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How Tom Cruise Executed His 'Most Dangerous' Stunt in 'Mission: Impossible –Dead Reckoning Part One'

The death-defying moment in the franchise's seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff

Collection Christophel/Alamy

Tom Cruise  turned up the action for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning   Part One .

While the film marks the seventh installment in the highly successful franchise, Cruise, 61, made the occasion even more special by challenging himself to perform one of his most dangerous stunts yet.

The death-defying moment involved Cruise driving a motorbike off a cliff, fly off the bike, and parachute to the ground. While fans got a glimpse of the stunt through the film's action-packed trailer in May, Cruise, along with writer-director  Christopher McQuarrie , first teased the big moment in 2021 at CinemaCon.

The pair explained in a special behind-the-scenes video at the event that the stunt took 500 hours of skydiving training and 13,000 motorbike jumps to get it just right. The stunt involved Cruise being attached to a set of wires as he rides a speeding motorcycle off of a large ramp before he throws himself from the bike, backed by the safety wires attached to his back.

Speaking about its execution, McQuarrie, 54, explained in the video that it was "by far the most dangerous stunt we've ever done." The clip then ended with Cruise performing the stunt himself, with a crew member saying, " Tom Cruise  rode a motorcycle off a cliff six times today."

McQuarrie "tried to kill me," joked Cruise at the New York City premiere.

Christian Black/Paramount Pictures

The film's long-awaited release comes after multiple delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic . According to an official synopsis, it finds Cruise's Ethan Hunt as he and his team are tasked with tracking down "a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands."

During its world premiere in June , Cruise gave a speech about his passion for the franchise and filmmaking. He said in part, "It’s something that I grew up with, that made me and inspired me to dream and want to travel the world. My goal since I was little was to make movies and travel. And not just be a tourist but work in that world and understand their culture."

"Through my movies, I’ve been able to have that because everyone here has allowed me to entertain them," he continued. "It’s a privilege that I have never taken for granted."

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Mission: Impossible   - Dead Reckoning Part One is out now.

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“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” director Christopher McQuarrie made headlines at the start of June after revealing to Empire magazine that Tom Cruise ‘s insane motorcycle stunt was shot on the first day of filming. The stunt, billed as the most death-defying one of Cruise’s acting career thus far, finds Cruise riding a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff and then parachuting to safety while in free fall.

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“Well we know either we will continue with the film or we’re not. Let’s know day one!” Cruise recently told Entertainment Tonight about filming the stunt at the very start of production. “Let us know day one what is going to happen: Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?”

“I was training and I was ready,” Cruise added. “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.”

“Dead Reckoning” is expected to be one of the biggest Hollywood tentpoles of the summer movie season, if not the biggest. Cruise is riding high off the blockbuster success of “Top Gun: Maverick” last year, which ended its run as the 11th highest grossing film in history (unadjusted for inflation) with $1.49 billion. While “Dead Reckoning” may not reach those box office heights, it’s certainly expected to outgross 2017’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” ($791 million) and become the franchise’s new top earner.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” opens in theaters July 12 from Paramount Pictures.

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Tom Cruise's First Scene of New 'Mission: Impossible' Movie Was His Most Dangerous Stunt Ever (Exclusive)

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It's no secret that Tom Cruise is serious about his stunt work, and in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One , he wasted no time taking on a death-defying scene!

Cruise sat down with ET's Nischelle Turner in Rome this week to preview the upcoming action flick, and he shared an interesting fact about the production, revealing that the  most dangerous stunt of his career -- a motorcycle jump off of a cliff into a base jump -- was the first-ever scene filmed for Dead Reckoning Part One .

"Well, we know either we're gonna continue with the film or we're not," Cruise said with a laugh of planning the death-defying stunt. "Let's know day one... Do we all continue, or is it a major rewrite?"

In all seriousness, the actor added, it all came down to focus. "It was years preparing. I mean, I've been riding motorcycles since I was a little kid, raced cars and spent a lot of time just with aerobatics, airplanes, helicopters and parachutes... It all kind of came to that moment."

"You have to be razor sharp when you do something like that, so it was very important as we were prepping the film that that actually was the first thing [to shoot], because I don't want to drop that and go shoot other things and then have my mind somewhere else," he continued. "Everyone was prepped, let's just get it done."

And it wasn't just the one stunt that Cruise was hyper-focused on throughout the film's production. He did his own stunt driving for an intense chase scene throughout the streets of Rome -- while his character was handcuffed to franchise newcomer Hayley Atwel l, no less -- saying the challenges he takes on as a performer are indicative of his devotion to the action-packed franchise.

"Mission: Impossible is the first film I ever produced," he recalled of the impact the films have had on his career, dating back to the 1996 original. "There's certain things that I felt that we could tell with motion, with action and with stories and to be able to travel the world, that I really wanted to- I hoped that I could be able to accomplish with Mission: Impossible."

" I really always wanted to travel the world and be part of that community and then celebrate that community," he added. " Mission: Impossible allows me to do that."

Cruise's legacy as a box-office star is without question, and he hit a new major milestone last year, when Top Gun: Maverick became his first film to bring in over a billion dollars, bringing his career total box office to over $10 billion.

"You know, it was important last summer because of what we went through in [COVID shutdowns]," he noted. "For me, I love movies on the big screen and we have, you know, our families, how it spreads out to the other platforms, I understand that, but the way that I make movies, what I love about films is -- and I've always been someone who's promoted the big screen experience -- I make movies for audiences and to see how much they enjoyed it."

"To see [ Maverick ] open up the way it did, it meant a lot to me in so many ways," Cruise continued. "I mean, for me, when we're in Cannes, I was looking at all of [the cast]. I was like, I want you to have this experience. I wanted them to have that kind of experience, that we all worked hard and we all created this together. It was very special."

And, no surprise, he's not planning to slow down anytime soon. While Cruise and Mission: Impossible writer-director Christopher McQuarrie still have some work to do on Dead Reckoning Part Two --  due out in June 2024 and set to be Cruise's final bow as Ethan Hunt -- the actor said they're already planning for what comes next.

