Tom Cruise’s Wing-Walk Daredevil Act Took Decades
Great, another reason to feel inferior: Tom Cruise decided to hang off a 150 mph plane wing for his latest Mission: Impossible adventure, and of course he claims it took “decades” to nail down. At 62, the guy still treats gravity like a mere suggestion, and here comes the grumpy guru to break down exactly why this aerial stunt isn’t just spectacle—it’s a multi-decade obsession that reads like a stubborn to-do list.
Look, I don’t want to be the one to say it, but watching Cruise grip a speeding aircraft wing in Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning isn’t exactly breaking news. He’s been chasing death-defying stunts since Top Gun pushed jet fuel into mainstream cinema. But this time, he’s not just jumping off buildings or driving motorcycles over cliffs—he’s resurrecting a century-old circus act known as wing walking, and he’s somehow convinced us it’s fresh.
During his May 19 chat with Jimmy Fallon, Cruise revealed that the wing-walking sequence took 18 months of sit-downs—and “decades” more of private tinkering. He and director Christopher McQuarrie pored over black-and-white footage of the very first aviation daredevils, then plotted how to reimagine it at 145 to 150 mph. Yes, that’s about 60 mph times two and some change, so imagine sticking your hand out of a speeding car window and tripling the stakes. Trust me, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.
The film crew’s to-do list read like a pilot’s handbook of unpleasant surprises. First obstacle: wind force so brutal it feels like someone is trying to peel your skin off. Cruise confessed he couldn’t breathe properly, so he swapped normal inhaling for some MacGyver-style mouth positioning to funnel air past the hurricane in front of him. Then came the radio silence—at those speeds, verbal cues go out the window, so they developed a hand-signal language worthy of submarine silence drills.
Oh, and did I mention upside-down flight? Every time the plane inverted, the engine would sputter and nearly die. But Cruise wasn’t satisfied with a mere few seconds of inverted showmanship. No, he insisted on “seeing how long we can hold that,” per Deadline’s behind-the-scenes notes. This wasn’t just stunt work; it was an aerial endurance test disguised as a movie sequence.
Cruise argued that every air-tight shot owes its roots to his private experiments, starting with lenses and drones, progressing through American Made and Fallout, and exploding in Top Gun: Maverick’s dogfights. Now, this wing walk tops it all—an outlandish spectacle that serves up muscle-burning, head-spinning thrills under the guise of “childlike wonder.” I told you so: when you mix a billionaire’s budget with a daredevil’s ego, you end up hanging off an airplane wing.
And that, dear reader, is why we can’t have nice things.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and People Magazine, Dotdash Meredith
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
