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How Tom Cruise's Stunts Keep Ethan Hunt Human
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May 15, 2025
Through out all the insane stunts in the Mission Impossible franchise, we see Ethan Hunt risking his life to save the world. But one big difference between Mission Impossible and other films in the genre is that it keeps it's lead human. We remain on the edge of our seats because we see a frailty in Ethan Hunt that he overcomes with each installment. Mission Impossible keeps it's characters grounded while pushing them to their limit.
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We are building the latest installment of Mission Impossible
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Tom Cruise might be known for his death-defying stunts more than his acting at this point
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The man puts himself in harm's way in just about every project he takes on, and yet his most successful character, Ethan Hunt
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has managed to remain human, flawed, and laced with frailty. I can understand you're very upset
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Kittredge, you've never seen me very upset. Starting with running from literal tons of water
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pouring out of an exploding fish tank in the first Mission Impossible film to hanging from an actual helicopter
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in Mission Impossible Fallout, Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt has routinely found himself
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on the wrong side of life-threatening situations. And yet what Cruise and his seemingly endless cadre
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of talented writers, directors, and stunt coordinators all understand is audiences attending
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these high-octane thrill fests want to see a man do the impossible
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They don't want to see a flawlessly executed set piece built in a computer
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What makes the Mission Impossible films and truly much of Cruise's performances special
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is the knowledge that at any moment he could be seriously hurt or even die
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What are you waiting for? I'm jumping out a window! What do you mean you're jumping out of a..
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Oh, sorry, I had it in 2D. The longtime Hollywood star is notorious for his levels of preparation
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The halo jump in Mission Impossible Fallout alone took Cruise years of planning
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navigating legal red tape and physical training. He underwent a year of base training and skydiving training and jumped out of a plane close to 500
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times in order to master the technique required to navigate the air with his body. He also is
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licensed to operate multiple types of vehicles, including jets and helicopters, which sometimes
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take hundreds of hours of supervised schooling to obtain. But his dedication to his craft doesn't
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end there. Cruise literally shattered his ankle while performing this stunt. Put my foot out literally for a split second to try to soften the impact
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Just first thing he did was turn say did you get that believe it or not there have been multiple instances where if he had landed just millimeters to the left or right one of the biggest movie stars on the planet could have been permanently harmed And this is something that the internal logic of the film knows
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and they play with it. In a Mission Impossible film, they need to stack the deck against the protagonists at every turn
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The stunts inform the story. They're incorporated into the narrative on a writing level
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They go out of their way to make things impossible. In the film, John Lark, played by Henry Cavill
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has a nuclear detonation device, and he has just taken off in a helicopter. We see Ethan running
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after the second helicopter, which is just taking off. He attempts to climb aboard the helicopter
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multiple times and fails, until just barely grabbing a rope. As he attempts to transition
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from the rope to the landing gear, his foot misses contact, and he falls 60 feet down to the payload
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This harrowing visual underscores the frailty of him as a person. He's a singular man standing
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against oblivion and holding it back through sheer force of will. Hunt is the living manifestation
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of destiny, and he has made you his mission. On paper, the character of Ethan Hunt is somewhat
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boring. He's just a spy who always saves the day and always does the right thing, even when he's
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backed into a no-win scenario. And the fact that he's nearly failing repeatedly is how the
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filmmakers keep it believable and fresh. Six films into a franchise. Christopher McQuarrie
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Cruise's longtime collaborator, has a saying that you need to make the audience eat their vegetables
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before they can have their cake. And in the Mission Impossible franchise, the vegetables are how many
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times Ethan fails. The more times this happens, the more satisfying the end is. The other thing
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these films do very well is make the universe itself work against Ethan at every turn. Even
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when he's attempting to do the impossible, nothing ever goes his way. Technology stops working for
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him, people betray him, or something completely unforeseeable always intercepts his path
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Take Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, where Ethan has to ascend to the 130th floor of the
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Burj Khalifa the world tallest building using only electronically powered suction gloves Despite Ethan initial chagrin at the seemingly ludicrous task I telling you we can get to it from outside
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We? I'm on the computer. He takes to the challenge relatively well
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However, as soon as things are under control, he's greeted with a massive sandstorm barreling down on him
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And then, to up the stakes and make his life even more difficult, his right glove starts to malfunction
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throwing an added complication into the mix. As Ethan arrives on the 130th floor, he begins to use a laser cutter to cut into the window
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It shorts out, sending him falling close to 10 stories. He barely saves himself by using one of the remaining gloves
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Just showing the main character failing isn't enough. The movie itself has to put the main character in real danger in order for the audience to
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really process that this fall is serious and that Ethan could die. Whew
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That was not easy, but I missed. Compare these two examples of Ethan falling to the opening of Mission Impossible 2
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The visual of Ethan ascending a jagged rock face is impressive, and seemingly something that could work well for a Mission Impossible set piece
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But that's not what this is. It's the opening credits. Not only is there a complete lack of buy-in from the audience
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because we know Ethan isn't going to die in the opening of the movie
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but nothing about this opening puts Ethan in any real danger. Even when, for some reason, he decides to leap from rocky outcropping to rocky outcropping
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and then slips, careening off the side of the mountain, saving himself by just barely grabbing onto a rock with one hand
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there's no sense of danger, impending death, or even real concern on Ethan's part
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He's literally smiling and laughing to himself the whole time. It's supposed to show how effortlessly cool Ethan Hunt is in, like, a very 2000s way
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but it just serves as a brilliant example of how hard the rest of the franchise has worked
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to not take this approach to the main character. John Woo, as a director, isn't interested
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in the frailty of Ethan Hunt He not preoccupied with incorporating a sense of reality to his films He more interested in the balletic display of chaos that comes from two dudes jousting on motorcycles
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Cruise and Wu did not get along, and the finished product is not exactly up to the standards of the
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first Mission Impossible film that Brian De Palma put together. However, to distract from the sequel's
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slightly dumbed-down story and aesthetic, Cruise's stunt work was placed front and center in the
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marketing. The sequence at the end of the film, where a real knife blade was placed less than
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eight millimeters away from his eye, was a central selling point of the film. In some ways
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the idea of Tom Cruise as a stuntman movie star billionaire playboy was born out of the creative
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failure of Mission Impossible 2, which in turn gave birth to the tropes of the franchise being
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a roller coaster ride of stunts, all performed by the film's leading man
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You're talking about Tom jumping out of a plane that's traveling at 165 miles an hour
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While De Palma, Wu, and J.J. Abrams, the directors of the first films in the franchise
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obviously left their marks on the character of Ethan Hunt and the ever-evolving nature of what
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the franchise is, the one filmmaker who's more responsible than anyone for keeping Ethan Hunt
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a human is Christopher McQuarrie. From his uncredited writing duties on Ghost Protocol
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to directing and writing Rogue Nation and Fallout, McQuarrie has contributed or directly overseen
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the best installments in the franchise. He's also artfully managed the tone of high-stakes
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globe-trotting adventure while not allowing any of the characters to become unbelievable
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Mission Impossible has consistently produced some of the finest quality action films over
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the past decade, and they've accomplished this by adhering to a simple edict
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Keep Ethan Hunt human. Do you have your seatbelt on? Will you all give me that now
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Ethan Hunt is just as scared as the audience is, and the camera captures that
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It's these seemingly irrelevant details that amount to a movie-going experience that becomes truly iconic
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Ethan Hunt might remain human in the films themselves, but this commitment to showcasing his frailties and weaknesses has made him immortal
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