The Brief

There is a stunt in the new Mission: Impossible in which Tom Cruise base jumps a motorcycle off a cliff and then free falls for a couple thousand feet. No big deal, right? Some are calling this particular stunt the biggest in cinema history. That can be debated. Cruise, however, says it's by far the most dangerous of his career.

Naturally then, behind-the-scenes footage of the stunt, which was shot in Norway, was released weeks prior to the film's opening, creating much buzz and conversation.

Larry Mantle who hosts FilmWeek on 89.3 FM and FilmWeek critic Amy Nicholson spoke with Wade Eastwood, the stunt coordinator for "Mission Impossible" about the pressure of orchestrating these stunts with one of Hollywood's biggest stars, his long career in stunt coordinating, and if he thinks it should get its own Oscar category.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full discussion here.

Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, is the seventh film in a franchise that has spanned the past 27 years, opens this week in wide release.

About the pressure of high-level stunts

Larry Mantle: Wade Eastwood, thanks so much for joining us. Let me ask you about the challenge of doing a stunt-heavy film like this with a huge star and the risk that goes into that. Tom Cruise's death-defying stunts are legendary. Is there extra pressure when you're working with such a big star doing such dramatic stunts as are in this film?

You know, I approach it the same way to approach any sort of human being really. It's a life on the end of that line or on that motorbike. So I approach it in the same way. In some ways, I'm spoiled because I have Tom, who's very competent and is willing to put in the time and the training. It's not like I have an actor that just wants to do something but doesn't really have the skill or ability. This is with Tom, who understands the amount of training to make him so competent so that there's no one else that would be safer doing the stunt. Obviously, no one else can perform the character like he can. So it's a win-win situation.

The only thing I have to do is, once we've come up with a stunt, which we collaborate on, we write them, we beat sheet them and we find out what works for the characters and the story and what doesn't. And once we find a sequence that really works, then I work on a training schedule. Once that training schedule's in place we push ahead and Tom's on board. He's always a hundred percent. He puts that time and the hours in and we plug away. And then once we're ready, we film it.

Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

What characters have to do with the stunts they perform

Amy Nicholson: I keep hearing you say the word character. And I'm curious, what makes an Ethan Hunt stunt different than a superhero stunt?

The way I approach the action and mission is if I was doing it. Ethan's character, he acts first and thinks last. It's all about saving lives and protecting his. If I was in that situation, where I had to protect my team or protect my family or whatever it was in real life, then yeah, you would do certain things, you know, and you'd react in a certain way. Tom's the sort of gut person that if someone was in trouble he would jump in first and then think about how to save himself after.

Tom's just one of those human beings in life that's geared that way. He wouldn't stand by and watch someone, you know, suffer or get hurt.

I think that's easy to then bring across into the character because I look at things like the bathroom fight. If I'm ever going to the toilet in a public toilet at a hotel bathroom, I'm always looking at things that I could use as a weapon or things to escape. It's just the way I always have been with my creative process. And so, I'll just bring that into the Mission world and having Tom doing everything, the camera can follow him so subjectively on his journey that the audience are totally immersed in that moment with the character because there's no break. They take a breath when the character takes a breath, and they feel every little detail of what he's exploring in the space. I think that's what really keeps us captivated and keeps us on this emotional rollercoaster.

Let's talk about that motorcycle stunt

Nicholson: One of the moments that really made my jaw drop when I watched the film was, we know he does this big motorcycle jump, we know that he's done I think over 10,000 practice jumps to do it. But what still astonished me in the moment was that, I forgot that Tom Cruise would have to look to the camera, deliver a line as Ethan, then do the stunt and that he's acting while doing it. That kind of synergy of acting and, almost like the human accident of everything that's happening.

Tom's very good at playing and that's why the training is so key. So I will put the team together to train Tom to a very high level, a world-class level in some disciplines, and then once he's a hundred percent relaxed and competent at that level, he then starts training himself to play Ethan and play the character at that level. That's the really hard part, and that's what I try to get across too.

If I'm doing something as a stuntman, as Wade Eastwood, who no one knows, I just do my thing. I do a base jump or a speed flight or whatever. I'm doing a motorbike jump and it's just me. All I'm focused on is my eye line where I've got to look, my drills, my emergency procedures, my this, my that.

Playing somebody else and doing the right facial expressions and shouting and also finding the light...I can't emphasize it enough how hard that is to do. You have to be so competent at what you're doing in order to have enough relax in your brain to play something else.

Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

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Paramount Pictures and Skydance

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How to handle an actor with a fear of heights

Mantle: Wade, you were describing how one of the stars of the film, Rebecca Ferguson, with a fear of heights, took her up to the top of the Vienna Opera House, for I think you said 15 feet. And then you were going to be doing something far more than that for the big scene in the film. So how did you transition from there?

You know, you have to respect their fears and understand them. They can't, just because they've been given this role, suddenly snap out of it.

You know, a lot of movies, they will use a stunt double for that. They'll have the actor land the last 10 feet and they'll use a stunt double for the rest and do it in a wide shot. Whereas the way Mission shoots, we want to be subjective. We want to be with that character. We want to feel the emotion of the step.

So it's my job to try and push them as much as I can and push their comfort zone and more importantly, their understanding and respect of, in this case, the height so that they trust the team, they trust the equipment, the wires, whatever rigging we're using. And they trust the whole process.

Once they do, they can relax and deliver whatever needs to be delivered as their character. So, in this case, what I normally do with heights and what I did with Rebecca was, I would just inch her up a little bit. And, you know, 15 feet we started at, and would drop her a little bit faster, have a little scream and catch your breath and then go up to 20 foot, and 25 foot, and then, you know, lie a little bit that we're at 30 feet when we're actually at 40 and then afterwards tell her we're actually at 40 and gain her trust back. We have a few little games. Then get to a height that she's comfortable at and stay there for a while.

With Rebecca, I would make her try and shout at me, say a full line before she touches the mat on the ground, or sing a song, or something to take her mind off it. It was a process that really worked with her and then in no time, we were at 70 foot and she was comfortable and she was doing it all day long and actually, Rebecca couldn't get enough of it.

Nicholson: In that moment right before something like that jump, is there anything you don't say? Is it just bad luck to say break a leg? Do you say good luck?

Yeah, I probably wouldn't say that at that moment. No, it's just, you make them fully relaxed. They know my process. I don't have a lot of sort of loud voices on set. It's very quiet. I give them the thumbs up, give them a look and I walk away so they can get immersed in their character and their performance and forget about the stunt.

The stunt is incidental. The stunt is just something that's happening to make the journey from A to B in this case. What's more important is the reason they're taking the journey and why their characters are doing this. So I want them to have that space to get the audience immersed and not just be looking at the spectacle of the stunt.

Esai Morales and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

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Christian Black/Christian Black

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Should stunts get an Oscar?

Mantle: There's a move towards seeing if the Motion Picture Academy will include an Oscar category for stunt coordination. What progress are you and your fellow stunt coordinators making in that effort?

I think it's crazy that we're not included when these big action movies are all stunts. There's a category for everything: music, hair, makeup, special effects, visual effects. It's everything except stunts. Pretty much making a cup of tea or coffee gets an award except stunts, but saying all that, I'm not a big awards person myself. I'm not on any board or I'm not promoting it with anything. Truthfully, I don't really care. What I care about is putting bums in seats and making the audience leave talking about that movie, having the best experience. And to me, if I get a review or report that's like, 'Oh my God, that action sequence was off the charts, I went and watched it five times.' That's more important to me than a hundred awards.

Listen to the full conversation

California’s Board of Equalization is a coveted spot once again for state lawmakers looking for a new gig almost a decade after then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law gutting the organization of any serious governing responsibility.

This year, three current state lawmakers are competing for seats on the nation’s only elected tax board. They’re among some two dozen candidates on the ballot for its four elected positions, which are divided by geographic districts.

The board has long been a launching pad to higher offices in California politics — Fiona Ma served on it before becoming state treasurer, as did Betty Yee and Malia Cohen before each being elected state controller.

The agency itself is a throwback to the 19th Century. It’s rooted in an 1879 constitutional amendment that created it and charged it with “equalizing” county property tax assessments statewide.

From that narrow mandate, it swelled to become a juggernaut that collected a third of the state’s tax revenue and provided a venue for people and businesses to contest their tax bills in front of the elected board. It survived numerous efforts by governors to kill it outright, including attempts by Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That is until 2017, when a cascade of allegations about board members misusing the office to promote themselves led to an authoritative state audit that lawmakers could not ignore.

Brown signed a law stripping the agency of any powers beyond what voters gave it in 1879 and created two new departments that report to the governor instead of the elected board: one to collect sales and use taxes and another to hear taxpayer appeals.

After that, Board of Equalization elections tended to be lower profile contests. Ted Gaines, a former Republican state lawmaker from the Sacramento area, won a seat. Former Democratic Assemblymember Sally Lieber is up for reelection on the board this year. The other members had experience in local politics instead of inside the Capitol.

