Tom Cruise Filmed MI7's Most Dangerous Stunt First For A Terrifyingly Bleak Reason

Action films can be risk-heavy propositions even under the best of circumstances. And in Tom Cruise's case, he has become known for risking his body on such death-defying odds for the "Mission: Impossible" series of films. Cruise has eschewed stunt performers in favor of doing such things as climbing up the side of the world's tallest building, or hanging onto a helicopter. When it comes to "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One," he asked to shoot the most dangerous stunt in the film on his first day. Why? Because if something went wrong and he was too severely injured to continue acting — or, in the worst case scenario, died — then the studio and the film's producers wouldn't have anything to reshoot and the $200 million dollar movie would stay on-track production-wise with few rewrites. Cruise jokingly told Entertainment Tonight about the scene, "Well we know either we will continue with the film or we're not. Let's know day one! Let us know day one what is going to happen: Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?" he said.

The stunt in question was a motorcycle ride off of a Norwegian cliff. Cruise, as ubiquitous super-spy Ethan Hunt, was required to ride the motorcycle off the edge of the cliff, jump clear of it, successfully pull the ripcord on his parachute at the right height, and then glide safely to the ground below. Thankfully, no rewrites were required, as Cruise managed to perform the task safely on multiple occasions and land in one piece. He also took part in 13,000 jumps with a motorbike and 500 skydiving sessions to practice for the scene.

Tom Cruise also told Entertainment Tonight that while he'd been racing cars and motorcycles since he was a young kid, it took a bit of work to get the stunt done. The intense training he undertook for the cliff jump did one thing for the actor — it made him want to get filming for the scene over and done with. "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," he said.

Variety makes note of another intense scene in store for fans popping into theatres for the seventh "Mission Impossible" film — a fight scene between Ethan Hunt and Esai Morales' Gabriel, with both Cruise and Morales fighting atop a speeding train barreling down the track at 60 miles per hour. "I've done fight scenes, but to do them on a moving train is trial by fire," Morales says in a featurette about the scene uploaded to YouTube. "But that's how Tom like to do things." And may he continue doing those things for some time to come.