"A few days ago, I turned to McQ like, you know, we've got to start thinking about what we're gonna do next summer when we're done with this," he shared with a laugh. "This is what I do, I make movies... I absolutely love it."

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is in theaters July 12.

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Tom Cruise hangs on for dear life to his 'Mission' to save the movies

Justin Chang

Tom Cruise is back, and doing his own stunts, in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One. Paramount Pictures and Skydance hide caption

Tom Cruise is back, and doing his own stunts, in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.

For some time now, Tom Cruise has been on what feels like a one-man mission to save the movies. Back in 2020, when Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One was shooting in the U.K., Cruise was recorded screaming at crew members who'd violated COVID-19 lockdown protocols, all but claiming that the industry's future rested on their shoulders. Earlier this year, Steven Spielberg publicly praised Cruise for saving Hollywood with the smash success of Top Gun: Maverick .

Now, with the box office still struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels, Cruise has become a kind of evangelist for the theatergoing experience, urging audiences to buy tickets not just to his movie, but also to other big summer titles like Barbie and Oppenheimer .

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'mission: impossible' is back, but will you accept it, or will it self-destruct.

Cruise's save-the-movies spirit goes hand-in-hand with his self-styled reputation as the last of the great Hollywood stars. In this seventh Mission: Impossible movie, the now 61-year-old actor and producer still insists on risking life and limb for our viewing pleasure, doing his own outrageous stunts in action scenes that make only minimal use of CGI. And so we see Cruise's Ethan Hunt, an agent with the Impossible Missions Force, or IMF, tearing up the streets of Rome in a tiny yellow Fiat, riding a motorcycle off a cliff and — in the most astonishing sequence — hanging on for dear life after a deadly train derailment.

The plot that connects these sequences is preposterous, of course, but reasonably easy to follow. In an especially timely twist, the big villain this time around is AI — a self-aware techno-being referred to as the Entity. It's an invisible menace, everywhere and nowhere; it can wipe out data systems, control the flow of information and bring nations to their knees.

'Top Gun: Maverick' is ridiculous. It's also ridiculously entertaining

Hunt and his IMF team are determined to destroy the Entity before it becomes too powerful or falls into the wrong hands. But his old boss, Eugene Kittridge, played by the sinister Henry Czerny, warns Hunt to fall in line with the U.S. government, which wants to control the Entity and the new world order to come.

This is notably the first time we've seen Kittridge since Brian De Palma 's 1996 Mission: Impossible — the first and still, to my mind, the best movie in the series. That said, the director and co-writer Christopher McQuarrie has done a snazzy job with the most recent ones: Rogue Nation , Fallout and now Dead Reckoning Part One .

Coronavirus Updates

Sorry, tom cruise fans — new 'top gun' and 'mission impossible' movies delayed again.

Here, he seems to be paying sly tribute to that 1996 original, even evoking its horrific early setpiece in which Hunt watched helplessly as his IMF teammates were murdered, one by one. That trauma was formative; it explains why, in movie after movie, Hunt has repeatedly put his life on the line for his friends.

If you're kept up with the series, you'll recognize those friends here, including Hunt's fellow operatives played by Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson. You may also remember Vanessa Kirby , reprising her Fallout role as a ruthless arms broker and giving, in a single sequence, perhaps the movie's best performance. There are some intriguing new characters, too, including a wily thief, well played by Hayley Atwell, who draws Hunt into an extended game of cat-and-mouse. Pom Klementieff steals a few scenes as a mysterious assassin, as does Esai Morales as a glowering enemy from Hunt's past.

That's a lot of characters, double-crosses, chases, fights, escapes and explosions to keep track of. But even with a running time that pushes north of two-and-a-half hours — and this is just Part One — the movie never loses its grip. McQuarrie, a screenwriter first and foremost, paces the narrative beautifully, building and releasing tension at regular intervals.

Compared with the visual effects-heavy bombast of most Hollywood blockbusters, Dead Reckoning Part One feels like a marvel of old-school craftsmanship, just with niftier gadgets. Even Hunt wears his devil-may-care recklessness with surprising lightness and grace, spending much of the movie's third act on the sidelines and even playing some of his most daring escapades for laughs. Not that the actor doesn't take his mission seriously. I don't know if Tom Cruise can save the movies, but somehow, I never get tired of watching him try.

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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands. Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands. Ethan Hunt and his IMF team must track down a dangerous weapon before it falls into the wrong hands.

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• Trivia The frequent delays caused by COVID-19 ballooned the budget to $291 million, making it the most expensive Mission: Impossible film (surpassing Fallout, $178 million), the most expensive film of Tom Cruise 's career (again surpassing Fallout), and the most expensive film ever produced by Paramount (surpassing Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) , $217 million). The insurance company Chubb originally gave Paramount only £4.4 million (about $5.4 million) for the delays, arguing that the cast and crew could still fulfill their duties to the production despite being infected with COVID-19. Paramount sued Chubb in 2021, and the two companies settled in 2022. In 2023, Chubb gave Paramount a £57 million (about $71 million) payout for the COVID-caused delays, reducing the film's budget to about $220 million, which still makes it the most expensive film for Cruise, Paramount, and the franchise.
• Goofs Steam trains, especially moving at high speeds, need to be continuously provided with fuel, in this case coal. With the engineers killed and the controls opened all the way, the locomotive would have gradually slowed down and come to a halt as the pressure in the boiler dropped. That train would never have reached the bridge for that distance with no coal provided. Since the early 1900s, when firebox coal consumption exceeded the efforts of two men, the trains have used mechanical stokers. The coal would continue feeding without one missing coal shoveler.

Ethan Hunt : [speaking in italian] Thank you officers. Please. You can wait ouside. Thank you.

[the police leave the area]

Grace : You. You did this.

Ethan Hunt : I called the police. I didn't tell them about your colorful past.

