Tom Cruise was temporarily trapped underwater while filming Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which features daring choreography and ambitious stunt work. Around the half-way mark of the movie, Tom Cruise’s protagonist dives into the ruins of the sunken Sevastopol submarine to retrieve the Podkova and kill the Enтιтy for good. It’s the most impressive stunt in The Final Reckoning, and the behind-the-scenes details just prove how difficult it must have been to pull off.

Speaking on the Empire Film Podcast, the film’s stunt coordinator, Wade Eastwood, offered a more in-depth insight into Cruise’s approach to The Final Reckoning’s most ambitious stunt. Not only did the actor insist that everything was filmed practically (at least, as much as possible), but this also led to an incident that could have seriously injured Cruise with one wrong move. Check out Eastwood’s comments below:

Tom does not want an audience disconnected. He doesn’t want them to be cheated… He just wants to do it for real as much as he can. As an actor, he wants to react to these things, you know? […] He got trapped once. It wasn’t bad, because Tom can hold his breath for a long time. Before he had even finished being trapped, I was already pulling the thing off him.

What Tom Cruise’s Stunt Work Means For The Mission: Impossible Franchise

The Actor Knows Exactly How Far He Can Push Himself

Cruise has become almost synonymous with his high-risk stunt work on the Mission: Impossible movies, but his work on The Final Reckoning is some of his most ambitious to date. There are many ways the submarine sequence could have gone wrong, yet Cruise was still determined to film it practically to avoid “distancing” the audience from the movie’s intense atmosphere. Eastwood explained that it would have been possible to “have Tom swim through and react to CG torpedoes,” but that would have left “CG bubble trails” that may have brought viewers out of the movie for just a few seconds.

More than anything, this attention to detail is just further proof that Cruise has always been the beating heart of the Mission: Impossible franchise. There’s been lots of discussion about whether The Final Reckoning will really be the last Mission: Impossible movie, but it’s small details like these that bring into question whether this series could even work without Cruise anymore.

Our Take On Tom Cruise’s Sevastopol Incident In The Final Reckoning

Nobody Is Pushing The Action Genre Forward Like Tom Cruise

The fact that Cruise was willing to put himself in serious danger to avoid “CG bubble trails” is a perfect embodiment of his cinematic ambition, raising the stakes with each pᴀssing Mission: Impossible movie to see how far he can push himself in the name of entertainment. Even after injuring himself on the set of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Cruise has never stepped back from a challenge. This is exactly what makes the Mission: Impossible movies so engaging; beyond the great storytelling and gripping action sequences, it’s knowing Cruise is genuinely in these dangerous scenarios that elevates the movies even higher.

Source: Empire Film Podcast