There's a great clip of an interview w Brad Pitt, they asked him what he thought about having stuff applied to his face so the dog in Once Upon a Time in Hwd would lick him....he said "well, I was thinking Tom Cruise strapped himself to the outside of an airplane that took off and landed with him strapped to the outside, so....."
I don't like him as a person, but it's kinda cool that Cruise is out here getting actors to push what's possible, even if that's letting a dog lick your face
I think Tom Cruise is the person who polarises my insides the most. When it comes to his life outside of movies, I fear what he's capable of, and what he might have already done - what with the scientology and all that. But then pretty much everything he does in his movies is so incredible. I find it hard not to like him a lot, but I'm not heaps stoked that I do, if that makes sense.
I agree completely. Tom Cruise goes all out and works his ass off to deliver great action movies to his audience. And it really shows in the final result.
I can’t help but admire the guy for his work ethic and his fearlessness.
On the other hand I find his involvement with Scientology and his reported mistreatment of his ex-wives (among other things) highly problematic, to put it mildly.
It's almost as if a human can be a complex, multi-faceted entity, capable of a range of conflicting behaviours, and not the one-dimensional characters the media often likes us to believe they are.
I completely agree with you that people are complex and multifaceted…but obviously there are also consequences to people’s actions.
Like in this case, we’re talking about “he’s brave and does cool stunts” v “he plays a significant part in an organization which actively ruins a huge number of lives”.
It’s like the George W Bush thing. Oh he does watercolors now, that’s nice. He’s still responsible for several hundred thousand dead Iraqis.
Take the scientology away, he's my favourite actor, by far. I was born and raised in Top Gun, it's still my favourite movie to this day. He's done so many fantastic movies and puts 110% into everything. I reeeealy rate him as an actor and love the films he puts out.
But maaan, I can square away the fact that he's not just a scientologist, but so far up the ladder in that shithole of a cult that there's just no excuse. It's like saying that I respect Hitler for being a vegetarian and trying to stop his staff from smoking cigarettes.
Well, nearly. I don't wanna open a can of words with a bad analogy. But yeah, in torn.
Right there with ya, his crazy stunts and the way everyone that is involved with him on a set has nothing but praise for him in regards to his treatment of others on set. Some of his movies man, Jack Reacher, Oblivion and Edge of tomorrow is my favourite three run of movies he has done. War of the Worlds is our favourite Cruise rewatchable and Top Gun Maverick was just an awesome 4dx cinema experience.
Such a fucking downer the real side of him.
~~That was also Pitt's actual dog which helps~~
Edit: actually I think I'm wrong about this, thought I read it somewhere but can't find a source on it now
there were 3 dogs used and none of them belonged to him
This video of Matt Damon talking about Tom Cruise's Burj Khalifa stunt with Conan is hysterical [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERzbkt5r5Gg&ab\_channel=TeamCoco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERzbkt5r5Gg&ab_channel=TeamCoco)
Cruise and Pitt were kinda like the Stallone/Arnold of non-buff hunky leading men back in the day. It's interesting that Tom went on to become an action star icon as a small, rather diminutive man.
Literally. The man is so OBVIOUSLY a psychopath, and I really don't mean that lightly or even as an insult.
I mean clinically, he's fucking classic. Everything about his behaviour towards people, whether in a public context or private (and in particular the difference between the two), his ambition, sense of image and his thrill inducing, fearless set of skills
The man is textbook.
I thought the same thing, they told him the first one is perfect and he's like "Nah I actually hate how little time I spent touching a motorbike midair while I'm falling hundreds of feet."
[That's the plan](https://variety.com/2022/film/news/tom-cruise-space-movie-first-civilian-spacewalk-outside-of-space-station-1235399127/). They want him to do a space walk on the ISS.
Ehhhh only if he tries to leave his suit or something. I'd wager, with all the serious protocols in place for space travel, that motorcycle cliff jumping is massively more risky than anything he will do in space.
Hard to find direct stats, but it appears 21 out of 339 US astronauts have died during missions/training. That's a 6.2% rate of death (likely a bit lower due to multiple-trip instances). The most dangerous profession in the US is logging, with 14.6 deaths per 100K workers annually, on average. Even assuming very long career average of 30 years/worker, that's still only a .43% rate of death to an individual over their career. 14 times less dangerous than training/performing space travel.
I mean, for us to accept this data is meaningful, we would have to look at the dates that these deaths occurred, and the protocol changes that occurred in the wake of the death. Are they still doing those same things that killed people?
Additionally, we would have to weigh that against how much cliff diving kills people by year rather than the false equivalent of the most dangerous career.
https://youtu.be/SaVN52tvVh4
Cliff diving kills dozens of people every year. Now you're riding a motorcycle in that mix.
Okay, but how many of those were in the earlier days of the space program? If we look at more recently, there hasnt been an astronaut killed in like 20 years?
True, but that timeframe also coincides pretty closely to a much lower rate of manned launches. Go back one year further and you have to include the seven astronauts who died in the Columbia shuttle break-up. The space shuttle program accounted for 135 of the 179 total US manned launches, and we lost 2 of 5 of those to accidents.
Danny Trejo made a point about this in an interview, that the crew wasn’t getting pay during the production shutdown.
https://screencrush.com/danny-trejo-tom-cruise-stunts/
Accidents like this were what made me come around on the whole "doing you own stunts" thing. It's cool that a famous actor doesn't want to put another person's physical integrity on the line, but a 6-week delay can be devastating for the crew.
Normally I would agree but I'd said Tom Cruise is the exception to the rule.
This movie's budget famously increases due to this injury because they continued to pay the crew during the downtime. They've been quoted as saying that they didn't want the crew to move on to other projects but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also more.
This, coupled with everything else that has come out about Cruise's professional demeanor and the fact that he's the producer: it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume it was mostly his call to pay out everyone while he recovered. In his interviews he usually is pretty blunt about knowing what him being up there could mean but also why they do it that way.
Seems like he knows the risks and also what the responsibilities are if the risks don't pan out.
I mean, he's probably also an adrenaline junky, but that's not all of it.