[throwing a file folder]

Ethan Hunt : That's on you. You put-pocleted that the key on another passenger before you were arrested. You exchanged details and arranged to meet later on. Right now somewhere out there hasn't the slighest clue they're holding on to that key for you. An unwitting courier. The perfect accomplice

[describing the person Grace has used as a mule to carry an item]

Ethan Hunt : I'm guessing a man... middle aged? A man waiting his whole life to be noticed by a woman like you. An orphan. Higly intelligent. Inherntly resourceful. Growing up in the poverty left you longing for the finer things. Other's people's things. Someone saw your potential and helped you hone your skills. Skills that gave you the life thought you wanted. Tailored clothes, fine dining, luxury hotels. Skills that kept you one step ahead of the law, until now.

Grace : You can't blame a girl for trying to make a dishonest living.

Ethan Hunt : You had no idea what you stealing. Otherwise you never would stolen it.

Grace : Tell you what. You get me out of here, and I'll take you straight to the key.

Ethan Hunt : I have a better idea. You're gonna tell me everything. Then I'll think about getting out of here. Now start with who hired you. And don't lie to me, because I'll know.

Grace : I have no idea who hired me. Contact with the client was almost entirely electronic.

Ethan Hunt : Email?

Grace : Texts.

Ethan Hunt : Encrypted?

Grace : Naturally.

Ethan Hunt : Almost?

Grace : Pardon?

Ethan Hunt : You said contact with client was "almost" entirely electronic.

Grace : There was a dead drop in a cafe in Luxembourg. An envelope.

Ethan Hunt : What was in the envelope?

Grace : A ticket to Abu Dhabi. And... a picture of you. My instructions were to follow you at the airport. You'd be taling a mark. Said mark would have a key and four million in criptocurrency. That drive was useless, by the way. It was empty. The only hope I have of getting paid is to deliver your half of the key.

Ethan Hunt : And you were instructed to deliever it to...

Grace : Venice. Party at Ducake Palace, Tomorrow. Midnight Venice.

Ethan Hunt : [looking at the door] You expecting someone?

Grace : Your friends from the airport. Saw them in the halleay a few minutes ago.

Ethan Hunt : You could have said something sooner.

Grace : Well, they we're chaising you, not me.

• Crazy credits Disclaimer as one of the last entries in the end credits scroll: "The Producers wish to express that in no way, shape or form were the Rome Spanish Steps used to drive a moving vehicle down. This segment of the film was re-created with a set built on a Studio backlot."
• Connections Featured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Most Anticipated Franchises Returning in 2023 (2023)
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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning  continues the franchise's trend of outlandish, unbelievable stunts with a motorcycle cliff jump involving Tom Cruise, but how did the cast and crew film the scene? The previous entry,  Mission: Impossible - Fallout , had Cruise learning to perform a HALO jump in camera and how to fly a helicopter for its over-the-top stunts. Previous Mission: Impossible  movies saw Cruise clinging to the side of a plane as it took off, or running down the side of the world's tallest building, proving his immense dedication to his craft.

Therefore, with  Mission: Impossible   7 , fans of the franchise were left wondering how Cruise and  director Christopher McQuarrie would top the already amazing stunts performed in the series thus far. With the added caveat of the next two  Mission: Impossible films being a two-parter, a first for the franchise, speculation began on not just the stunts and action details but what the story would entail as well. However, the trailer for  Mission: Impossible 7  provides some insight into the next big stunt: a motorcycle jump off a sickeningly high cliff.

Related:  Mission: Impossible 7 Can Pay Off A Cut Ethan & Ilsa Scene & Plot Point

As with all of Tom Cruise's productions, his dedication to authentic, in-camera stunts came into play here. He and the rest of the crew had to do an immense amount of preparation for the stunt, performing it six different times in their strive for greatness. Tom Cruise, a regular for dangerous stunts , trained heavily during pre-production to prepare for the jump. His preparation included doing over 13,000 motocross jumps and over 500 skydives. Given Cruise's previous action experiences involving all manner of different vehicles, one would excuse him for under preparing. However, with Cruise doing over 30 helicopter dives each day during pre-production in order to prepare for the base jump section of the fall, it's clear this wasn't the case and he remained as committed as ever. The feat involved Cruise riding the motorcycle off a cliff, before transitioning into a free fall and base jumping with a parachute. In order to achieve this, and make sure it didn't go horribly wrong, the crew of  Mission: Impossible 7  (meaningfully titled  Dead Reckoning )  digitally tracked each of the practice runs using a GPS attached to Cruise's back. Different variables, such as the wind, were tracked accordingly so the crew could figure out the best way to shoot the jump, and also so they could keep Cruise from any potential harm.

Due to the intense nature, and potential danger, of the stunt, it was filmed during the very first day of principal photography. Cruise outlined some of the ways the stunt could have gone wrong (via  Empire ):

“If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp... The helicopter [filming the stunt] was a problem, because I didn’t want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone. Or if I departed in a weird way, we didn’t know what was going to happen with the bike. I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don’t want to get tangled in the bike. If I do, that’s not going to end well.”

Luckily, this  dangerous Mission: Impossible 7  motorcycle stunt went off without a hitch. Cruise's intense preparation and training, as well as the professionalism of the rest of the cast and crew saw that the day went smoothly, capturing the franchise's latest death-defying sequence without any major issues. Tom Cruise put his dangerous motorcycle jumps to the test, driving off the Norweigan mountaintop on which the sequence was filmed, with camera-mounted drones and helicopters catching the fall and base jump all on the first day of shooting.

If Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie have proven anything on  Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , Fallout,  and now  Dead Reckoning , it's that their eye for breathtaking stunts hasn't faltered. Whether this motorcycle jump will be the main stunt of the film, or if the duo has anything else hidden up their sleeves remains to be seen. However, if this one sequence is anything to go by, it proves that  Mission: Impossible 7   will be another stellar entry in one of cinema's greatest modern action franchises .

Next:  Mission: Impossible 8's Cruise Sendoff Explains Returning Character Mystery

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Mission: impossible - dead reckoning part one, mission: impossible - dead reckoning - part two.

