Secrets From Tom Cruise’s Death-Defying Stunts Revealed!

Now really, really, now really hello, and welcome to really know Really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who remind you there.

Is absolutely no danger in subscribing, but danger abounds as This episode could be titled Mission Insanity, as it's all about how Tom Cruise performs his own deathifying stunts and why he would do that, How does he train for a stunt that's never been done before, and will he continue to try and outdo himself now that he's in his sixties. Today we've got the person with the answers, Wade Eastwood, the action director and stunt coordinator for the

Our episode today is about Tom Kruse and the secret behind the stunts, because the stunts are just every movie he insane thing. So we wanted to know what's behind the stunts. We got the guy right who does the stunts with Tom, who sets him up, does them, and can tell him does his own stunts?

Really?

No?

Really?

Yes?

And can you tell.

Us the secret because there is a secret behind But this is fascinating, going to love this. You know, before they had talkies, they had silent films, and the Tom Cruise of that day was Buster.

Keet, Buster Keaton.

And you look at Buster Keaton and I know, for younger folks, if you don't know.

Us, please go on YouTube. But Keaton, you won't believe. You won't believe it.

And by the way, a lot of the stunts we're going to talk about with the stuntman, Buster Keaton did first, or some semblance or some semblance of it. So Buster Keaton. Some of the things he did. He hung from heights that were insane, waterfalls, ran on top of moving trains. But the big one was he stood in front of.

A house, the flat of a house like the flat house.

Which then fell over and he was saved by being in the right position to be in the open to be in the open window windows, small window, but this was a four thousand pound house. Two women fainted just feeling.

It because you're not seeing it. If you're listening to Thissson, you've never seen it. You got to understand you have to be in the exact right spot. So when this thing falls down towards you, it miraculously passes you through the little hole for the window.

If you're off by an inch, could have really killed him.

Keaton the trick that I said to Stunt that I said that Cruise did later jumped from a thirty five foot rooftop to another thirty five foot rooftop right, okay, missed and hung on right. Tom Cruise missed and broke his eyes, and he broke his ankle on on the same.

I believe, on that thing on the take. When he broke his ankle. He then climbed under the roof and continued to run on.

The broken And what also happened, Keaton filmed underwater and made sure he could see his face because he wanted to make sure he could see his face. Tom Cruise has done the same thing they had the developed thing.

Buster Keaton didn't run around the buzz Buzz Khalifa whatever that building.

No, but and that's what we're going to talk about too, jumping out of a twenty seven hundred but Hi, Bill.

Have you seen It's probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Have you seen.

The video Cruise takes James Gordon?

Yeah?

Oh yeah, I mean there's nothing better.

Well, you get a scare.

I gotta tell you, I bow at the at the Temple of James Gordon. You couldn't have gotten me out of that plane for lover of money. There's no way I'm going and you go. I know Tom Cruise knows what he's doing. I know I'm attached to him. I know he doesn't want to die in this moment. That's probably the safest circumstances in which I could make that jump. I'm not going out.

Then. Do you know how much bigger this podcast would be if you could throw you out, if we could throw you out of stuff, I mean stuff, Laura. And then you got Tom Cruise jumping from berj Khalifa, which we talked about twenty seven hundred and sixteen feet and six inches onto the side of a flying plane from thirty thousan hanging from side of a plane. He also jumped from thirty thousand feet. He was the first to do that kind of stunt.

So we want to talk to this our stuff and the underwater thing too, where he trained himself to hold his breath for six and a half minutes. So let's meet our stuff man, right, not that I'm tired of talking to you, but Waide has a history.

Can can I? Before you go into his history?

Can I just I'm just going to give the audience a little bit of waves back. So an accomplished fixed wing and helicopter pilot, a skydiver and a free flyer, which we'll talk about, a rescue scuba diver, a black belt martial artist, a boxer, a fencer, and advanced weapons scales served in the armed forces.

Holds multiple don't even.

Know this was a thing, multiple armored car licenses, multiple multiple armored.

Gud That's how I get you.

Yeah, right, And you can drive a truck, he can drive a bus. He raced his cars. He's one.

But you know what with all of that, can't eat gluten? Wait, how are you man? Good to see you. I'm great.

Thank you.

So First of all, when do you have time to do this stuff? When did you accomplish all that before you became a stuntman or continued?

Was it all because I know you did serve in the military. Was was a lot of that part of your militaries?

Right?

No, not at all.

It was just you know, growing up in South Africa as a kid and we had you know, gorgeous weather, and I just loved doing outdoor sports and I hated not being able to do anything. If it was you know, someone could ride a unicycle and I couldn't. I would borrow one and ride it until I could master it. And I just hated not being able to do anything that was fun what I found fun? And yeah, it was just I just love doing stuff.

Well, you know what you said, he loved outdoor sports.

I'm thinking baseball, Dennis badminton, this is comm I'm not combat.

Thinking free diving I'm terrible with Let me let me.

Jump off a clip and go as close to the rocks as fast as I can.

I got to understand that that's not an outdoor sport. I like to be this guy. He's fearless.

Wait a minute, Hang on, are you I would because I I've heard people who do what you're doing. I bet I know where this is going to go. Do you think of yourself as a fearless guy.

No.

