Back in August we were reminded of the lengths that Tom Cruise goes to in order to shoot his action sequences when the actor broke his ankle shooting “Mission: Impossible 6”. But while the 55-year-old’s injury caused a delay to production on the blockbuster, and led to questions about whether Cruise should be putting himself in such danger anymore, it didn’t surprise director Doug Liman one bit.
Liman had just finished shooting “American Made” with Cruise, the sophomore collaboration for the pair after “Edge Of Tomorrow”, and he’d seen first hand just how much the actor is willing to put himself on the line in order to get the perfect shot for a film. So much so that, Liman recently admitted to Metro that Tom Cruise doesn’t even have a stunt double.
“[Tom is] a pilot, and part of my attraction was trying to do flying scenes that were like car chases from ‘The Bourne Identity’ but with airplanes. Because no-one has ever done that before. The idea was to do them for real, with real airplanes in the air, with Tom Cruise piloting the airplanes. There’s no stunt double for Tom, as you know from his recent injury. Every other actor that I have worked with on an action movie they have found somebody who is a good athlete, who is a stunt man or stunt woman that looks a lot like them.”
I then suggested to Liman that studios must be a nervous wreck over the fact that Cruise does all of his own stunts for these films and, invariably, puts himself in harm’s way. But the filmmaker dismissed my concerns as if I was an over protective parent watching their child go down a slide for the first time. “He’s so careful. He’s not reckless about this. Injuries happen, it is like any professional sport. But nobody trains harder and is more careful than Tom.”
I then asked Liman whether he had spoken to Tom Cruise since he broke his ankle, and once again he downplayed the incident. “It is honestly a non-event. He is like a pro athlete. He trains like a pro-athlete, if he gets injured he recovers like a pro-athlete, it doesn’t slow him down.”
You can check out Tom Cruise maneuvering an airplane in a manner akin to Jason Bourne in a car chase when “American Made” hits cinemas on September 29.