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Tom Cruise Reveals ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ Title and Deadly Stunt Footage at CinemaCon

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If action fans have learned one thing in recent years, it’s to never bet against Tom Cruise . The star is nearly three decades into his “ Mission: Impossible ” franchise, but he still manages to increase the size of his stunts and box office returns with each subsequent film. The seventh installment of the franchise is set to be released next year, and Cruise is already hard at work on the eighth film. But the actor took time out of shooting to appear at CinemaCon (from a biplane) in a pre-taped video to introduce footage from the next film, which he revealed is titled “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part I.”

“Wish I could be there with you,” Tom Cruise said in the video. “I’m sorry for the extra noise. As you can see, we are filming the latest installment of ‘Mission: Impossible.'” In the prerecorded video, Cruise was holding onto a plane for dear life as it flew over a canyon in South Africa.

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In the trailer, Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is told “your days of fighting for the greater good are over” and that “you need to pick a side.”

While there have been reports of tension between Cruise and Paramount, who produces the series, over budgets and release strategy for the next two “Mission: Impossible” films, the studio and its star were all smiles in Las Vegas.

“The ‘MI’ series really does represent the pinnacle of filmmaking excellence,” Paramount president Brian Robbins said. “And we have no doubt that this new picture will set the bar even higher.”

Much of the alleged conflict between Paramount and Cruise has to do with the question of a theatrical window. The studio reportedly wanted to show the film exclusively in theaters for 45 days before releasing it on streaming platforms, while Cruise adamantly preferred a standard three-month window. While Robbins offered no firm answer on that ongoing debate, he did make a point to emphasize the importance of the theatrical release.

“After five release dates and a whole bunch of rumors where this movie would end up, we are finally ready to bring this phenomenal movie to where it always belonged,” Robbins said. “And that is your theaters.”

“Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part I” is slated to hit theaters on July 14, 2023.

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Tom Cruise performs the 'most dangerous stunt' he's ever attempted in behind-the-scenes clip from 'M:I 7'

In the scene, the 60-year-old actor rides a motorcycle off a cliff and base jumps into a ravine.

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Tom Cruise gave fans an inside look at how and he and his team pulled off the "greatest stunt in cinema history" for "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One."

On Wednesday, the 60-year-old actor shared a 9½-minute featurette from the upcoming movie detailing the making of the stunt, in which Cruise rides a motorcycle off a cliff and then base jumps into a ravine.

"This is far and away the most dangerous thing we've ever attempted," Cruise said at the beginning of the clip.

Tom Cruise gave fans an inside look at how and he and his team pulled off the "greatest stunt in cinema history" for "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One." (James Devaney/Getty Images)

The "Top Gun: Maverick" star continued, "We're going to shoot it in Norway, and it will be a motorcycle jump off a cliff into a base jump."

TOM CRUISE PARACHUTES OFF A MOUNTAIN WHILE FILMING 'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 8'

The camera panned a massive ramp that ended on the edge of a huge cliff as Cruise said, "I've wanted to do it since I was a little kid."

"And it all comes down to one thing — the audience."

Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie explained that Cruise put together a master plan and assembled a team of experts from all the disciplines involved to accomplish the feat. 

Second unit director and stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood detailed the extensive preparation that Cruise and the team undertook, which included "a year of base training, advanced sky-dive training, a lot of canopy skills, a lot of tracking."

Base jumping coach Miles Daisher marveled over Cruise, whom he described as an "amazing individual."

"You tell him something, and he just locks it in," Daisher added. "His sense of spatial awareness, he's the most aware person I've ever met."

"Tracking with [base jumping coach] John [DeVore] and Miles in the air," Eastwood continued. "Doing lots of different positioning. Like they were a two-man team in the air. Coming on top of each other, below each, back tracking, front tracking. You know we’ve drilled, and drilled and drilled." 

In the clip, Cruise explained that the motocross was the next part of the training. 

Eastwood recalled how the team built a motocross track in order for the actor to "get comfortable jumping 70- to 80-foot table tops." 

"I have to get so good at this that there's just no way that I miss my marks," Cruise added.

Cruise went on to say that he trained and drilled, performing more than 30 jumps a day, to perfect every aspect of the stunt. The video stated that he performed over 13,000 jumps in all, with Eastwood noting that he performed over 500 skydives during his training. 

McQuarrie explained that another challenge involved was positioning the cameras so all the stunts were captured on film. 

"Coming up with the stunt is only one of the technical challenges," he explained. "The other is putting a camera in place that you can see where Tom is doing it."

He added, "Finding the right lens, the right platform, the right medium. Even two years ago, the cameras didn’t exist that would allow us to do what we are trying to do today."

Cruise revealed that he trained and drilled, performing more than 30 jumps a day, to perfect every aspect of the stunt. (Murray Close/Getty Images)

"How do we involve the audience?" Cruise asked. "I just want to give them that thrill."

McQuarrie noted that the camera has to be in front of the actor and as close to him as possible.

The production team built a ramp over a quarry in England to replicate the jump in Norway and filled the landing area with cardboard boxes to catch the motorcycle after Cruise jumped off it.

"How fast should I go off? What distance do I travel?" Cruise said.

In order to accomplish the camera work, the team built models of different ramps at different angles to calculate Cruise's trajectory. 

The actor had a GPS attached to him to track his movements, and he was surrounded by drone cameras to capture the close-ups. 

"Because if we do it all, but we don't capture it, what is the point?" Cruise posited.

"I always wear my earplugs, so I don't have to hear myself scream," he said as he flashed a smile.

Cruise explained that the key was hitting certain speeds and being consistent. The motorcycle didn't have a speedometer, so the actor said he knew when to jump by the "sound and feel of the bike."

"We have to be able to consistently predict where Tom will be in three-dimensional space," McQuarrie noted.

The clip cut to Hellesylt, Norway, on the day of the shoot in 2020. McQuarrie said that the "Mission: Impossible" team always begins filming with the biggest stunt in the movie.

Cruise performed the death-defying stunt six times. (Ken Ishii)

In addition to the stunt work, the filmmaker noted that the weather had to be perfect.

Cruise explained that he began warming up with base jumps to get a feel for the weather. 

