'Mission Impossible' Stunt Coordinator On Getting Tom Cruise To Perform Some Of Industry's Biggest Stunts

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.

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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