New Mission Impossible footage gives behind-the-scenes look at “biggest stunt in cinema history”

It involves Tom Cruise riding a motorcycle off a cliff, six times.

From scaling the world's tallest building to becoming the first actor to perform a HALO jump on camera, stories of Tom Cruise performing his own stunts have become the stuff of legend. However, a feat the actor undertook for his upcoming blockbuster Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One may be his most impressive yet based on newly released behind-the-scenes footage. The nine-minute video highlights the preparation that went into an action sequence in the spy sequel in which Cruise's character Ethan Hunt does a motorcycle jump off a cliff which leads into a base jump. In order to make the action feel as visceral as possible, Cruise performed the act himself, which the movies' director Christopher McQuarrie called "far and away the most dangerous thing" they have attempted. Cruise's base jumping coach Miles Daisher said of the stunt: "The only things you really have to avoid while doing a stunt like this is serious injury or death.

"You're riding a motorcycle, which is pretty dangerous, on top of a ramp that's elevated off the ground. "So, if you come off the ramp that's going to be very bad. "You're falling. If you don't get a clean exit from the bike, if you get tangled up with it, if you don't open your parachute, you're not going to make it."

Cruise said the stunt was something he wanted to do since he was a kid, with the video showing the years of preparation that went into nailing the feat. This involved the actor performing over 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps as practice until he was an expert at both so that he could accomplish the scene itself, which required six takes. The results are jaw-dropping to say the least, with Cruise's base jumping coach John Devore dubbing it "the biggest stunt in cinema history". Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One arrives in Irish cinemas on 14 July 2023. You can watch the footage of Cruise performing the incredible stunt below. Clip via Paramount Pictures UK