"Of course, when something is being done for the first time, you can't help but worry about how it's really going to turn out," Daisher said. "The only things that you really have to avoid while doing a stunt like this is serious injury or death ."

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The tension built as Cruise made his first attempt at riding the motorcycle off the ramp and base jumping into the rock bowl. The team clapped and cheered as he pulled it off successfully.

The video revealed that Cruise performed the stunt six times that day. 

"This is far and away the most dangerous stunt we have ever attempted," McQuarrie said. "The only thing that scares me more is what we have planned for 'Mission 8.'"

"Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" is set to be released in theaters July 13, 2023.

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Ashley Hume is an entertainment writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter: @ashleyhume

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'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning' Director Christopher McQuarrie Ranks Tom Cruise's Most "Terrifying" Stunts

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Director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise are a power duo in cinema, no doubt. Between collaborating together on last year’s blockbuster sequel, Top Gun: Maverick , and buzz about working on the first film to shoot in space , Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is just one of their many cinematic ambitions. While it may not be in space, McQuarrie’s new Mission movie does provide Cruise with ample opportunity to execute some more gnarly stunts, and Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with the filmmaker to find out what exactly that planning process looks like.

Dead Reckoning Part One takes IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise) to beautiful locations on a deadly new mission to obtain a powerful weapon before it can fall into the wrong hands. This time, Hunt will have to confront the possibility that the mission comes before everything else — even those closest to him. The movie also stars Hayley Atwell , Rebecca Ferguson , Shea Whigham , Esai Morales , Simon Pegg , Cary Elwes , and more.

While the previous Mission: Impossible installments featured Cruise performing his own death-defying stunts , we were curious which ones ranked highest on McQuarrie’s list, as far as nerves go. In their one-on-one, which you can watch or read below, the filmmaker explains what the discussion around these stunts looks like during production, the precautions taken, and why none of them are without risk. We also learn which stunt, since helming Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation , gave McQuarrie the most grief and why. Despite Part One seeing Cruise riding a motorcycle off the side of a cliff and freefalling through the air, McQuarrie also tells us that there will be sequences in Part Two that will be “beyond anything” we’ve seen to this point.

COLLIDER: I really want to start with a sincere congratulations. I loved the movie. I wish I could watch Part Two, like, tomorrow.

CHRISTOPHER MCQUARRIE: Me too. [Laughs]

So you and Tom [Cruise], in the Mission: Impossible movies, have done incredible stunts and we all know Tom does these things, they're incredibly difficult, they're risking his life. In terms of all the stunts that you've worked with Tom on, how would you rank the difficulty of the stunts for the Missions and how nervous you were watching Tom do them?

MCQUARRIE: They all have their own risks, and it's not always what you perceive the risk to be. For example, with the A400, the concern was less that Tom would fall off the plane than he would be hit by a rock on the runway or a bird when we were in mid-air. So there's all of these different factors and variables that you're constantly thinking about that could go wrong outside of all the variables that you've eliminated. The more variables, the scarier the stunt. I think that's kind of, to me, what makes it terrifying is how many different ways Tom could be killed doing the stunt, but they're all knowns. They're all things that you've thought about and can't control.

Going off that ramp, he was entering the unknown. We had eliminated everything we possibly could. We just didn't know what would actually happen when he did it because we could, in no way, shape or form, test or replicate those conditions anywhere else. So when he went off that ramp, we didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know if the bike would get away from him, we didn't know if a crosswind would tangle him up, and we didn't know if the drone would hit him based on the environment that we were in. So once we called “action,” you had to hold your breath until the parachute opened. That was pretty terrifying.

I do want to bring in all the Missions you've worked on. What I'm curious about is how would you rank all the set pieces that you've worked on. What are your top three or top five in terms of level of difficulty and how nervous you are before Tom did them?

MCQUARRIE: I would say they probably go in chronological order. Only because when we were doing Rogue Nation and we were doing the A400, it was really my first time directing anything like that. It was obviously Tom's first time doing anything like that. And everything you are seeing, every movie you're watching, is Tom and I applying our knowledge from the previous movies to the next one and pushing it a little bit further. So the motorcycle jump in this film, for example, is taking all of the motorcycle stunts from Rogue Nation , taking the BASE jumping from Fallout , and applying them to the same stunt. They're all just, in order of magnitude, scarier. If you just follow them in order, each one is scarier for me and more of an unknown because we're just pushing ourselves that much further. And I can tell you there's stuff coming in [ Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two ] that is beyond anything we've done.

For me personally, the scariest thing we ever did was the helicopter chase in Fallout , for the simple fact that I had to be in a helicopter chasing after Tom [laughs]. So there's the added factor of my own life [being] at risk. When you're watching Tom go off the bike ramp, I'm there, I'm definitely watching my life flash before my eyes as well as his, but I also know in the event of anything terrible, I'm still going to be there. So I would have to say probably number one scariest, most stressful was the helicopter chase in Fallout just because I was there.

Tom risks his life, for real, making these movies.

MCQUARRIE: Yes.

Have you guys ever had a conversation or talked about…god forbid?

MCQUARRIE: That's definitely a specter in every single one of those conversations, but that's a reality in simple things. In Jack Reacher , a shot where Rosamund Pike was backing out of a parking spot with a camera over her shoulder, and revealing Tom standing in front of her, she went to drive away. That's a very dangerous stunt. That's an extremely dangerous stunt. Because Rosamund Pike, who is not an experienced stunt driver, could make one simple mistake, hit the accelerator instead of the gas, and that's lights out. So we treat everything the exact same way. In the stunt where he broke his ankle in Fallout , jumping from building to building, there are a million variables where something could go wrong. We have an expression we repeat all the time, which is, “Don't be careful, be competent.” You can't make these movies without taking risks and without doing extremely dangerous things. But you could be very, very, very smart and very, very considered about the way you do it.

