“He’s Got Tears”: Tom Cruise Begged To Do One Super Dangerous Mission: Impossible 2 Stunt

Mission: Impossible 2 director John Woo recalls Tom Cruise’s emotional pleas to be allowed to film one especially dangerous stunt. Released in 2000, the second film in the long-running action franchise sees Cruise return as Ethan Hunt to face off against a rogue IMF agent in possession of a deadly virus. The film, which was met with mixed reviews, features a handful of impressive stunt sequences, including one at the very start when Hunt is seen scaling the side of a cliff and jumping from one handhold to another.

In a recent interview with The New York Times to promote the release of his latest film, Silent Night, Woo recalls how Cruise begged to be able to film Mission: Impossible 2‘s cliff stunt himself. The actor, according to the director, had clear thoughts behind why a stunt performer shouldn’t do the scene for him. Check out Woo’s full comment below:

“We did a scene when he’s climbing on a 2,000-foot-high cliff. We have three stunt doubles, they’re all great climbers. I said, ‘OK, from this side jump over to the other side, only one cable.’ He said, ‘No, no, let me do it.’ I said, ‘Why? No, it’s too dangerous. There are no protections. What if you made a mistake?’ ‘No, John, believe me, I can do it.’

“He’s begging me and he’s got tears. He did the whole thing without a double. He said, ‘The audience will notice when you use a double. The body movement is so different from mine. Even from the back, they know it wasn’t me.’

“Sometimes I’d set up the camera and he [has some] other idea. The crew, they’re all looking at me, and I know it’s going to be trouble. I brought him to the back of the set and I told him, ‘My camera angle will make you look great, very pretty. You just trust me.’ And he understood. Then I brought him out to talk to everybody: ‘Our idea is to put the camera there.’ He didn’t lose face.”

Mission: Impossible 2 Started A Tom Cruise Trend

Mission: Impossible 2 is generally considered the weakest entry in the franchise, but it does arguably serve as the inception of the current state of the franchise and perhaps Cruise’s career more generally. Save for Cruise’s iconic suspension from the ceiling, the first Mission: Impossible was more of an espionage film and fairly light on death-defying stunts. The sequel, however, really marks the start of Cruise seriously risking his safety (in a highly controlled environment) for the audience’s entertainment.

In addition to the cliff sequence, Woo’s sequel also features a scene in which a knife is suspended only a fraction of an inch above Cruise’s eye. Mission: Impossible 3, similarly, features the star jumping off a building and slamming into a car. It’s in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol‘s Burj Khalifa stunt, however, that Cruise pulls off his biggest and most publicized stunt. It’s with the 2011 sequel, too, that the franchise actually starts marketing the movies around one or two standout set pieces.

Since the 2011 sequel, each new entry in the franchise has the difficult challenge of outdoing the one that came before it, with the latest film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 featuring Cruise driving a motorcycle off a cliff into a base jump. While Mission: Impossible 2 may not be the best of Cruise’s outings as Ethan Hunt, it might just be the true origin point of what the franchise is today, and that’s certainly worth celebrating.