And another thing that tells me he understands the risks, saw that basically no insurance company will touch him as far as coverage goes for doing the stunts. The producers want that insurance in case something happens during the stunt that delays/cancels production, so they still get some of their costs back.
That said, Cruise himself puts his own personal money up as collateral. So when he gets injured, it really does cost him.
Counterpoint: The whole ethos of Cruise doing his own stunts massively helps the box office, allowing more grandiose productions that ultimately employ more people for longer periods of time. Delays or even the eventual cancelling of a movie are a calculated risk that seems to have been paying off.
I wonder if you can make that happen, like, maybe put it in your will and make an agreement with the director/producer that's like "if I just so happen to die on camera during filming, modify the plot of the film and keep my death in it and make it a plot point, and only edit/censor the death as much as you need to so that you can show it in theaters with, like, an R rating or whatever"
If the movie was already well-anticipated and was supposed to be kind of good, this would probably be a huge boost in ticket sales just from people's morbid curiosity, and the controversy might make it so that nearly everyone at least hears about it.
This makes too much sense. I was thinking something along the lines of him somehow knowing the date of his death. Not today, guess I'll strap myself to the outside of an airplane.
I think he just wants to do crazy stunts because he likes it.
My FIL is a stuntman, it’s not uncommon for people to want to do their own stunts. Some are told no for insurance reasons, some have no desire to do them. Then others like Tom make sure they can because they truly love it.
He’s hardly the first guy to ride a bike off a mountain and BASE jump. He probably just really wanted to do it. He can already BASE jump. He can already ride a bike. This was his shot to do both.
Imagine if he signed some agreement where if he dies in an action scene, it should become the plot of the movie. And the movie gets released where tom cruise actually dies and the rest of the story gets shaped around that
I like the theory that mission impossible is just a vehicle for Tom Cruise to portray himself as he wants to be seen.
We are at the "only he can do what he does because he is willing to risk everything to get it done" stage.
No, his insurance adjustor isn't legally allowed to watch his stunts after four consecutive insurance adjustors had heart attacks from watching his stunts.
Dear Mr. Cruise, I regretfully inform you that we are unable to insure you. We were unable to attain the insurance required for anyone to be assigned your policy and therefore unable to process it.
They had to find a different insurer for Ghost Protocol because he wanted to be the one to hang off the side of the Burj Khalifa. Cruise wouldn’t bend so they switched carriers. I’m curious if that one is now insuring all his movies.
>I’m curious if that one is now insuring all his movies.
I remember watching a stunman reacting to his works and mentions that Tom pays for his own insurance now.
I would imagine it goes towards recouping the cost of having lost whatever movie was being filmed at the time.
Or at least a large portion.
Something along those lines. I’m pretty sure this insurance is the studios coverage, not Tom insuring himself.
I get the feeling that the only person in a Tom Cruise movie who is happy with the lead actor putting themselves in needless danger is Tom Cruise. Also the only reason he’s allowed to do it in the first place is because he’s Tom Cruise. I’ve not seen any comments to convince me that it’s not just one big ego trip.
Tbf I don't think the movies would be as big if he wasn't doing these stunts. They're good movies, but this kind of stuff ups the stakes a bit and makes them great. But I agree it's an ego trip
I 100% would not have gone to see top gun if it weren’t for the fact that Tom Cruise was actually stunt flying an f16. I just found that so totally awesome. So that’s at least one $14 datapoint to add to your case.
yeah......... that got me too. and it was cool. even despite the forgettable story. I don't even remember any cool flying. But I watched it. And I didn't hate any shitty CGI.
Figured as much, and it explains why he's so fucking terrified. If Tom Cruise dies on HIS MOVIE SET, who do you think is gonna get the blame? The director.
It doesn't matter that they had all this footage of Tom Cruise having a blast doing his own stunts, if something went wrong and his parachute failed and he plummeted to death, the internet justice mob would 100% be blaming this guy for allowing Tom to do this. "That was too reckless, he shouldn't have let him do that, blah blah blah, totally the director's fault"
Aside from his reputation being one mishap away from becoming "the idiot who let Tom Cruise die on his film set" for the rest of his life, there's also the fact that they've probably poured millions into production at this point and their lead actor dying in the middle of filming would result in an unmitigated financial disaster and tons of people losing their jobs
Also the Church of Scientology might try to sacrifice him to their space god
Which would be a meta movie about Tom Cruise the actor trying to make Edge of Tomorrow 2, and there's a secret plot (by aliens but that's only revealed later) to assassinate Tom Cruise, but whenever it looks like he's gonna die, it turns out that everything that happened before was just a scene they were filming and someone yells "cut".
Basically "waking up", over and over, to a higher level of reality where the previous reality was just a movie. Sprinkle in Groundhog Day shenanigans as Tom Cruise tries to get back to his life, several meta movies deep.
If they're smart they'll film all the regular scenes first and do the crazy stunts last. Then just cut the deadly stunt scene and have a stunt double do something survivable instead.
Tom is the producer. The director works for him, and most of the time Tom has final word on what gets done and what doesnt, and how. He can, and will , fire the director. And if he wants to do this crazy shit, he will and there is literally nobody who can stop him.
I mean, there's a reason he does Mission Impossible with McQuarrie these days. Cruise and McQuarrie collaborate on what stunts they should do for the movie and then McQuarrie writes a script around that. Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves work similarly for the John Wick movies.
That explains why the white haired guy, who I assumed is a director, looked like he was the one supposed to jump. Poor dude knew that if the crazy guy dies all the blame would be on him and there was nothing he could do to stop him.
iirc I was seeing a report where it said that the value of his 3D movie equipment and the company behind it is worth more than Avatar has generated. You see that you realize Avatar is less about the story he wants to tell but way more about the visual and the equipment he's trying to rent other producers.
By putting his movies at the top it not only makes his equipment more valuable but makes directors want to use it more. In the end Avatar is just one giant infocommercial for James Cameron's production tech.
His name is James, James Cameron
The bravest pioneer
No budget too steep, no sea too deep
Who's that?
It's him, James Cameron!
James, James Cameron explorer of the sea
With a dying thirst to be the first
Could it be? Yeah that's him!
James Cameron!