“We’re lean but we’re not mean,” said Lieber, the incumbent for District 2, which includes 19 counties centered on the Bay Area. “I think the Board of Equalization is the right size in the system right now…I do really believe that the board has a role to play in being a forum for taxpayers to come forward to.”

This year voters will see more contentious elections for the tax board:

• In District 1 representing inland California, Republican state Sen. Shannon Grove of Bakersfield has more than $900,000 in a campaign account and name recognition from her representing the San Joaquin Valley in the Legislature since 2010. Democrats are putting up a fight for the district. Fresno City Councilmember Nelson Esparza is running with the party’s support.
• In District 2 representing coastal California north of Los Angeles, incumbent Lieber faces San Mateo Community College District Trustee John Pimentel. Lieber has the Democratic Party’s endorsement, but a number of Bay Area Democratic leaders are backing Pimentel, including state Treasurer Ma and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
• In District 3 representing the Los Angeles area, former Monterey Park City Councilmember Yvonne Yiu put up $760,000 of her own money and has about $1 million on hand. The race has another heavyweight in Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Democrat from Gardena who has served in the Legislature since 2014. 
• District 4 representing the San Diego area has an especially crowded race with Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana, San Ysidro school board member Martín Arias, San Diego Unified School District board member Cody Peterson, and Denis Bilodeau, a Republican supported by San Diego Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s Reform California organization.

A forum for California taxpayers

The board was always popular among taxpayer advocacy groups, who liked that it provided a forum to focus on tax issues in a capital where debates often center on labor and business.

“It’s a very useful elected body that answers to the voters,” said Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Some of this year’s candidates are thinking of ways to make the most of the agency.

Arias believes the board could do more to assist homeowners and potential homeowners. As a taxpayer advocate in the San Diego County Assessor’s Office, he says he works with the Board of Equalization every day and has a front seat to how the system works.

“I think there’s a bigger opportunity here to make the Board of Equalization the constitutional office that it is — that it should be,” he said. “There’s a clear opportunity here for us to start advocating at the state level for all of our taxpayers, including those that don’t speak English.”

Umberg said he’d like the board to have more investigative power and resources. Citing instances in which San Bernardino and Los Angeles assessors have been arrested on felony charges, he said he’s most interested in the board’s oversight of property tax assessors.

“Although it’s not a high-profile job, it’s a critically important job, especially when we’ve got so many revenue challenges in California,” Umberg said in an interview with CalMatters.

Questioning BOE’s relevance

Advocating for the board’s expansion has drawn criticism from former board members and employees. Yee, a board member from 2004 to 2014, has been vocal about abolishing the board entirely because she believes that its limited responsibilities could be easily transferred to another department or agency.

“I just really do question how this board continues to have relevance,” she told CalMatters. “I sometimes feel like the board is really doing a lot of work in search of finding problems to solve. …I know with each of the board members, they feel very strongly about being a taxpayer advocate. But frankly, every public official should be a taxpayer advocate. ”

Democrats stopped short of killing the agency entirely because they would have had to put that question to voters.

“They should have just chopped the head of the snake off and done away with the Board of Equalization altogether,” said Mark DeSio, a former communications director for the board. “They didn’t do that. They left enough of the cancer to grow back.”

He cooperated with the audit that revealed misspending at the agency that appeared intended to promote its elected members as well as another that showed widespread nepotism in its hiring practices. He then lost his job in the reorganization and filed a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the state.

DeSio believes lawmakers want seats on the Board of Equalization because it allows them to maintain a high profile until they can run for office again.

“That was the recipe for disaster a few years back,” he said. “Somebody better watch these guys. They’re not there for the policy. It’s for the exposure.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Even as gas prices continued to rise across the United States, sales of electric vehicles fell in April. That is in contrast to strong growth elsewhere in the world, such as Europe. But American drivers are gravitating toward at least one more efficient powertrain: hybrids.

Sales of new EVs fell roughly 18 percent from March to April, according to the latest data from Edmunds, an auto research firm. Another company, Cox Automotive, pegged the drop at closer to 6 percent. Either way, experts said it’s clear that high gas prices aren’t leading to a significant shift toward EVs.

“There was a lot of window shopping,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, noting that searches for electrified vehicles on the company’s site were strong. “It did not translate to tire-kicking and purchases.”

Price remains the steepest barrier for most people, said Drury. While electric vehicles can be less expensive to operate over the long-term — especially when gas prices are high — the upfront costs remain significant. The average transaction price for an EV in April was $6,214 higher than for vehicles with internal combustion engines, Cox reported.

“It’s still a cost hurdle,” said Stephanie Brinley, a principal automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “You don’t know how long it’s going to take to get that back.”

