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Most franchises are defined by their leading actor, and some also double as a producer, script doctor or more, but none can hold a candle to Mission: Impossible star Tom Cruise, who has defined his career by incorporating almost-impossible stunts into the 29-year-old, 8-film hit series.
For the latest Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Tom Cruise’s relentless drive for perfection saw the 62-year-old megastar serve as a “one-man aerial crew”, performing an extraordinary feat of simultaneously flying the plane while acting, and also operating the cameras, and managing focus with no one else even remotely close to him while 8,000 feet in the air, says the film’s director Christopher McQuarrie.
It’s all part of Cruise’s ability to turn the impossible into reality, he notes at the recent Tokyo press conference for the new film, which serves as a direct sequel to 2023’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
“Tom is very often alone in the plane. As you’re just watching the film, the camera is focusing on different things in the plane, or different parts around Tom, and the lighting of those shots, everything specific to that, all the cinematography, the camera operating. It won’t occur to you that there is actually no one else in the plane,” recalls the director, who has directed the last four Mission: Impossible films.
“There’s no one to be operating the camera. There’s no one to be pulling focus on the camera. There’s no one responsible for deciding where the light is, that’s all Tom.”
Some might say it’s not that different from 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, which saw Cruise operating the cameras mounted in the small cockpit of the F/A-18F to film his flight scenes, but Cruise didn’t have to fly that plane himself, nor was he hanging on for his life.
“We brief the shot. We know what the camera moves are, what the focus is. And then Tom goes up and is operating the focus in his own shots, while flying the plane, while acting all of those. He is a one-man aerial crew. When you’re watching all those shots, and it’s something he won’t point out, but I will point out to you,” McQuarrie emphasised to the audience.
In fact, McQuarrie, who first started working with the action star in the 2008 historical thriller Valkyrie, had to remind Cruise to stop smiling, because the sequence was intended to look dangerous, and he was supposed to act terrified, and not look like he was enjoying himself.
Cruise himself admitted they weren’t certain the sequence would work. “We dreamed of it. We thought we could do it… we didn’t know until we started to test it if it would work.”
And test it he did, as Cruise himself spoke to Geek Culture exclusively at the red carpet premiere in Tokyo, and knowing his proclivity for perfection and getting things right, we asked him how many times he attempted that climactic biplane stunt, to get the final complete sequence.
“I must have done it thousands of times,” Cruise shared enthusiastically with a wry smile, and further explained how it was the most demanding stunt he and the team had ever pulled off. He had dreamt of wanting to go zero-g during the stunt and wanted to make it a reality with the support of McQuarrie and the team.
“I would do it, break for a quick meal and head back to doing it again and again,” he noted.
A stunt like this was never done before in film. It was physically very exhausting for the team and himself but he persevered and “did it over and over again till it was perfect.”
And that’s the duo’s shared philosophy of ‘We’ll figure it out’, which even drove them to create seemingly impossible shots, with McQuarrie revealing that when Cruise suggested a technically challenging camera movement, the team had to invent new technology within a day to make Cruise’s vision possible. This aerial sequence epitomises their collaborative spirit and commitment to pushing cinematic boundaries, transforming what initially appears impossible into a breathtaking reality that audiences will witness on screen.
Ultimately, what makes any movie is the shared vision between director and actor, and Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie don’t just think outside the box – they obliterate it at 8,000 feet. The biplane wing sequence in The Final Reckoning was a meticulously engineered dance with physics that took years of preparation and innovation.
“We animated the sequence initially,” McQuarrie revealed, “but when we hit actual physics, nothing we planned was achievable.”
Cruise, ever the perfectionist, trained relentlessly to understand the brutal realities of wing walking, describing how “the wind hits you so hard you can’t breathe” and developing specialised techniques just to maintain oxygen intake while performing.
Their collaboration became a real-time problem-solving ballet, with McQuarrie directing from a helicopter using intricate hand signals, and Cruise executing moves that defied both gravity and human limitation. They even developed a communication system so precise that Cruise could signal everything from “I’m okay” to, “This is getting dangerous” with hand gestures, and what emerged is a sequence that turned raw physical challenge into cinematic poetry, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in action filmmaking.
But even then, the duo did have one creative disagreement turned into an impromptu 20-minute “tutorial” on wing walking, led by Cruise himself.
“We were talking through the scene,” Cruise recalled. “McQuarrie said, ‘I want you to go from here to here in a couple of seconds.’. I told him, ‘I can’t do that.’. Then he added more movement, and I said, ‘I really can’t do that.’”
