Christopher McQuarrie celebrates Tom Cruise’s birthday with insane stunt pic

Yesterday was Tom Cruise’s birthday. Christopher McQuarrie, perhaps the legendary star’s closest professional collaborator, marked the occasion by posting an insane behind-the-scenes pic of a stunt in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 on Twitter. In the pic, Cruise holds on for dear life as a crop duster pulls aerobatics, and the insane pic proves that even if Cruise may be getting a little older, the eternally youthful star (even at 60) is just as much of a badass as ever.

Happy 60th Birthday, Tom. pic.twitter.com/IfWUguhM7c

— Christopher McQuarrie (@chrismcquarrie) July 3, 2022

Fun fact – I’ve actually seen this stunt before. In April, I was covering CinemaCon for JoBlo, and we watched an early screening of Top Gun: Maverick. The room was buzzing that Cruise might be in attendance, but he was busy filming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1. But, as a little easter egg, Cruise and McQuarrie sent along footage of this stunt being done for the CinemaCon audience. While standing on the wing of the plane, Cruise greeted us via a sound hookup, as McQuarrie, in a plane that flew up right alongside, called action on this gonzo stunt, with the plane going into a dive with the actor nonchalantly going along with it.

Indeed, Cruise’s stuntwork has become more dangerous the older he’s gotten. In his romantic leading man days, you would have never seen Cruise dangling from a plane like this. Still, ever since he became an action star (circa 2000’s Mission: Impossible II), he’s been pushing the envelope more and more, to the point that he’s become almost an American Jackie Chan. With McQuarrie, he’s found the ideal partner who can keep dreaming up insane scenarios for the actor to participate in. And, with Top Gun: Maverick still playing to packed movie houses, the public demand for Cruise is bigger than ever, meaning Dead Reckoning has a real shot at becoming the biggest Mission: Impossible movie of all time in more ways than one.