The other thing that's really critical whenever we're doing it is I deputize the crew down to camera operators, focus pullers, anyone can yell, “cut.” If you see something wrong, you can stop the movie, it's not worth doing. And we don't want a culture where people are thinking, “I felt something was wrong, but I didn't think it was my place to say.” So there's a huge bubble that everybody is participating in, that everybody is aware of, just to make those things safer. But yeah, we think about that all the time, but you can't factor it into your planning. It's that thing of, I was watching a video recently where someone was saying, “If you're skiing through the woods and you're saying, ‘don't hit the trees, don't hit the trees,’ all you're thinking about is the trees.” You really have to be thinking, “Stay on the trail, stay on the trail,” and that's what we do. It's just, how do you do it safely? Just safety, safety, safety.

You know I like talking about editing and runtimes and all that stuff, so I'll just bring it in now. The movie’s like 2.5 hours, maybe a few minutes over. Did you have a much longer cut?

MCQUARRIE: Oh, yes. Yes, very, very long, but that's not unusual. I think probably every movie I've done has been– Your first assembly is close to three hours.

I don't even want you to say the assembly because everyone thinks that's the real running time. What was your first director's cut that you were like, “Oh, this is really good, and I'm showing the studio?”

MCQUARRIE: I never had that. With every cut, we knew it could be better, we knew it could be tighter. When we finally screened it for the last test audience and were happy with the result, we were about two minutes longer than we are now, and we walked away from it. The studio was very happy, the scores were great, but we still knew we had issues. We knew we had issues with pace and length, and we went back into the editing room, reconfigured the first act, and ended up taking two minutes out of the movie, which was critical. And it can literally be that close. The difference in two minutes can make the difference between the movie feeling long or feeling just right.

Fallout , we had a cut of the movie that was five minutes shorter but scored lower. It was cut too tight, it couldn't breathe. We're just absolutely microscopic and surgical about it in terms of how we get there. But I'd say where the movie started to work for me– Because what you're seeing is the director's cut. I mean, that's really how we look at it. There's not some extended version of the movie that I would show you, thinking it was an improvement on it. Where we got into a place where I was approaching satisfaction, it's the difference of a couple of minutes.

When Part Two is eventually done, do you want people to watch Part One and Part Two in one sitting, or will you always want people to take a break after the first one, digest, and come back?

MCQUARRIE: Ideally, I will have made two movies that you can watch on their own or together. We never want you to have to check out of the movie you're in to remember another movie. We did the same thing with Top Gun: Maverick . We've done it with all of the Missions that we've done. We want to keep you immersed in the movie. That's a big red line for us.

How did you decide where to end the movie in Part One, and was it ever going to be something else?

MCQUARRIE: When the movie was so long, and we were too close to it, we couldn't figure out how to cut it down further. We talked about breaking the movie up, and the problem was there was just no place for the movie to end. The story was so interconnected. That was the only time we really discussed any other kind of ending, and that’s just, frankly, exhaustion and not wanting to confront the reality of, “We still have work to do.” The movie always ended where it did, we just didn't know what the ending exactly was. It was really critical for us that when you watch this movie as part of a two-parter, you feel satisfied at the end of Part One, that it's not just suddenly ending, and, “We'll see you later!” It had to feel like a complete movie. It had to be a movie that if Part Two didn't exist, or we hadn't figured out what Part Two was, or you had to wait two years to see the next one, you would have been satisfied with this one, I think. That's what we did.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One freefalls into theaters on July 12. Can’t believe Tom Cruise would go to such lengths? Check out Collider’s interview with him on the red carpet in Rome below.

• Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Tom Cruise did that motorcycle stunt in ‘Mission: Impossible’ on Day 1 — here’s why

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More than half a year before the release of the upcoming movie “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One,” Paramount Pictures made sure audiences got to see Tom Cruise once again risking his life.

Cruise’s mind-blowing stunts have become a signature of “ Mission: Impossible ” films, each one seemingly topping the next. The key stunt in the franchise’s seventh installment involves Cruise driving a motorcycle off the edge of a cliff, dismounting and parachuting into a Norwegian valley. With the drop of its behind-the-scenes footage in December , the studio billed it as “the biggest stunt in cinema history.”

Though the moment has already been watched on YouTube more than 13 million times, and 30 million more times in the film’s trailers, it’s among the film’s most anticipated scenes. After all, we still don’t know how the stunt fits within the plot — What could be so dire that agent Ethan Hunt must jump off a cliff?

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While answers won’t come until the movie’s theatrical release July 12, we now know that the risky stunt was the first thing Cruise did on Day 1 of filming, which began in 2020. And it was all about risk assessment.

In a recent interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Cruise said they started with the scene, in part, to allow the cast and crew to see whether he would be able to star in the $290-million film. After all, he could either get injured or die — or both.

“Well, we know we’re either going to continue with the film or not,” Cruise said, letting out a laugh. “Let’s know Day 1, what is gonna happen: Do we all continue, or is it a major re-run?”

Cruise added that he wanted to make sure his mind was clear enough to focus solely on the stunt.

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“You have to be razor sharp for something like that; I don’t want to drop that and shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else,” Cruise said. “You don’t want to be waking up in the middle of the night, ‘It’s still, I still, I still,’ and it has that effect.”

Cruise is no stranger to aerial stunts with a high probability of death. The “Top Gun” actor said preparing for the recent stunt “was years of planning,” a culmination of all the training he’s done with motorcycles, cars and aerobatics.

In the franchise’s last film, “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” (2018), Cruise jumped into a helicopter in midflight , taking the controls to chase another helicopter. In the same movie, he parachuted from a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III from 25,000 feet, close to five miles up, becoming “the first actor” to do so in a major motion picture, according to Paramount (most skydiving attempts occur at 10,000 feet).

In 2011 for “ Ghost Protocol ,” the “Jerry McGuire” actor climbed along the exposed walls of the world’s largest building, the Burj Khalifa of Dubai. And in 2015 for “Rogue Nation,” Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M Atlas as it was taking off, a stunt that veteran stunt coordinator and frequent Cruise collaborator Wade Eastwood called “a stressful experience.”

The recent motorcycle stunt, which Cruise had apparently repeated six times, was no exception. Though the film’s computer-generated images make Cruise appear to be jumping off the rocky surface of the cliff, the scene required a large ramp to be built.