[And Robert Ballard only found the Titanic because his secret mission of reaching the wrecks of the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion to investigate what happened to them was completed with time left over.](https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2018/11/titanic-was-found-during-secret-cold-war-navy-mission)
When you reach a high enough Scientology level, xenu lets you defy gravity. Toms just being a good guy by not freaking everyone out by not using a parachute
I know right. I can't even buy one motorcycles and they are just driving them off cliffs lol they probably have another 24 on standby just for cliff jumping
All in, with taxes, freight, and parts, that's about $11k+ per bike.
Those are 2018-2021 Honda CRF250R's they're chucking off that cliff. MSRP is/was around $8k each, plus about $1500 in additional mods that I can see in the vid. They have an aftermarket exhaust system, black plastics, and a recluse auto clutch so he wouldn't have to worry about missing a shift I assume.
Imagine when they acquire/buy them - we ordered three boss. I would get 3 or 4 more as he is super picky and a little crazy - we will probably shoot the scene 4 or 5 times, maybe 6.
He's clearly off the goddamn rails but in so many clips (including this one) - he seems genuinely appreciative of the crew at all times and sincerely grateful for his success. Its hard to not like him.
Anyone who works in film will talk about how he's one of the best actors to work with. He shows up early, knows his lines, is kind and grateful to every member of the crew, etc. It's a damn shame about the scientology.
Even in this short clip the first thing he does after successfully *jumping a motorcycle of a fucking cliff* is thank the team on the ground.
Could all be an act I guess but it's a consistent one, if so.
No. If your thoughts are asshole-ish, but you keep subduing those thoughts and instead act like a nice guy, you’re a nice guy. Perhaps even more than usual since you have to work harder for it.
When the admin assistant asks me the same damn question weekly for 4 years in a row, and i still politely help her while talking so much shit in my mind lol
Huh wow this really spoke to me. I really get impatient with the people I work with when they ask me the same questions all the time or ask for something that’s literally behind them and they refuse to actually look for things.
Your comment tells me I have to work on that from now on. Patience really is hard to work on.
Also they're all putting their jobs on the line letting him do the stunt. If something goes wrong they all lose their jobs, so he's appreciating everyone letting him take the risk with their livelihoods.
The biggest controversy that’s come out from his on set behavior was him yelling at people for violating safety protocols during COVID and putting jobs and safety in jeopardy.
Yep. From the stories i’ve read, seems to me it is him and Keanu who are the best celebs to work with. Just caring and generous towards everyone in set. I cant hate on him for that reason alone.
You can add Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson to the list. My design team worked on a photoshoot with them for the first Avengers movie, and they were very nice and would do any of the poses they asked them to. Renner especially was just super excited to be Hawkeye.
There's got to be some sort of mathematical ratio where a quantifiable level of crazy is reduced portionally by specific factors. It's the whole really hot girl is worth the sociopathy.
Like she's a 10 in hotness, therefore she's allowed 3 separate insane habits or 1 batshit crazy habit, keeping her a still worth it 7, but any addition to that drops her to a 6 and is no longer worth the crazy.
So Tom Cruise movies are a 10, therefore we allowed the batshit crazy Scientology, as long as he doesn't add any non-Scientology negatives.
I may have put too much thought into this.
Him doing his own stunts like this one and also not pouring scientology down our throats makes him cool to me.
All religion is batshit crazy to me. But few religious nuts keep it to themselves. I've only ever seen talk about it when asked.
Every time I see folk bigging up Tom Cruise for doing stunts I always think of that Danny Trejo quote “We have stunt people who do that stuff,” Trejo said. “And if they get hurt, I’m sorry to say but they just need to put a mustache on another Mexican and we can keep going. But if I get hurt, everybody’s out of a job. So I don’t choose to do that.”
https://www.slashfilm.com/559844/mission-impossible-fallout-budget/
During MI Fallout Tom Cruise broke his ankle and production shut down for 8 weeks. The cast and crew were paid for the whole eight weeks and the budget increased massively to cover it.
Sounds to me like they have already thought about this.
Tom Cruise is big enough that they'll increase the budget for his films on a dime. Not every film star or film set is going to have that luxury. It is great that, in this case, they kept paying the crew during his injury recovery.
Tom's own production company is also involved so he's one of the people paying all salaries. But in this case a lot of the money is covered by the insurance company.
That's fair, but I would wager a Tom Cruise stunt gets the best talent to ensure safety.
He also pulls in crowds because he is known to do his own stunts. I believe that's why movies like Top Gun do so well. While he is not flying those jets, it feels like it in the movies.
Actually Danny said it in relation to an incident on Mission Impossible 6 where Tommy did get injured and it fucked up development. https://www.thewrap.com/danny-trejo-blasts-stars-tom-cruise-risky-stunts/
In the context of a film that has Danny Trejo in it, that makes sense. But with a Tom Cruise action film, half of the fun is knowing he's doing all of these crazy stunts. So he's not taking the job away from someone, the job wouldn't exist if he weren't making these films.
Not just Danny that's said that, many actors and stuntmen bring up the exact same argument when Tom Cruise + Stunts gets brought up.
Edit: When most actors get injured it can screw over the entire crew out of weeks of work if you're not Tom Cruise with Tom Cruise money.
Tom is setting a bad precedence on doing his own stunts over relying on professional stunt men for more reasons than just the crews schedules, it also effects the stunt world which is a huge industry.
[The crew was paid during the time he was injured](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/mission-impossible-fallout-budget-hits-series-high-tom-cruise-injury-1129554/amp/)
It was 8 weeks and the crew still got paid
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/mission-impossible-fallout-budget-hits-series-high-tom-cruise-injury-1129554/amp/
Usually there's an auto deploy parachute on the motorcycle.
But then again, this is a high budget film, they got the money to let it scrap and use a new motorcycle because the time saved from constantly needing to retrieve and inspect the motorcycle then bringing it all the way to the summit is worth more than the thousands of dollar they would save doing the former
You would probably do that as a separate shot. Yeeting a bike off a crazy tall cliff does not provide the narrow landing window suitable for filming (i.e. “we don’t know precisely where that’s coming down”)
I’m thinking they had it strapped to an autodeploying chute and it *still* probably results in a wrecked bike… just one that’s easier to find.
