Tom Cruise reveals the one Mission: Impossible stunt that couldn't be done – and he made the Final Reckoning director try it himself to prove it

Tom Cruise has revealed that one of the stunts that Mission: Impossible 8 director Christopher McQuarrie wanted him to do was… well, impossible – and he made McQuarrie try it himself to prove his point.

In a clip shared on Twitter from a Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning press conference in Tokyo, Cruise said he spent years preparing for the stunt, which involves an airplane and has been teased in the movie's promotional material, including picking out the right plane.

"And then we talked about story and [McQuarrie] was like, 'Okay, I want you to go from here to here in a couple of seconds,'" Cruise recalled. "I was like, 'I can't do that.' He's like, 'Okay, well, I want you to do this and this.' I was like, 'I really can't do that.'"

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"It was the simplest thing. Anything you'd describe, [he'd] say, 'No, you actually can't do that.' And I don't hear 'can't' from him," McQuarrie added.

"I said, 'Just in terms of the speed, because the force of the air, for me to move quickly on the wing was… You just can't do it,'" Cruise continued. "You're limited by the physics of how fast the aircraft is traveling and the force of the wind, that was utterly brutal. So I just said, 'Listen, I think the best thing is if you just do it. Go out, sit in the airplane, go out on the wing, and feel it. Feel the pressure. So, here I am, training him."

McQuarrie said Cruise gave him "a 20-minute tutorial" before he was out on the wing. "It was great, actually," he said. "Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I would definitely do it again."

Alongside Cruise, the new movie will see the return of franchise regulars Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Hayley Atwell, and Vanessa Kirby, alongside some new faces, including Severance's Tramell Tillman and Love Lies Bleeding's Katy O'Brian.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning flies onto the big screen on May 23. In the meantime, get up to speed with the rest of this year's biggest movie release dates with our guide to 2025's best upcoming movies.