The phenomenon of Tom Cruise performing bonkers stunts is nothing new!
We all know that Tom Cruise saved cinema thanks to his work in Top Gun: Maverick in 2022, strapping himself and some of his co-stars into some of the fastest vehicles in the world, all for our amusement.
While it does seem like a somewhat recent phenomenon of Tom breaking his body to perform stunts for his massive Mission: Impossible movies and some other recent blockbusters, this is actually nothing new, at least not according to one of his Dead Reckoning Part One co-stars.
In the run-up to the release of the new movie, we had to opportunity to chat to some of Tom Cruise’s co-stars, including Simon Pegg and Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, and Pom Klementieff and Vanessa Kirby.
But here we’re focussing on Cary Elwes, star of The Princess Bride, Saw and Robin Hood: Men In Tights, who is reuniting with Tom Cruise a full 33 years after they worked together on Days Of Thunder. Check out our full interview with Elwes right here:
During the chat, in which Elwes calls Tom Cruise “the greatest stunt performer on the planet”, we asked about getting involved in some of the stunts himself. In response, Elwes told us an anecdote from the 1990 speed racer action drama:
“We did Days Of Thunder thirty-odd years ago, and we got to play NASCAR drivers. And I think I’m a pretty good driver, but he taught me how to be a great driver. He put me with Dale Earnhardt and Kyle Petty and some of these tremendous drivers in NASCAR.
“But watching Tom drive… everything that Tom does, he becomes a consummate professional at. Whether it is driving cars, motorbikes, trains, you name it, the guy is like ‘I’m gonna be the best at this’.
“And so we learned to drive together. He’d already had a lot of practise with Paul Newman [Tom Cruise conceived of the idea for Days Of Thunder while driving incredibly fast cars in between takes with his Color Of Money co-star], but we learned to drive NASCAR together.
“I was pretty nervous about it, because I had never done stunt driving before. And Tony Scott, the director, God bless him, he was like ‘Now Cary, you’re going to do most of the driving yourself, and we’re going to strap three cameras to the car as well, so don’t break those!’
“And Tom was just like ‘Isn’t this fun? Isn’t this great?!’ And I’m like ‘Yeah, it’s fun for you! My palms are sweating!’ But it was great, it was so much fun.”
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One arrives in cinemas on Monday 10 July, and Days of Thunder is available to stream at home right now on Paramount+.
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