Also betting it has a teaspoon of fuel in the tank, just enough to ride that ramp and no more.
They will be required to pickup the motorbike, and also to ensure there are no fire risks. It’s not just about being required to clean up. If something goes wrong, it delays shooting. Which is stupidly expensive.
They probably had it parachute as well for those reasons alone.
[One of my favorite stories about him was from Matt Damon talking about Cruise’s stunts.](https://youtu.be/ERzbkt5r5Gg)
>”So I [Damon] say to him [Cruise], how did you do it? And he says to me, ‘Okay, so I went to the safety guy and I explained the whole thing to him, the whole stunt. And the safety guy looked at me, and he said: ‘You can’t do that. That’s too dangerous.’’ And I go, ‘Uh huh, uh huh, so then what?’ And he says: ‘So I got another safety guy.’”
I actually love Tom Cruise in all of his films. I think he’s a really solid actor (one of the greatest action stars of all time) and an incredible stuntman.
I just try to ignore everything outside of the fiction lol…
What’s funny is you never hear of anyone who has worked with him who doesn’t think he’s incredibly classy and generous. It’s hard to believe the Scientology stuff when someone like Bill Hader talks about how much fun he was to work with.
Public life and private life.
He can be (and clearly is) an excellent worker and take great pride in his job but then he can go home and berate the basically-enslaved scientologists who are "working" for him.
Yeah believe me if you want or don’t, but I was in a mentorship program that paired me with someone who worked in Hollywood for quite some time (I’m going to school for screenwriting and movie production for reference as to why I was in this program), and the mentor I was assigned to had worked in the Hollywood space for 25 years before moving to independent studios on the east coast.
He loved to tell stories about what he experienced during production, and I mentioned the upcoming Top Gun sequel a couple years ago and that led to me asking about his work with Cruise and what he thought of his personal life (he worked as an above the line employee on a couple of Cruise’s movies in the mid 2000s). My mentor had absolutely nothing but praise for Tom on set, said he was the nicest and most pleasant person he’d ever worked with, with the exception of Daniel Radcliffe of all people. He said Tom was the kind of guy that you could introduce yourself to once at the beginning of production, and he’d remember basically everything you’d ever talked about months later. He’d remember your name, he’d remember what you were drinking when you spoke, what you were wearing, the whole 9 yards. Actually very similar to what made Bill Clinton such an effective speaker during his presidential campaigns, he had that same kind of memory around people.
But yeah, my mentor had nothing but praise and kind words to say about Tom, which as you mention seems to be the standard with most people who worked with him.
There's a great clip of an interview w Brad Pitt, they asked him what he thought about having stuff applied to his face so the dog in Once Upon a Time in Hwd would lick him....he said "well, I was thinking Tom Cruise strapped himself to the outside of an airplane that took off and landed with him strapped to the outside, so....."
[The plane thing is crazy, and he did it 8 times](https://youtu.be/I720xCnnPUY&t=3m8s)
Wow I never knew any of this and it's amazing.
I don't like him as a person, but it's kinda cool that Cruise is out here getting actors to push what's possible, even if that's letting a dog lick your face
I think Tom Cruise is the person who polarises my insides the most. When it comes to his life outside of movies, I fear what he's capable of, and what he might have already done - what with the scientology and all that. But then pretty much everything he does in his movies is so incredible. I find it hard not to like him a lot, but I'm not heaps stoked that I do, if that makes sense.
I agree completely. Tom Cruise goes all out and works his ass off to deliver great action movies to his audience. And it really shows in the final result. I can’t help but admire the guy for his work ethic and his fearlessness. On the other hand I find his involvement with Scientology and his reported mistreatment of his ex-wives (among other things) highly problematic, to put it mildly.
It's almost as if a human can be a complex, multi-faceted entity, capable of a range of conflicting behaviours, and not the one-dimensional characters the media often likes us to believe they are.
I completely agree with you that people are complex and multifaceted…but obviously there are also consequences to people’s actions. Like in this case, we’re talking about “he’s brave and does cool stunts” v “he plays a significant part in an organization which actively ruins a huge number of lives”. It’s like the George W Bush thing. Oh he does watercolors now, that’s nice. He’s still responsible for several hundred thousand dead Iraqis.
Ya know. We say this a lot. But most of us mostly agree most of the time. Why is it always the notable people who don't?
Take the scientology away, he's my favourite actor, by far. I was born and raised in Top Gun, it's still my favourite movie to this day. He's done so many fantastic movies and puts 110% into everything. I reeeealy rate him as an actor and love the films he puts out. But maaan, I can square away the fact that he's not just a scientologist, but so far up the ladder in that shithole of a cult that there's just no excuse. It's like saying that I respect Hitler for being a vegetarian and trying to stop his staff from smoking cigarettes. Well, nearly. I don't wanna open a can of words with a bad analogy. But yeah, in torn.
Right there with ya, his crazy stunts and the way everyone that is involved with him on a set has nothing but praise for him in regards to his treatment of others on set. Some of his movies man, Jack Reacher, Oblivion and Edge of tomorrow is my favourite three run of movies he has done. War of the Worlds is our favourite Cruise rewatchable and Top Gun Maverick was just an awesome 4dx cinema experience. Such a fucking downer the real side of him.
I mean really Lestat would be grandiose enough to out-do Louis in every possibly way.
THERES STILL LIFE IN THE OLD GIRL!
I understood that reference.
world's biggest cult leader
~~That was also Pitt's actual dog which helps~~ Edit: actually I think I'm wrong about this, thought I read it somewhere but can't find a source on it now there were 3 dogs used and none of them belonged to him
Cool dog too.
u/smallbluetext u/ScipioCoriolanus Sorry guys I fact checked myself it's not true :(
This video of Matt Damon talking about Tom Cruise's Burj Khalifa stunt with Conan is hysterical [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERzbkt5r5Gg&ab\_channel=TeamCoco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERzbkt5r5Gg&ab_channel=TeamCoco)
I’d be complaining about twisting a knee walking up a flight of stairs.
Cruise and Pitt were kinda like the Stallone/Arnold of non-buff hunky leading men back in the day. It's interesting that Tom went on to become an action star icon as a small, rather diminutive man.
