The Stunt That Finally Scared Tom Cruise

It’s finally happened.

Daredevil Tom Cruise, who famously does all his own stunts, has finally met his match when it comes to shooting death-defying scenes.

“You feel the fear, but it doesn’t bother me,” Tom tells ET Canada‘s Sangita Patel in Vienna.

The stunt was part of a scene for his latest film and the newest installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise, Rogue Nation. It involved Tom hanging onto a plane as it took off.

“Let me tell you, when I was going down on that A-400 and it hit the power, I was like, “Holy s**t!” says Tom. Yeah, you know it’s serious business when Tom starts swearing. But who can blame him? The man was dangling from a plane 5,000 feet in the air and travelling at 400 kilometres an hour. Oh… and he had to shoot it eight times.

But since this is Tom Cruise, Hollywood’s quintessential movie star, nailing the scene was the priority. Fear was just a by-product. “You kind of realize, Okay, the camera’s rolling, I gotta give a performance here,” he says.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation hits theatres July 31.