Legendary actor Tom Cruise has truly epitomized the "impossible" in the Mission: Impossible franchise, but with the eighth installment, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, he's taken it to a whole new level. During a recent press conference in Tokyo, Cruise disclosed that director Christopher McQuarrie challenged him with some genuinely impossible stunts. To drive home the difficulty, Cruise had McQuarrie experience the stunt firsthand.

"And then we talked about the story and [McQuarrie] was like, 'Okay, I want you to go from here to here in a couple of seconds,'" Cruise recounted. "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.'"

McQuarrie elaborated on the stunt that stumped Cruise, saying, "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."

Cruise, renowned for his daring stunts in the M:I series, explained the challenges posed by the physics of high-speed aircraft. "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,'" he stated. He further detailed how a "20-minute tutorial" helped McQuarrie understand the limitations. "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, after experiencing the stunt, found it exhilarating. "It was great, actually," he said. "Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I would definitely do it again." Cruise also shared during the conference that his preparation for this stunt spanned years, emphasizing the importance of selecting the right aircraft for the task.

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival from May 13 to May 24, 2025, before hitting theaters worldwide on May 23, 2025.