While Cruise is seen atop the motorcycle in the behind-the-scenes video, accelerating off the ramp, a helicopter and drone fly overhead to gather footage. The film’s crew, including director Christopher McQuarrie, are huddled in a nearby tent, faces glued to a set of monitors. After he abandons the bike and hangs in the open air, Cruise releases his parachute and the crew erupts in cheers.

“The only thing you have to avoid when doing a stunt like this are serious injury or death,” Eastwood, who has managed stunts for the last three “Mission Impossible” films, said in the BTS video. “You’re falling. If you don’t get a clean exit from the bike and you get tangled up with it, if you don’t open your parachute, you’re not gonna make it.”

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The scene wasn’t the only stressful one to shoot: Cruise said he also worried about a car chase that involved him handcuffed to a small car, steering with one hand while drifting along the cobblestone streets of Rome, with his co-star Hayley Atwell in the passenger seat.

“It’s plenty of challenges,” Cruise said with a wide grin, laughing once again.

“Dead Reckoning” had its world premiere Sunday at the Auditorium Conciliazione in Rome with Cruise and other cast members, including Atwell and Vanessa Kirby , in attendance. “Part Two” is expected to be released in June 2024. Filming wrapped in September for what has been rumored to be Cruise’s final appearance in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise.

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'Mission: Impossible 7' review: Tom Cruise fights AI in fun, far-fetched 'Dead Reckoning'

If it’s not apparent that artificial intelligence is having the biggest summer ever, now it’s made an enemy of Tom Cruise .

AI is everywhere right now in the real world, and a pesky fictitious digital villain proves formidable – and pretty far-fetched – for Cruise’s secret agent Ethan Hunt in the action thriller “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” (★★★ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters July 12). Directed once again by Christopher McQuarrie, the seventh “M:I” is chock-full of gloriously bonkers stunt sequences, fresh and familiar faces alike, and Cruise running (usually literally) from one international locale to the next.

Having a computer be the antagonistic heart of the film instead of a human baddie is a huge swing, though, and consequently this first of a two-part story line faces some narrative obstacles amid the usual face-swapping, double-dealing spycraft.

When the world is in serious trouble, that’s when you call in the Impossible Mission Force − though Ethan continues to own his rogue status like a champ and as usual is wanted by various authorities, including his own. Still, his old boss Eugene Kittridge (a returning Henry Czerny) has a dangerous assignment for him: An evolving AI dubbed “The Entity” threatens global security, and Ethan needs to obtain two halves of a key that are integral to stopping this new menace.

Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) are back as Ethan’s high-tech teammates, and “Dead Reckoning” reunites Ethan with love interest Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson), a former British MI6 secret agent who’s the first stop on this densely plotted adventure. (There's an entertaining exposition dump early and it could use at least one more.) The race for the key more importantly introduces the enigmatic thief Grace (Hayley Atwell). She gives Ethan fits with her pickpocket and escape skills but ultimately they become an effective duo navigating a wild car chase through Rome in a tiny Fiat and a hellacious train trip on the Orient Express.

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'Mission: Impossible': Tom Cruise races through Rome in 20 minutes of 'Dead Reckoning' footage

McQuarrie has rounded up a talented coterie of complex female characters in “Reckoning”: While Atwell’s Grace steals much of the movie as a new pair of eyes seeing Ethan’s deadly spy world for the first time and Ferguson’s no-nonsense Ilsa is always a pleasure, Vanessa Kirby’s shady arms dealer White Widow makes a return appearance (after debuting in the sixth “Mission,” 2018’s “Fallout”) and “Guardians of the Galaxy” regular Pom Klementieff lets weapons do the talking as a new French assassin named Paris. (A little on the nose but it works.)

Paris works for the Entity, as does a confidently sinister dude named Gabriel (Esai Morales) who’s connected to Ethan’s tragic past. (While one doesn’t need to be an “M:I” expert to enjoy “Dead Reckoning,” a rewatch of the original 1996 film is helpful beforehand.) However, the problem of having an AI supervillain in our connected world is it all seems too easy: Sounding like an angry Transformer, the Entity works hard to foil Ethan at various points yet this supposedly all-powerful thing also seems hamstrung when it shouldn't be. 

'Mission: Impossible'? We rank every movie (even 'Dead Reckoning') from worst to best

But you don’t come to “Mission: Impossible” movies for sensical plots − you come to watch Cruise cheat death in stunts that would make most normal people go, “Nah, I’m good.” One bit in particular has him riding a motorbike off an insanely high cliff leading into a mind-blowing BASE jump. The Roman car chase (with nods to “The Italian Job”) works better as it lets Cruise explore Ethan’s vulnerability and exasperation in a film that embraces the character’s humanity in the face of an existential computer threat.

Robot overlords? Not on Tom's watch! If you choose to accept to this “Mission” – and what action-movie fan or Cruise nerd wouldn’t, really – it’s the first half of a man vs. machine epic that doesn’t skimp in the thrills department. Just don’t think too hard about it, though you’ll probably still give serious side-eye to your laptop.

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Watch Tom Cruise pull a Mission: Impossible 7 death-defying airplane stunt on set for PSA

Standing on a biplane while flying over a canyon in South Africa is a typical day in the life of Cruise.

We don't have to wait for Tom Cruise 's next movie to see another daredevil stunt from this Hollywood adrenaline junkie.

Footage of a video PSA that Cruise recorded for Las Vegas-hosted CinemaCon attendees back in April has found its way online. The actor, who was promoting Top Gun: Maverick at the time, recorded a message while standing on a moving biplane while it was flying over a canyon in South Africa, where he and director Christopher McQuarrie was filming were shooting Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One .

"Hey everyone! Wish I could be there with you," Cruise begins as he smiles for the camera mid-flight. "I'm sorry about the extra noise. As you can see, we're filming the latest installment of Mission: Impossible right now. And right now we're over the gorgeous Blyde River Canyon in stunning South Africa. And we're making this film for the big screen, for the audiences to see in your wonderful theaters."