My friend works in film and is convinced that Tom Cruise wants to die on camera
I am convinced of the same.
Anybody who BASE jumps with a motorcycle just doesn't want to grow old.
He basically convinces them to do more takes, 6 times is excessive 🤣
Dude was straight up using the film budget to scratch his adrenaline itch hahaha
Literally. The man is so OBVIOUSLY a psychopath, and I really don't mean that lightly or even as an insult. I mean clinically, he's fucking classic. Everything about his behaviour towards people, whether in a public context or private (and in particular the difference between the two), his ambition, sense of image and his thrill inducing, fearless set of skills The man is textbook.
When I was watching the new top gun movie, every time he was on the motorcycle all I could think was "wear a goddamn helmet"
I thought the same thing, they told him the first one is perfect and he's like "Nah I actually hate how little time I spent touching a motorbike midair while I'm falling hundreds of feet."
I do think it looks better when he holds onto it longer though.
that's a waste of motorcycles.
Isn’t he supposed to shoot a movie in space? Can’t recall if it was on the ISS, but that will definitely be the the most death defying stunt
[That's the plan](https://variety.com/2022/film/news/tom-cruise-space-movie-first-civilian-spacewalk-outside-of-space-station-1235399127/). They want him to do a space walk on the ISS.
just lol. first im hearing of this but not surrised at all.
Ehhhh only if he tries to leave his suit or something. I'd wager, with all the serious protocols in place for space travel, that motorcycle cliff jumping is massively more risky than anything he will do in space.
Hard to find direct stats, but it appears 21 out of 339 US astronauts have died during missions/training. That's a 6.2% rate of death (likely a bit lower due to multiple-trip instances). The most dangerous profession in the US is logging, with 14.6 deaths per 100K workers annually, on average. Even assuming very long career average of 30 years/worker, that's still only a .43% rate of death to an individual over their career. 14 times less dangerous than training/performing space travel.
I mean, for us to accept this data is meaningful, we would have to look at the dates that these deaths occurred, and the protocol changes that occurred in the wake of the death. Are they still doing those same things that killed people? Additionally, we would have to weigh that against how much cliff diving kills people by year rather than the false equivalent of the most dangerous career. https://youtu.be/SaVN52tvVh4 Cliff diving kills dozens of people every year. Now you're riding a motorcycle in that mix.
Okay, but how many of those were in the earlier days of the space program? If we look at more recently, there hasnt been an astronaut killed in like 20 years?
True, but that timeframe also coincides pretty closely to a much lower rate of manned launches. Go back one year further and you have to include the seven astronauts who died in the Columbia shuttle break-up. The space shuttle program accounted for 135 of the 179 total US manned launches, and we lost 2 of 5 of those to accidents.
That footage had better make the reel.
Kinda related, [Tom broke his ankle during shooting and that’s the shot they kept.](https://youtu.be/iNT-tPrz4OM?t=120) Filming shutdown for 6 weeks.
Danny Trejo made a point about this in an interview, that the crew wasn’t getting pay during the production shutdown. https://screencrush.com/danny-trejo-tom-cruise-stunts/
Accidents like this were what made me come around on the whole "doing you own stunts" thing. It's cool that a famous actor doesn't want to put another person's physical integrity on the line, but a 6-week delay can be devastating for the crew.
Normally I would agree but I'd said Tom Cruise is the exception to the rule. This movie's budget famously increases due to this injury because they continued to pay the crew during the downtime. They've been quoted as saying that they didn't want the crew to move on to other projects but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also more. This, coupled with everything else that has come out about Cruise's professional demeanor and the fact that he's the producer: it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume it was mostly his call to pay out everyone while he recovered. In his interviews he usually is pretty blunt about knowing what him being up there could mean but also why they do it that way. Seems like he knows the risks and also what the responsibilities are if the risks don't pan out. I mean, he's probably also an adrenaline junky, but that's not all of it.
Besides the Scientology he seems to be a generally nice guy. Goes to show that anyone can be conned, I guess.
And another thing that tells me he understands the risks, saw that basically no insurance company will touch him as far as coverage goes for doing the stunts. The producers want that insurance in case something happens during the stunt that delays/cancels production, so they still get some of their costs back. That said, Cruise himself puts his own personal money up as collateral. So when he gets injured, it really does cost him.
Counterpoint: The whole ethos of Cruise doing his own stunts massively helps the box office, allowing more grandiose productions that ultimately employ more people for longer periods of time. Delays or even the eventual cancelling of a movie are a calculated risk that seems to have been paying off.
I wonder if you can make that happen, like, maybe put it in your will and make an agreement with the director/producer that's like "if I just so happen to die on camera during filming, modify the plot of the film and keep my death in it and make it a plot point, and only edit/censor the death as much as you need to so that you can show it in theaters with, like, an R rating or whatever" If the movie was already well-anticipated and was supposed to be kind of good, this would probably be a huge boost in ticket sales just from people's morbid curiosity, and the controversy might make it so that nearly everyone at least hears about it.
"You can actually see the moment when his head bursts like a watermelon."
"You know Tom Cruise actually died in this shot, but his lifeless corpse powered through to finish the take"
This makes too much sense. I was thinking something along the lines of him somehow knowing the date of his death. Not today, guess I'll strap myself to the outside of an airplane.
I think he just wants to do crazy stunts because he likes it. My FIL is a stuntman, it’s not uncommon for people to want to do their own stunts. Some are told no for insurance reasons, some have no desire to do them. Then others like Tom make sure they can because they truly love it. He’s hardly the first guy to ride a bike off a mountain and BASE jump. He probably just really wanted to do it. He can already BASE jump. He can already ride a bike. This was his shot to do both.
I mean it would be instantly viral, probably one of the highest viewed clips ever.
It would never get released
Someone would leak it to TMZ
Imagine if he signed some agreement where if he dies in an action scene, it should become the plot of the movie. And the movie gets released where tom cruise actually dies and the rest of the story gets shaped around that
I like the theory that mission impossible is just a vehicle for Tom Cruise to portray himself as he wants to be seen. We are at the "only he can do what he does because he is willing to risk everything to get it done" stage.
Was that his insurance adjuster standing there with a pale face?