Cruise explained that the speed of the flying plane, along with the sheer force of the wind, made those movements physically impossible. Rather than debate it, he suggested McQuarrie climb into the plane, step onto the wing, and feel it for himself.
McQuarrie took him up on it and ended up loving the experience. “I’d definitely do it again,” he said.
So what makes Cruise risk life and limb for his film? As the megastar explains, this isn’t just another movie but a fulfilment of a dream three decades in the making. 1996’s Mission: Impossible was, after all, the first film Cruise ever produced.
“Making movies is not what I do, it is who I am,” he passionately declared. From a four-year-old dreaming of travelling the world to becoming a global cinema icon, Cruise has taken the Mission: Impossible franchise beyond explosions and espionage into stories driven by emotions and purpose.
For this outing, production pushed the limits of what’s possible in filmmaking, and even battled the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike that delayed the process. The team braved extreme conditions, from filming in the Arctic at minus 40 degrees, to performing death-defying stunts on airplane wings and underwater sequences.
Coming in at 170 mins, this film sets a franchise record for the longest runtime in the series but that’s also because with the large ensemble cast of Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Pom Klementieff, and Greg Tarzan Davis, the focus is not only action but a deeper focus on character and emotion, and personal growth.
In this outing, Simon Pegg’s Benji Dunn, first introduced in 2006’s Mission: Impossible III as a tech analyst, emerges as an unlikely hero, stepping into a leadership role that challenges everything fans thought they knew about his character.
“This is my character’s first time leading a team,” Pegg reveals, “And he’s been given an assassin, a government agent, and a thief to wrangle.” It’s a far cry from his initial introduction to the franchise 20 years ago, where he was pretty much stressed out over the dangerous aspects of being out in the field.
Cruise recognised Pegg’s potential early on, recalling him in Shaun of the Dead (2004) and immediately knowing he wanted him in the Mission: Impossible universe. What makes Pegg’s character so compelling is the depth he brings to what could be a simple supporting role, finding humour, humanity, and genuine leadership in a team of complex, unpredictable operatives.
“These characters came into the story so well-drawn and brilliantly performed,” Pegg explains, highlighting the collaborative spirit that has defined his two decades with the franchise. In Dead Reckoning, Pegg stepped out of the sidelines and became the unexpected heart of the team, proving that sometimes, the most impossible mission isn’t always the stunts, but guiding those to step up at times of extraordinary circumstances.
While production wrapped last November, the team toiled on post-production and the Tokyo premiere on May 6th marked several milestones, as Cruise revealed that the film was only completed three days prior, which meant that it was the first time that the cast would see the finished version.
And after the screening, the Japanese audience delivered a rare standing ovation, and a moment Cruise says he’ll never forget.
“It was an extraordinary moment,” Cruise reflected. “We waited to show the cast the film in front of this incredible audience, which made it even more special. McQuarrie and I have been working on this for years. Dead Reckoning, The Final Reckoning, and Top Gun: Maverick were all developed over a span of seven years. We finished the film only days ago, and the subtitles were completed just in time for the premiere.”
“Every time we finish a movie, Tom turns to me and says, ‘We can do better,'” McQuarrie reveals, capturing the relentless pursuit of perfection that defines their collaboration.
“We don’t write a role and then find an actor, we create roles for the talents we’re interested in working with,” said McQuarrie, who described his partnership with Tom Cruise as “a very long conversation about movies occasionally interrupted by production,” a dynamic that has redefined the action genre.
From battling Arctic extremes to reinventing underwater filming, boosting their daily shot count from six to 24, McQuarrie constantly adapted to push the craft forward.
“Physics became our reality,” he says, summing up the problem-solving mindset behind the scenes. But what truly sets him apart isn’t just technical skill but his focus on emotion. His aim was “to make a more emotional movie,” one that breaks free from the usual action-movie formula.
Under his vision, the last four Mission: Impossible outings have become more than just stunt-driven spectacles, transforming into stories about connection, choice, and the quiet weight behind every leap, punch, and fall. The real mission, it turns out, is capturing what it means to be human and that falls on the IMF’s latest agent, Grace, played by Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) veteran, Hayley Atwell. A thief who made her debut in the previous film, Grace in Dead Reckoning was a complex portrait of personal evolution.
“She was essentially running from everything,” Atwell revealed, describing her character’s initial state as a “lone wolf” who is “fiercely independent and hyper-vigilant”.
And in The Final Reckoning, Grace transitions from a solitary survivor to a team player, discovering what Atwell calls “the cost of belonging” – a profound emotional landscape where “true strength isn’t about being alone.”