At Thursday’s average gas price of $4.56 per gallon, an EV buyer would have to drive more than 40,000 miles to make up the difference with a car that gets 30 mpg. Savings on maintenance, like oil changes, could accelerate that timeline, but factors such as higher insurance prices and having to install a home charger could make the payback period even longer. If fuel prices fall, the advantage of an EV also shrinks.

“It’s very difficult for people to wrap their head around, ‘Hey, if I spend this $55,000, I might over time save’,” said Drury. “It requires a bit more math than most people want to go through.”

The calculus is much simpler for hybrid vehicles, which utilize batteries that can improve fuel economy by 25 to 45 percent without needing to plug in. A Honda CR-V, for example, gets around 29 mpg while the hybrid version gets 37. More and more popular models are only available as hybrids, a strategy that Toyota has perhaps embraced most notably. Last year, it ditched the gas-only version of the Camry sedan. The 2026 RAV4 followed suit.

Overall, Edmunds data shows that sales of hybrids are up 20 percent year-over-year and nearly 50 percent since February, when the U.S.-Iran conflict began. Sales of gas-powered gas are up about 11 percent over those same two months.

“I think this is going to be a hybrid moment,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive. “There are a lot of options.”

Used EVs provided another somewhat bright spot, she said. The segment saw a 3 percent increase in sales from March to April and a price premium of only $1,096 over used internal combustion vehicles. Used EVs also sold faster than their used gas-powered counterparts. “They’re really selling efficiently,” said Valdez Streaty, who added that there should be a glut of EVs available throughout the year as leases end. “I don’t think the inventory will be an issue.”

With Iran maintaining its hold over the Strait of Hormuz and summer travel season looming, gas prices appear set to keep climbing — which would only make an EV more appealing. Other parts of the world have seen significant jumps in sales since the conflict began, with Europe experiencing a surge and China setting an export record in April, according to BloombergNEF.

In the United States, though, it seems that only people already in the market for EVs are making the leap. “Edge-case people,” as Brinley called them. Dramatic pump readings “might nudge them because they were already in that direction,” she said. “But what we’re unlikely to see is a shift in current [internal combustion car] owners just fundamentally making that change simply because of gas prices.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/solutions/why-hybrids-not-evs-are-winning-over-u-s-consumers/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

James L. Jones Jr., 69, a self-described “community pastor” and a tireless advocate for Black communities in Los Angeles, was an enthusiastic supporter of Karen Bass’ mayoral bid in 2022, when she made history as the first woman, and first Black woman, to be elected L.A. mayor.

As Bass seeks reelection, Jones is supporting her again. Despite the political turmoil and criticism she has faced during her first term, Jones, known as Reverend JJ, believes she has a plan for Black progress that may not be evident, but is long range and strategic.

“I believe that in my heart of hearts, Karen’s not one of those people who follows polls,” said Jones. “In the end she’ll do what’s right for the people.”

When Angelenos elected Bass four years ago, she seemed like the right person to bridge the ideals of the post-George Floyd era and whatever moment was coming next. She was a seasoned politician — a former state legislator, congresswoman and native Angeleno with a history of grassroots organizing and coalition building in a city that was leaning more progressive.

But in 2022, there was trouble on the horizon. The nation’s Floyd-inspired reexamination of racial equity was losing ground to a growing MAGA backlash that had helped kill a major federal bill to reform policing, among other initiatives. Big blue cities like Los Angeles that had seen big protests for racial justice were being cast as chaotic and ungovernable.

Four years later, the ideals that propelled Bass’ election have taken a beating. Trump’s return to the White House has elevated long-simmering anti-“wokeness” and white resentment into federal policy. And the administration has focused special ire on California and Los Angeles, where Bass is in charge of the nation’s largest city currently led by a Black mayor.

Bass is taking a beating too. As she seeks reelection in the June 2 primary, the mayor is weathering criticism from many sides that she’s done too little about everything, from the homelessness and housing crisis that she made a signature issue to her response to the epic January 2025 wildfire that destroyed thousands of homes in Pacific Palisades, one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

Despite facing more voter uncertainty this time around, Bass is leading in the polls, with 30% support among likely voters, according to the latest survey by Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics. While Bass’ support has jumped 10 points since March, she would have to get more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff with the other top vote-getter in November.

Her most formidable challengers in the crowded primary are Councilwoman Nithya Raman, a Democratic socialist to Bass’ left who is campaigning on housing affordability and a host of other progressive causes, and Spencer Pratt, a former reality show star with no political experience who skews conservative and touts cleaning up crime and homelessness. A former Bass ally, Raman pledges to do better than the mayor on reducing homelessness and increasing new housing production; Pratt decries corrupt leadership and talks chiefly about making L.A. great again, a la MAGA. Pratt and Raman are polling at 22% and 19%, respectively.