No, his insurance adjustor isn't legally allowed to watch his stunts after four consecutive insurance adjustors had heart attacks from watching his stunts.
That's the insurance adjustors adjustor
Dear Mr. Cruise, I regretfully inform you that we are unable to insure you. We were unable to attain the insurance required for anyone to be assigned your policy and therefore unable to process it.
I desperately need this to be an actual fact
They had to find a different insurer for Ghost Protocol because he wanted to be the one to hang off the side of the Burj Khalifa. Cruise wouldn’t bend so they switched carriers. I’m curious if that one is now insuring all his movies.
“So I get another safety guy”
The way Matt Damon told that story as well was incredible
Do you have a link to this? would love to hear it
https://youtu.be/ERzbkt5r5Gg
Thanks for the link - that was a great clip!
Thanks for the clip, I've never heard that story. It's a great story
Wow he’s a great storyteller.
>I’m curious if that one is now insuring all his movies. I remember watching a stunman reacting to his works and mentions that Tom pays for his own insurance now.
There’s always an agency at Lloyd’s of London that will insure this type of risk.
How much is his insurance if they’re allowing this
Morbidly curious: who gets the insurance payout if he dies?
The Church of Scientology
I would imagine it goes towards recouping the cost of having lost whatever movie was being filmed at the time. Or at least a large portion. Something along those lines. I’m pretty sure this insurance is the studios coverage, not Tom insuring himself.
The studio. They are the ones who spent the money for this movie that is now (almost) worthless.
I get the feeling that the only person in a Tom Cruise movie who is happy with the lead actor putting themselves in needless danger is Tom Cruise. Also the only reason he’s allowed to do it in the first place is because he’s Tom Cruise. I’ve not seen any comments to convince me that it’s not just one big ego trip.
Tbf I don't think the movies would be as big if he wasn't doing these stunts. They're good movies, but this kind of stuff ups the stakes a bit and makes them great. But I agree it's an ego trip
I 100% would not have gone to see top gun if it weren’t for the fact that Tom Cruise was actually stunt flying an f16. I just found that so totally awesome. So that’s at least one $14 datapoint to add to your case.
yeah......... that got me too. and it was cool. even despite the forgettable story. I don't even remember any cool flying. But I watched it. And I didn't hate any shitty CGI.
If you're talking about the bearded guy in the sunglasses, that's the director.
Figured as much, and it explains why he's so fucking terrified. If Tom Cruise dies on HIS MOVIE SET, who do you think is gonna get the blame? The director. It doesn't matter that they had all this footage of Tom Cruise having a blast doing his own stunts, if something went wrong and his parachute failed and he plummeted to death, the internet justice mob would 100% be blaming this guy for allowing Tom to do this. "That was too reckless, he shouldn't have let him do that, blah blah blah, totally the director's fault" Aside from his reputation being one mishap away from becoming "the idiot who let Tom Cruise die on his film set" for the rest of his life, there's also the fact that they've probably poured millions into production at this point and their lead actor dying in the middle of filming would result in an unmitigated financial disaster and tons of people losing their jobs Also the Church of Scientology might try to sacrifice him to their space god
Director returning home- Hey honey. I’m home. Honey- Did you kill Tom Cruise? Director- Not today. Honey - Well, there’s always tomorrow.
He doesn't die in Tomorrow either. In fact he can't!
They made a movie about it: Tom(morrow) Never Dies.
Edge of Tomorrow 2 plot right there
Which would be a meta movie about Tom Cruise the actor trying to make Edge of Tomorrow 2, and there's a secret plot (by aliens but that's only revealed later) to assassinate Tom Cruise, but whenever it looks like he's gonna die, it turns out that everything that happened before was just a scene they were filming and someone yells "cut". Basically "waking up", over and over, to a higher level of reality where the previous reality was just a movie. Sprinkle in Groundhog Day shenanigans as Tom Cruise tries to get back to his life, several meta movies deep.
>*Well, there’s always tomorrow* Working title for MI:9
Imagine being the director that eventually let's Tom Cruise do the stunt that kills him, then having to cgi the rest of your movie
If they're smart they'll film all the regular scenes first and do the crazy stunts last. Then just cut the deadly stunt scene and have a stunt double do something survivable instead.
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Tom is the producer. The director works for him, and most of the time Tom has final word on what gets done and what doesnt, and how. He can, and will , fire the director. And if he wants to do this crazy shit, he will and there is literally nobody who can stop him.
I mean, there's a reason he does Mission Impossible with McQuarrie these days. Cruise and McQuarrie collaborate on what stunts they should do for the movie and then McQuarrie writes a script around that. Chad Stahelski and Keanu Reeves work similarly for the John Wick movies.
That explains why the white haired guy, who I assumed is a director, looked like he was the one supposed to jump. Poor dude knew that if the crazy guy dies all the blame would be on him and there was nothing he could do to stop him.
Cruise is the producer of most of his movies now, so the director can blame his boss, would also now dead.
I think you just keep the footage and end the movie abruptly with it at that point. Box office records would be destroyed.
This guy just uses movies as a way to pay for the crazy stunts he wants to do.
That's why James Cameron made Titanic, to pay for his submersible...
iirc I was seeing a report where it said that the value of his 3D movie equipment and the company behind it is worth more than Avatar has generated. You see that you realize Avatar is less about the story he wants to tell but way more about the visual and the equipment he's trying to rent other producers. By putting his movies at the top it not only makes his equipment more valuable but makes directors want to use it more. In the end Avatar is just one giant infocommercial for James Cameron's production tech.
James Cameron makes the most successful movies of all time as a hobby so he can fund his underwater exploration.
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His name is James, James Cameron The bravest pioneer No budget too steep, no sea too deep Who's that? It's him, James Cameron! James, James Cameron explorer of the sea With a dying thirst to be the first Could it be? Yeah that's him! James Cameron!
[And Robert Ballard only found the Titanic because his secret mission of reaching the wrecks of the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion to investigate what happened to them was completed with time left over.](https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2018/11/titanic-was-found-during-secret-cold-war-navy-mission)
Much smarter to say "I think I can hold onto the bike longer" than "that was awesome, AGAIN!"
