At 64, after riding a motorbike off a 7,000-foot cliff, Tom Cruise told GQ that he does not fear death
Tom Cruise has finally said whether those death‑defying Mission: Impossible stunts actually scare him, telling GQ straight.
There are actors who give you a stunt double and a wry smile. Then there's Tom Cruise, a man who'd rather dangle from the side of a plane himself than let someone else have the fun. At 64 years old, Cruise is still physically flinging himself off structures with a level of bravado most people leave behind after university. He brought up his semi-cavalier attitude to imminent danger in a chat with GQ, shedding a bit of light on whether the idea of death ever gets to him while he's doing his death-defying routines for films like Mission: Impossible.
When asked directly in GQ about fearing death, Cruise said: 'Do I fear death? No. I don’t. It’s not like I’m not afraid. I don’t mind the feeling. I understand life has certainties and uncertainties. And in making movies and living life, what interests me is: Let’s move the uncertainties more into the certainties, but I want to create other uncertainties, so that we’re moving forward, and it’s part of the adventure of it.'
That’s Cruise for you: a man who likes to poke the bear of uncertainty, all in the name of moving things along. He also confessed that he's got a fondness for standing at the edge—both literally and in life. Apparently, the desire to seek out the next cliff is coded right into his DNA, or as he put it, "It's just who I am. That's my theory."
When prodded on whether the nerves kick in more for real-life or on-screen risk, Cruise was fairly blunt—he doesn't faff about with bravado but isn't paralysed by fear either. Rather, he reckons with what he doesn't know, avoids faking it, and chucks himself into the unknown anyway.
Peak Mission: Impossible Moments
Let's not gloss over quite how mad some of these Mission: Impossible stunts are. Cruise has a track record for stuff most of us would only try in a big-budget dream. Take these for starters:
- In Ghost Protocol, he scrambled up the side of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building on the planet, relying on safety wires and sticky gloves—absolutely nothing CGI about it.
- Dead Reckoning brought that much-hyped motorbike cliff jump. He rode straight off a cliff, dropped 7,000 feet and only then popped the parachute. Textbook Cruise.
- There's also the HALO jump in Fallout—military speak for jumping out of a plane at 25,000 feet, opening the chute dangerously low. He had to repeat it multiple times until it was ‘just right’ for camera.
- In Rogue Nation, he got strapped to the outside of a military aircraft in flight, and in another scene, held his breath for six minutes in a tank the size of a small pool, after training for free diving to pull it off.
- Of course, there's the original vault heist from the very first film—lowered by wires, balancing just above a laser-trapped floor, held in place by sheer core strength and willpower.
The Burj Khalifa climb in Ghost Protocol is widely considered one of the boldest practical stunts in modern cinema.
It’s all a bit mad—especially since he’s not twenty and spry anymore. But apparently, for Cruise, mixing up what’s risky and what’s not is all part of the ‘adventure’.