in an exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette for Entertainment Tonight that “This is the best Mission yet,” assuaging fans who may wonder how it holds up after five other action-packed adventure films.

The movie has already received quite a bit of press coverage due to an injury Cruise, 55, suffered while jumping from one building to another and breaking his ankle.

“It hurt, but I knew I didn’t want to do the take again, and so I just got up and walked out,” Cruise told PopCulture.com’s Brandon Davis.

“I knew it was broken the moment I broke it. I just know movies and I’m thinking instantly, ‘I broke it … I better get over this, otherwise I’m gonna have to come back and do this again.”

Cruise’s dedication to filming his own stunts, especially the one that landed him the broken ankle, hasn’t gone unnoticed by his fellow co-stars and co-workers on the newest Mission installment.

“With this one, Tom’s really sort of doubled down from the aspect of risking his life — literally — for the movie,” co-star Simon Pegg says in the featurette.

But it’s not just the building jump and the film’s famed HALO jump that highlight Cruise’s decision to do his own stunts; he told Entertainment Tonight that Fallout‘s helicopter sequence might be his most dangerous stunt yet.

“You don’t stall a helicopter,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “It’s either flying or it’s not flying. And when it’s not flying, there is no recovery.”

In another behind-the-scenes look that was released earlier this year, fans saw Cruise fly the helicopter involved in a death-defying stunt for the film. Not only did Cruise learn how to fly the chopper on his own, but he was also responsible for operating the camera — all while playing Ethan Hunt.

In the scene, Cruise sends the helicopter into a terrifying 360-degree corkscrew spiral.

“None of this has ever been attempted before,” writer/director Christoper McQuarrie said in the clip.

“It’s super important for a movie like Mission to be doing it all practically and for real,” stunt coordinator Wade Easton said. “Tom doesn’t want to sit in a green screen. The audience can tell when something has been cheated.”

Fans can see Cruise’s stunts in all of their glory on July 27 when Mission: Impossible – Fallout is released in theaters.