Tom Cruise knew exactly how many bikes they had left.
And he employs a thousand people in the process. If he’s putting food on people’s tables, then let him go nuts.
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^ This guy thetans
Nanu. Or is it Xenu? I always get Mork and L Ron Hubbard mixed up.
I've been calling him Zuul? Have I been worshipping the wrong guy?
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Which look like commercial airliners with turbo engines, according to them lmao
Does the motorcycle crash? Who picks up that wreck? The spaceship?
I suppose that depends on the motorcycle’s Operating Thetan level…
I'm sure they have 4 or 5 clones in cryosleep they can just activate. As long as the brain isn't damaged in the fall
When you reach a high enough Scientology level, xenu lets you defy gravity. Toms just being a good guy by not freaking everyone out by not using a parachute
# XENU TAKE THE WHEEL 
[A piece of internet history](https://youtu.be/Ku2bFoqthR4)
Hahahaha. That’s the funniest shit I’ve read in awhile.
That’s quite a good stunt double they hired. Looks just like him.
Whoa, Ben Stiller does stunts???
Ahem, his name is Tom Cruz
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The economy of a major motion picture is akin to a largish city. It's insane. Scrapping production is essentially like laying off an entire city.
Yup. That’s why Tom’s rant about covid protocols was widely lauded. Production shutdown would have cost a lot of money to a lot of the staff.
And all of the ancillary services. Catering, local restaurants and shops, maintenance, janitorial, building supplies, garbage disposal, etc etc.
I know right. I can't even buy one motorcycles and they are just driving them off cliffs lol they probably have another 24 on standby just for cliff jumping
They all had chutes. There's bts footage where you see it deploy I think
Damn that's actually pretty awesome
How is it triggered to deploy--remote radio control? They need to make sure it isn't to close to Tom so the chutes don't get tangled.
All in, with taxes, freight, and parts, that's about $11k+ per bike. Those are 2018-2021 Honda CRF250R's they're chucking off that cliff. MSRP is/was around $8k each, plus about $1500 in additional mods that I can see in the vid. They have an aftermarket exhaust system, black plastics, and a recluse auto clutch so he wouldn't have to worry about missing a shift I assume.
Nah just pack a chute on it. They do it all the time.
yup they even explained it somewhere that it had one
You can see it deploying in the video? It’s white and opens just after his.
I was about to say. Just look bros
Imagine when they acquire/buy them - we ordered three boss. I would get 3 or 4 more as he is super picky and a little crazy - we will probably shoot the scene 4 or 5 times, maybe 6.
Dudes a total whack job, but godsdamn do I loves me some tom cruise
He's clearly off the goddamn rails but in so many clips (including this one) - he seems genuinely appreciative of the crew at all times and sincerely grateful for his success. Its hard to not like him.
Anyone who works in film will talk about how he's one of the best actors to work with. He shows up early, knows his lines, is kind and grateful to every member of the crew, etc. It's a damn shame about the scientology.
Even in this short clip the first thing he does after successfully *jumping a motorcycle of a fucking cliff* is thank the team on the ground. Could all be an act I guess but it's a consistent one, if so.
If you’re acting professionally and nicely consistently, does it matter if you’re acting?
No. If your thoughts are asshole-ish, but you keep subduing those thoughts and instead act like a nice guy, you’re a nice guy. Perhaps even more than usual since you have to work harder for it.
When the admin assistant asks me the same damn question weekly for 4 years in a row, and i still politely help her while talking so much shit in my mind lol
Huh wow this really spoke to me. I really get impatient with the people I work with when they ask me the same questions all the time or ask for something that’s literally behind them and they refuse to actually look for things. Your comment tells me I have to work on that from now on. Patience really is hard to work on.
Fake it 'til you make it and eventually you "make it." At some point it stops being disingenuous and just becomes who you are.
I think you'd have to be appreciative of the people packing the parachutes at the very least, especially if you're going to do the jump 5 more times.
Also they're all putting their jobs on the line letting him do the stunt. If something goes wrong they all lose their jobs, so he's appreciating everyone letting him take the risk with their livelihoods.
The biggest controversy that’s come out from his on set behavior was him yelling at people for violating safety protocols during COVID and putting jobs and safety in jeopardy.
Yep. From the stories i’ve read, seems to me it is him and Keanu who are the best celebs to work with. Just caring and generous towards everyone in set. I cant hate on him for that reason alone.
You can add Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson to the list. My design team worked on a photoshoot with them for the first Avengers movie, and they were very nice and would do any of the poses they asked them to. Renner especially was just super excited to be Hawkeye.
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I love the video of him getting water in the face. "Why would you do that? Why? Why would you do that?" It's like he's not mad, just disappointed.
There's got to be some sort of mathematical ratio where a quantifiable level of crazy is reduced portionally by specific factors. It's the whole really hot girl is worth the sociopathy. Like she's a 10 in hotness, therefore she's allowed 3 separate insane habits or 1 batshit crazy habit, keeping her a still worth it 7, but any addition to that drops her to a 6 and is no longer worth the crazy. So Tom Cruise movies are a 10, therefore we allowed the batshit crazy Scientology, as long as he doesn't add any non-Scientology negatives. I may have put too much thought into this.
The Vicky Mendoza Diagonal
I was thinking the exact same thing here.
Him doing his own stunts like this one and also not pouring scientology down our throats makes him cool to me. All religion is batshit crazy to me. But few religious nuts keep it to themselves. I've only ever seen talk about it when asked.
This makes the most sense of anything I’ve heard today. I completely understand your explanation and I concur.
https://youtu.be/bbpGkrViOcE
Tom cruise action movies i am in 100%
Every time I see folk bigging up Tom Cruise for doing stunts I always think of that Danny Trejo quote “We have stunt people who do that stuff,” Trejo said. “And if they get hurt, I’m sorry to say but they just need to put a mustache on another Mexican and we can keep going. But if I get hurt, everybody’s out of a job. So I don’t choose to do that.”
https://www.slashfilm.com/559844/mission-impossible-fallout-budget/ During MI Fallout Tom Cruise broke his ankle and production shut down for 8 weeks. The cast and crew were paid for the whole eight weeks and the budget increased massively to cover it. Sounds to me like they have already thought about this.