McQuarrie then makes a cameo. Flying his own biplane, he pulls up beside Cruise's craft to say they are "losing the light" and need to go back to filming.

The video has gained traction on social media and was shared by, among others, actor and director Stephen Ford.

The PSA originally screened at CinemaCon ahead of a surprise screening of Top Gun: Maverick , which has since become Cruise's highest-grossing movie to date after debuting for the public in theaters in May.

EW got a driver's seat view of just how intense some of the stunts Cruise pulls off can be. Simon Pegg, one of Cruise's Mission: Impossible co-stars, had previously said in June that he gets "the willies" seeing the actor do what he does.

"There's a frisson you get when there's authenticity: the idea that this guy is actually jumping off a cliff on a motorbike and deploying the parachute 100 feet from the ground?" Pegg said. "It puts the willies up you."

If this PSA is just a taste of what Cruise will do in the seventh Mission: Impossible movie, there will be plenty more willies to be had.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly 's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Related content:

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Watch Tom Cruise ride off a mountain in leaked Mission Impossible stunt

Tom Cruise is taking a leap, literally, in the next Mission: Impossible sequel.

So here's what Tom Cruise is doing in quarantine , besides seeing Tenet in theaters. As production begins on the (untitled) seventh Mission: Impossible movie, footage of a death-defying motorcycle stunt went online.

Even though it's just 40 seconds, it's probably the best new movie you'll see all year.

What Happened? — On Sunday, Norwegian news site NRK captured footage of the first day of principal photography for the seventh Mission: Impossible movie. That day included a jaw-dropping stunt in which Tom Cruise rode a motorcycle off Helsetkopen — a huge mountain in Norway measured 1,246 m.a.s.l., or meters above sea level — where Cruise activates a parachute to land safely. The stunt was performed not once, not twice, but four times.

Footage of the stunt went viral on Twitter, where it was shared by Twitter user Tom Cody ( @Tom_Cody_SP ). "Tom Cruise is an absolute madman #MI7 ," Cody tweeted.

A similar stunt was filmed in Oxfordshire in the UK a few weeks ago. While just as intimidating, that it's shot lower to the ground and not on a huge mountain means it is possible it was filmed for VFX purposes to "Frankenstein" necessary shots together.

You can watch NRK 's video below.

Cruise Control — Reported by NRK , a group of some 200 people gathered to watch Cruise perform the stunt. After performing the stunt for the third time, Cruise came down and spoke to the crowd. The actor stood at a distance of twenty meters in observance of Covid-19 measures.

While there was an enthusiastic crowd who glimpsed the making of a major Hollywood movie, the team behind Mission: Impossible hasn't been welcome everywhere. Earlier this summer, production caught the ire of Polish locals when the filmmakers allegedly sought to blow up a historic bridge dating back to 1912 that had survived World War II. Use of the bridge ceased in 2016 , where it closed indefinitely awaiting maintenance.

In an interview with Empire , director Christopher McQuarrie said there "was never a plan to blow up a 111-year-old protected monument." The director chalked up the controversy as being stirred by an unidentified individual who wanted a job on the set "for which we felt they were not adequately qualified. When this individual's demands were not met, they retaliated."

The Inverse Analysis — It's difficult to gauge the plot of Mission: Impossible based on one stunt. But the video itself shows Cruise, age 58, and his fondness for performing stunts even a daredevil in their 20s would think twice about.

The Mission: Impossible film franchise has long been about the world being in some imminent threat that only Tom Cruise, as agent Ethan Hunt, can prevent. And he can only do it by climbing mile-high skyscrapers or strapping himself to a plane or hanging off a helicopter. In a February 2020 interview with Collider , McQuarrie said the next sequel will contain three "obscene" stunts "that make the helicopter chase [in Mission: Impossible — Fallout ] look like tinker toys."

The plot of Mission: Impossible 7 is unknown. But the film will feature most of the franchise's staple actors back to reprise their roles, as well as introduce newcomers Hayley Atwell ( Agent Carter ), Pom Klementieff ( Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ), and Shea Whigham ( Joker ) in undisclosed roles.

In May, Deadline reported that Tom Cruise is currently collaborating with SpaceX and NASA to shoot a movie in space, the first narrative feature film to do so. The film will not be a Mission: Impossible sequel but a different project entirely.

Still image of Tom Cruise's latest stunt for the next 'Mission: Impossible' sequel, due in theaters November 2021.

Mission: Impossible 7 will be released in theaters on November 19, 2021.

This article was originally published on Sep. 8, 2020

Tom Cruise's daring aerial stunt upsets locals in quiet Oxford town

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Tom Cruise has been upsetting locals again by performing one of his famous aerial stunts over an unsuspecting sleepy town.

The Hollywood actor, 62, was hard at work in Bicester , north Oxfordshire on Monday with footage posted online showing a plane flying manically above the town while a helicopter followed the flight path.

One disgruntled member of the public who had been affected responded: “So now I know who to complain to about flying low over my property!!! I demand an in person apology with flowers and a tux.”

Another wrote: “Saw the biplane and helicopter going back and forth this morning over Arncott.”

A third then penned: “Saw it this morning over Ambrosden ,wondered what was going on.”

Cruise appears to have even crossed counties, with another remarking: “They made it all the way to Buckingham today, two biplanes and a helicopter.”

It’s unknown which movie Cruise was filming for with production on Top Gun 3 and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 2 both scheduled to begin next year.

The daredevil actor is well-known however for throwing himself into dangerous stunts to make his films appear as real as possible.

In 2022, Cruise irked the cast and crew of Call The Midwife when filming the Mission Impossible franchise at the same place as the period medical drama at Longcross Studios in Surrey.

Actress Jenny Agutter, who plays Sister Julienne, said at the time: “Tom Cruise keeps on ruining our filming by landing his helicopter right outside where we’re shooting.”

Asked whether she had personally gone over to give the four-time Oscar nominee a telling off, Agutter joked to the Mirror : “In my habit! Imagine!

″‘Excuse me Tom, but look we’re trying to film. I don’t know about you, but just get your helicopter out of here quickly’!”

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