Her character arc is an exploration of vulnerability, with Atwell noting that Grace learns “the most impossible mission is understanding that we need each other.” No longer just a skilled thief, Grace becomes a nuanced protagonist who “shifts from personal ambition to a greater sense of purpose”.
Then there is fellow MCU star Pom Klementieff’s French assassin, Paris, who goes from antagonist to ally.
“Like Hayley’s role in the first movie, she was kind of a lone wolf,” Klementieff revealed, drawing parallels to the film’s broader themes of change and identity. Her character’s journey unfolds gradually, revealing unexpected depth.
“You see a side of her that is more vulnerable in some ways,” she adds.
Careful not to give too much away, Klementieff hints at Paris’s evolution with visible excitement. “She gets to share more scenes with the team,” she says with a knowing smile and a spark of mischief, leaving just enough mystery to keep audiences curious about what Paris is really capable of.
Greg Tarzan Davis’ role as agent Degas tracking, and eventually helping Hunt, also marked a turning point in Dead Reckoning, as his character moves from simply taking orders to questioning the system he serves. “It was incredible to see him question something which I don’t think we saw in any of the other films”, Davis explains, referring to a moment where he challenges the team’s legendary leader, Ethan Hunt.
This shift signals a key decision in the story, as Davis hints at choosing where his loyalties truly lie. “It’s about joining a particular side,” he says with a mix of excitement and restraint. He touches on the importance of standing with the team, alongside a cast he clearly respects, while keeping just enough back to keep audiences guessing.
In their quest to craft a truly global Mission: Impossible, the team journeyed to iconic locations including Abu Dhabi, Norway, Rome, and Venice, shooting twice in South Africa, as well as in Belgium, England and even the Arctic Circle, where they encountered polar bears several times a day when they were shooting on an ice cap, and the cast and crew bonded while living and entertaining themselves in an icebreaker ship, recalled Atwell.
“Yes, we were playing cards and breaking bread with each other in the evening, and being able to experience such a beautiful landscape in extreme weather conditions. It was minus 40 with the wind chill at some points, and we underwent lots of very important training to make sure we understood how to be safe out there on the ice. We are standing and working on a frozen sea, and working with dogs. That one thing that was so wonderful about working with animals is that there is such a purity, and you know if they trust you or not.”
In his closing remarks, Tom Cruise distilled decades of filmmaking into a profound personal philosophy that transcends mere entertainment, where he sees each film as an opportunity for growth, constantly studying and applying lessons learnt across genres, experiences and time.
“I remember when I made the first Top Gun, everyone wanted to do a sequel to Top Gun and I was like, I’m not ready to do a sequel to Top Gun. I felt I need to develop my talent as an actor, as a storyteller, and understand more the language of cinema,” noted the actor, who then decided he wanted to start producing, and chose a reboot of an old TV series.
“When I first decided to do Mission Impossible, everyone was like, What are you doing, doing a TV series? I’m always very interested in testing my abilities, my talents, and what kind of producer will I be? So when I did the first mission, I did think it would be, how would I do the next one? And so they wanted another one. And I was like, I felt ready at that time to try another one and produce another one. And then after doing all three, I reevaluated just the series and kind of what was working, what the audience enjoyed, what I enjoyed doing and developing.”
Along the way, he also understood that there’s no guarantee of success, which is why he puts so much effort in every film he makes, not only with picking the right talents behind and in front of the camera, but also in other aspects, including camera work and stunts that most actors don’t actively involve themselves with.
“When I’m making a movie, sometimes people say, ‘Well, you’re in it. Tom it’s going to work.’ I was like, no, stop. Never, ever say that to me. Just because I’m doing it doesn’t mean it’s going to work, that the story is going to work. Don’t anyone take that for granted. We all have to focus and work hard and make it.”
“So I have a saying that is, pressure is a privilege, and it’s something that we remind ourselves every day,” he says.
“So when you look at my career overall, whether it’s aerial photography or underwater sequences or a drama or a comedy, it is something that I have studied and applied and tried to make it better. Whether I started out with Risky Business, and then I’m doing a drama with Color of Money, action and Top Gun, and then evolving to my first production and playing a vampire, everything I’m doing, I go in and I study that.”
Ever the consummate professional, Cruise also knows that ultimately, it’s also connecting with a global audience.
“Thank you and to you all here for allowing me to entertain you. I truly am very grateful. I’ve been doing this since I was 18 years old, and you have supported me and come to see it. Thank you very much.”
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning arrives in Singapore cinemas on 17 May.
Yonk is a geek who is fortunate enough to have an equally geeky Star Wars fan for a wife, who owns a LEGO Millennium Falcon encased in a glass coffee table as their home’s centre-piece.
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