Mission: Impossible Star Tom Cruise Shares Childhood Story That Proves He Was Born For Stunts

When it comes to the Mission: Impossible franchise, it’s no secret that Tom Cruise performs his own stunts. In fact, he tries to outdo himself with each production, and the latest installment to the franchise sees him riding a motorcycle off of a cliff. Before the SAG Strike, Cruise sat down with some of his Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One co-stars and director Christopher McQuarrie, and shared a fun story from his childhood. Turns out, even as a kid, Cruise was an adrenaline junkie. 

“Born for stunts,” the official account for Mission: Impossible shared on Instagram. “I was that little kid, as soon as I could ride a bike, I set it up so that I could jump over the trash cans,” Cruise explains in the video. “So I start down that hill, the pedals are going so fast, I couldn’t keep my legs on the pedals,” he explained with a laugh. “Halfway through it, the wood breaks, my body’s flying like a rag doll, I hear a child screaming.”

“Nothing has changed,” McQuarrie joked. “No, nothing has changed,” Cruise agrees, laughing. “I’ve gotten a little better at it.” You can watch the fun video below:

Why Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning’s Motorcycle Stunt Was Filmed First:

During a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Cruise explained why they filmed the movie’s most dangerous stunt first.

“Well, we know either we will continue with the film or we’re not. Let’s know day one!” Cruise explained. “Let us know day one what is going to happen: Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?” He added, “I was training and I was ready … 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.”

“Doing that on day one gave us all the time in the world to understand why he [Ethan] was doing what he was doing,” McQuarrie told Empire Magazine. “If we sat around and tried to figure out these movies the old-fashioned way, you’d never find it, simply because it’s such a living, breathing thing.”

“There’s not a chicken, there’s not an egg,” McQuarrie recently told ComicBook.com‘s Brandon Davis. “Sometimes we start with…like, Fallout started with the emotional story of Ethan and Julia, and the stunts were kind of put around in the periphery. The beginning of this one, I said, ‘What do you want to do?’ He said, ‘I want to ride a motorcycle off a cliff. What do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘I want to wreck a train. Let’s just wreck a train.’ Of course, both of us at one point or another would remind the other, ‘You know, this was your idea. You wanted to do this.’ Tom was very fortunate in one respect becuase he got his stunt out of the way day one. I’m still shooting that train. That just took forever, and it was very, very challenging.”

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is now playing in theaters.