Acting in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One didn't just demand that you learn how to speed-fly and ride a motorbike off a cliff. On the roof of a train speeding at 60 miles per hour, Tom Cruise also had to battle co-star Esai Morales.
The newest Dead Reckoning behind-the-scenes video confirms that Cruise and Morales, the latter of whom portrays the movie's villain, shot the battle sequence practically, which means they were actually tied to the top of a train while it drove down a valley in Norway, reported Variety.
"When we started talking about this movie in terms of a sense of adventure, an action sequence on a train is something we always wanted to do," writer-director Christopher McQuarrie said.
"We wanted to build upon the previous films and apply that knowledge to something practical and real and bring this train sequence to another level."
"There was not a surplus of trains available to be wrecked," he added.
"We had to build the train if we wanted to destroy it. To shoot it practically was extremely challenging. Not just to execute it, but to design all of the different train carts that could function on a real train track."
According to Variety, the train's speed hit the 60 miles-per-hour mark during filming. That might seem crazy to film on, but for Cruise, it's just another day on the set of a "Mission: Impossible" movie.
"I've done fight scenes, but to do them on a moving train is trial by fire," Morales said. "But that's how Tom like to do things."
In a recent featurette, it was revealed that during one of the movie's flying sequences, Cruise reached speeds of up to 50 mph. While speed flying is comparable to paragliding, it is "one of the most dangerous sports in the world," according to McQuarrie.
The flyer stays closer to the hill in order to get greater speed. The likelihood of hitting land rises as you stay nearer the slope, reported Variety.
"It's a very beautiful and delicate sport," Cruise said of speed-flying. "We're gonna do spirals, and we're landing at an incredibly high speed, over 80 kilometres an hour."
The most life-threatening action in 'Dead Reckoning' is Cruise riding a motorbike down a cliff, however, speed flying and fighting while riding a moving train each carry their share of danger.
On the first day of filming, the stunt was executed. Cruise liked it that way since the USD 200 million tentpole's remaining filming would depend on his survival.
"Well, we know either we will continue with the film or we're not. Let's know day one!" Cruise recently told Entertainment Tonight about filming the stunt at the very start of production. "Let us know day one what is going to happen: Do we all continue or is it a major rewrite?"
"I was training and I was ready," Cruise added. "You have to be razor sharp when you're doing something like that. It was very important as we were prepping the film that it was actually the first thing. I don't want to drop that and go shoot other things and have my mind somewhere else. Everyone was prepped. Let's just get it done."
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One opens in theatres July 12 from Paramount Pictures.