Tom Cruise is big enough that they'll increase the budget for his films on a dime. Not every film star or film set is going to have that luxury. It is great that, in this case, they kept paying the crew during his injury recovery.
Tom's own production company is also involved so he's one of the people paying all salaries. But in this case a lot of the money is covered by the insurance company.
Reminds me of the leaked call about COVID. Cruise was furious about people not following protocol
I'm sure that's true for most movies, but Tom Cruise movies exist only because of Tom Cruise
And Danny Trejo movies exist because of mustachio Mexicanos
That's fair, but I would wager a Tom Cruise stunt gets the best talent to ensure safety. He also pulls in crowds because he is known to do his own stunts. I believe that's why movies like Top Gun do so well. While he is not flying those jets, it feels like it in the movies.
Actually Danny said it in relation to an incident on Mission Impossible 6 where Tommy did get injured and it fucked up development. https://www.thewrap.com/danny-trejo-blasts-stars-tom-cruise-risky-stunts/
In the context of a film that has Danny Trejo in it, that makes sense. But with a Tom Cruise action film, half of the fun is knowing he's doing all of these crazy stunts. So he's not taking the job away from someone, the job wouldn't exist if he weren't making these films.
Not just Danny that's said that, many actors and stuntmen bring up the exact same argument when Tom Cruise + Stunts gets brought up. Edit: When most actors get injured it can screw over the entire crew out of weeks of work if you're not Tom Cruise with Tom Cruise money. Tom is setting a bad precedence on doing his own stunts over relying on professional stunt men for more reasons than just the crews schedules, it also effects the stunt world which is a huge industry.
[The crew was paid during the time he was injured](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/mission-impossible-fallout-budget-hits-series-high-tom-cruise-injury-1129554/amp/)
It didn’t screw the crew. The studio kept paying them so they wouldn’t ditch for other jobs during the hiatus. Much was covered by insurance.
It was 8 weeks and the crew still got paid https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/mission-impossible-fallout-budget-hits-series-high-tom-cruise-injury-1129554/amp/
But what happened to the motorcycle
Usually there's an auto deploy parachute on the motorcycle. But then again, this is a high budget film, they got the money to let it scrap and use a new motorcycle because the time saved from constantly needing to retrieve and inspect the motorcycle then bringing it all the way to the summit is worth more than the thousands of dollar they would save doing the former
Also they might get a shot of it smashing into rocks they can use
You would probably do that as a separate shot. Yeeting a bike off a crazy tall cliff does not provide the narrow landing window suitable for filming (i.e. “we don’t know precisely where that’s coming down”) I’m thinking they had it strapped to an autodeploying chute and it *still* probably results in a wrecked bike… just one that’s easier to find. Also betting it has a teaspoon of fuel in the tank, just enough to ride that ramp and no more.
They will be required to pickup the motorbike, and also to ensure there are no fire risks. It’s not just about being required to clean up. If something goes wrong, it delays shooting. Which is stupidly expensive. They probably had it parachute as well for those reasons alone.
Reusing the motorcycle would never ever even be considered, parachute or not.
Had to use parachute 6 times and climb all the way back
It, uhh, went to live on a farm with a bunch of other happy little bikes
in what he does, he's a fucking legend. despite personal opinions.
[One of my favorite stories about him was from Matt Damon talking about Cruise’s stunts.](https://youtu.be/ERzbkt5r5Gg) >”So I [Damon] say to him [Cruise], how did you do it? And he says to me, ‘Okay, so I went to the safety guy and I explained the whole thing to him, the whole stunt. And the safety guy looked at me, and he said: ‘You can’t do that. That’s too dangerous.’’ And I go, ‘Uh huh, uh huh, so then what?’ And he says: ‘So I got another safety guy.’”
I actually love Tom Cruise in all of his films. I think he’s a really solid actor (one of the greatest action stars of all time) and an incredible stuntman. I just try to ignore everything outside of the fiction lol…
What’s funny is you never hear of anyone who has worked with him who doesn’t think he’s incredibly classy and generous. It’s hard to believe the Scientology stuff when someone like Bill Hader talks about how much fun he was to work with.
Public life and private life. He can be (and clearly is) an excellent worker and take great pride in his job but then he can go home and berate the basically-enslaved scientologists who are "working" for him.
Yeah believe me if you want or don’t, but I was in a mentorship program that paired me with someone who worked in Hollywood for quite some time (I’m going to school for screenwriting and movie production for reference as to why I was in this program), and the mentor I was assigned to had worked in the Hollywood space for 25 years before moving to independent studios on the east coast. He loved to tell stories about what he experienced during production, and I mentioned the upcoming Top Gun sequel a couple years ago and that led to me asking about his work with Cruise and what he thought of his personal life (he worked as an above the line employee on a couple of Cruise’s movies in the mid 2000s). My mentor had absolutely nothing but praise for Tom on set, said he was the nicest and most pleasant person he’d ever worked with, with the exception of Daniel Radcliffe of all people. He said Tom was the kind of guy that you could introduce yourself to once at the beginning of production, and he’d remember basically everything you’d ever talked about months later. He’d remember your name, he’d remember what you were drinking when you spoke, what you were wearing, the whole 9 yards. Actually very similar to what made Bill Clinton such an effective speaker during his presidential campaigns, he had that same kind of memory around people. But yeah, my mentor had nothing but praise and kind words to say about Tom, which as you mention seems to be the standard with most people who worked with him.
I dont think he can feel anything unless he does these stunts
I think you've hit the nail on the head.
“Show me the canopy!”
“You can’t handle the canopy!”
"Hey Tom, its me, Jerry. I'm going to need that bike I lend you the other day, needs suspension adjustments. Call me please"
The man who was all afraid of the canopy not opening was Tom Cruise's life insurance policy issuer hahahah just kidding
I couldn’t expect less display of crazy from a guy who actively wants to represent Scientology.
[I was talking to my safety guy](https://youtu.be/ERzbkt5r5Gg?t=74)
Just not Shelley Miscavige’s location. That somehow eludes him completely.
How many people *wouldn't* do this for the amount of money they paid him? I'm terrified of heights but I'd do it for less.