Tom Cruise spills secret to preparing for death-defying aerial stunts

Yahoo

02-05-2025

Tom Cruise always eats a 'massive breakfast' before doing any daredevil stunts. The 62-year-old Hollywood legend famously hanged off a military plane in the opening scene of 'Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation', and has done numerous jaw-dropping aerial sequences in the film series where he plays Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt. Cruise has now revealed that he has to be fuelled with energy before he does his stunts and he'll eat "almost a dozen" eggs with bacon and sausages and down several cups of coffee before the cameras start rolling. In an interview with PEOPLE magazine's 'Mission: Impossible' issue, he said: "I actually eat a massive breakfast 'The amount of energy it takes - I train so hard for that wing-walking. "I'll eat, like, sausage and almost a dozen eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and fluids. "Oh, I'm eating! Picture: It's cold up there. We're at high altitude. My body is burning a lot.' Despite Tom dubbing the opening stunt to the 2015 flick as one of the least-safe stunts, his late mom Mary Pfeiffer is glad she did not know about it before she saw the footage. She said: "Oh, honey, I'm so glad you didn't fill me in on that one beforehand." In the eighth instalment of the critically acclaimed series, 'Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning' - which is released in May - the 'Top Gun' icon experienced what it was like to spin inside a washing machine as the crew built a tank to shoot a submarine interior that tilted and spun 360 degrees. Tom - who was wearing a SCUBA mark - breathed in his own carbon dioxide but he did not need to worry as the pilot had trained for carbon dioxide build-up for when he earned his wings in 1994. The Oscar-nominated actor explained: 'You're not going to feel as connected with the character if I went with a regular mask and a thing in my mouth to breathe. 'Luckily when you're flying jets you train for hypoxia and for carbon dioxide build-up. You start to be able to perceive your body and how it's reacting so that I knew when to stop.' Cruise - who was inspired to do stunts after seeing footage of wing-walkers as a child - has said he "loves" making the movies, even if it does mean dicing with death. He said: 'I love making movies. It's not what I do. It's who I am.'