Missing from all the criticism of how Bass has fallen short is how or whether her election has benefited L.A.’s Black community. It’s a population that is rapidly continuing to dwindle — to roughly 8% today from a peak of 18% in 1970 — besieged by gentrification, stratospheric housing costs, underemployment and shrinking political representation, all of it aggravated by the racial hostility emanating from Washington. That norm-shattering phenomenon has tended to eclipse discussion of racial crises happening locally, with good reason. But politics are still local, and many Angelenos who supported Bass in 2022 hoped that electing the second Black mayor in the city’s history would help move the needle on longstanding Black problems dating back to 1992 that have reached yet another inflection point.

But public assessments of Bass by Black leaders the last four years, including this election cycle, have been muted to nonexistent. The exception is Black Lives Matter Grassroots L.A., which has routinely taken her to task for increasing police funding instead of allocating more resources to social and other services — a core part of the post-George Floyd reforms. Observers say the reticence among Black leaders is partly due to the fact that Bass has been so inundated with crises, some not of her making — especially the Palisades fire. The view that Bass committed a fatal mistake by being on a diplomatic trip to Ghana when the fires broke out has more or less defined her politically since.

That’s unfair, said Michael Guynn, a veteran social worker and community activist who lives near Florence and Normandie avenues, a famous site of the 1992 racial unrest.

“I don’t give a damn if she was out of the country — she got back when she could,” Guynn said. “They blamed her for what the fire department was responsible for.”

Then there’s the racism that dogs Black elected officials, women in particular. Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades fire last year, has invoked Donald Trump-like rhetoric to belittle L.A.’s first Black woman mayor. That includes an official campaign poster that depicts Bass stuffed in a trash can and says “throw out Karen Basura,” the Spanish word for trash, echoing Trump’s disparaging of Somali immigrants — a demographic that includes Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — as “garbage.”

But the takedown isn’t only coming from the MAGA right, said Genethia Hudley-Hayes, former president of L.A.’s civilian Fire Commission and a Bass appointee who stepped down in March.

“There’s always the bigotry of, ‘We rallied around this Black woman and she hasn’t performed,’” said Hudley-Hayes. “She’s not a superwoman. That’s part of the ‘I’m mad’ vote in L.A.”

Another hurdle for Bass, Guynn said, is the unrealistic expectation that she would dramatically reduce or even eliminate homelessness.

“She couldn’t get a fair break because of that,” he said, adding that “everybody hates homelessness and wants it to go away, but nobody wants to do the work.”

Homelessness certainly qualifies as a Black concern: 32% of unhoused people in the city are African American, according to the city’s latest count. Bass’ signature program Inside Safe, which seeks to get people off the street and into temporary housing, has made inroads. But the mayor’s efforts have been hampered by what City Hall observers say is a larger problem of messaging, management and oversight. The scandal involving a subcontractor accused of defrauding the city’s homeless services authority of $23 million is a painful reminder of that.

Hudley-Hayes says that it points to the need for the mayor of L.A. to be a skilled executive, a skill that Bass doesn’t have, at least not yet.

“You need collaboration, which is different from coalition building, different from the activism of Community Coalition,” she said, referring to the grassroots South L.A. organization co-founded by Bass.

Deep understanding of the roles of not just the 41 city departments but of bigger entities like the county is essential not just for running the city but for effecting racial justice as well.

“Homelessness is important, but you have to ask, what are the structures that create homelessness? It’s not just a city problem but a regional problem,” said Hudley-Hayes. “Inside Safe is a program, not a strategy.”

But being a better executive wouldn’t automatically guarantee improvements for Black people. Tom Bradley, who was mayor from 1973 to 1993, is venerated both as a coalition builder and astute manager who improved many parts of the city. But he didn’t do enough for L.A.’s Black populace. While the Black middle class flourished during the Bradley years, in part because Black municipal employment flourished, the larger working class and poor in South L.A. did not.

Hudley-Hayes argues the mayor’s lack of accountability to L.A.’s Black population as a whole is longstanding, and not unique to elected officials like Bradley or Bass. Local branches of civil rights groups like the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — which Hudley-Hayes once led — also play a part in accountability, though they have declined notably over the years. But Hudley-Hayes notes that accountability works two ways.

“Black people have individual agency, but we have to exercise it together,” she said. “We have to pool our experience. It means nothing if we don’t demand what we want.”

Even — especially — in these trying times, and in a city with as much possibility as L.A., problems notwithstanding — those demands should still matter.

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