I think of myself is calculated and competent. So I train at something until I'm competent, and then I do it, and then I don't feel scared because I'm competent.

I'm enjoying it. So I respect everything.

I respect the heights, I respect sport, I respect the training process, and that's what I enjoy. I enjoy the training process to get there, and that's part of the fun.

But wait, at some point, it's something like free flying, which, if I understand correctly, we saw it in one of the Mission Impossible films, where it's you've got a parachute, but you're moving it. It's a smaller shoot. You're moving at very fast speed and you're really careening through obstacles, rocks and whatnot, very close to the ground, and you're you're boogying. So when you say, oh, I work on something,

No stuff comes up, you go for that.

So what is that There is a leap of faith at some point between.

The you train on a bigger wing and you train further away from the ground, you're not flying so close, and then as you get better, you get closer to the ground, smaller wing, faster, you know. So it's all based on your ability obviously, like any extreme sport, you push yourself and you get closer, and sometimes you get too close, and you know you you're lucky enough to break something small and not something too serious, and you learn your level and you take it up a notch

So let's let's go to Tom Cruise. Okay, you've worked with him for a long time and you create the stunts. I couldn't believe how long before the stunt happens. You create them, sometimes a year and a half before two years. You design them, you do the meal plan, you do everything surrounding it to make sure that that the sun goes okay when there's a meal plan, he doesn't. Right, You've got you've got to put people in keto diets.

Up until the mail plan.

So as a stunt coordinator, you're coming up with the stunt with the guys who are doing the movie. Correct, you're creating this thing.

So it's very much, you know, sort of a joint effort on that.

So when you do that, it's all He always pushes and you always push to the next level. Do you ever go, uh, this is not gonna we can't do this, it's too dangerous.

Well, it's just if the movie demands it, If the if the characters sort of curve through the storyline demands that there's a cool piece.

Of action, we'll go.

There's always a way to do everything for real to a degree. I mean, you know, we don't do so the green screen, we don't fake it. But there's always a way to do something. It's just how you do it.

So you literally, I'm just gonna I want to double back. You said you never say no. You never say no. There's nothing where you go. Uh huh, We're not doing that.

You know. You never say no. You never say no. There's nothing where you go, uh huh, We're not doing that.

You know.

I high weigh up the risk, and I assess the risk, and then if it's too dangerous, we don't say no.

I don't say no.

I think, how can I eliminate some of that major risk? But it's obviously still going to be dangerous. You're still jumping off a mountain or crashing a motorbiate, whatever you're doing. But I eliminate that risk as much as I can. Can I get the person further away from the mountain so if they have a tanglement, they're not going to slam into the face.

Can I do this? Can I do that?

And I slowly take the sort of the red risk if you like, away, so we go into the orange to green risk curve. The idea is to make the stunt look visually terrifying and thrill the audiences, but it not be quite as dangerous as it looks, that doesn't always isn't always the case, and you know on a movie, especially like Mission Impossible, but that's what we're aiming for.

Then you're not my stunt order. I'm not using you well because I do know verify for me. I believe Tom. How do stunt coordinator? And he said I want to do this and the guy went, no, we can't do that.

There's no way to do that.

And he said, well, next thing I need is new stunt coordinator.

Yeah, that was I think.

I think you told that story about a health a health and safety guy.

That was a safety inspector. Well, the big one was the motorcycle jump. You're sending Tom cruise off a cliff on a motorcycle and I think the parachute had to open and he had like the plus minus error was like four seconds. I mean you're sitting there when he takes off to do that stunt. Are you looking or are you looking for openings for stuntman just in case? You know what other actors I could be I could be helping if he doesn't quite make it.

I had my agent.

It was actually you know, we trained so hard for that, and I mean We worked tirelessly with the team to make sure that Tom was so competent that there was no one that could actually ride a motorbicle for Cliff and do a base jump better than Tom Cruise. And that's sort of the level that Tom trains to, so

It was, well, wait, are you or anybody when he's doing the stunt?

Does he have an earpiece? Is anybody in his ear to go? Tom?

Maybe this, maybe that? Or is he just he's got to be in the zone. He's with himself and that's it.

He's in the zone.

He's got to meet his exact speed, he's got to hold the bike for an exact amount of time that we'd rehearsed with you know, cables in a quarry before, and so he got the maximum performance and it's not the hottest.

The best thing to describe with.

Tom and Mission Impossible movies is, you know, it's easy to go out and do a YouTube objective style shot, go out there and put some you know, drones up there, a helicopter and some cameras and get a great stunt.

I read somewhere about in fight scenes, it's just standard fight scenes that every guy fight.

Every character fights differently. So I'm trying to.

Think of, you know what, like in Mission Impossible, he's Ethan. In Reacher, he was Reacher, how would he fight? What's how do they fight differently? Isn't it just make a really cool fight? How does how does Ethan fight?

So we can't change Ethan style because we've seen Mission Impossible one, two, three, four, five, you know, So all we do is we try and evolve as we introduce other characters, Like you know, in fall Out, we had Liang in the bathroom with Henry Cavill, who were amazing, and Henry was a bruiser and we had him as a boxer, so that shooted his style. Leang is a wushoe champion who works for me a lot and is

Right, you know, I've also read and maybe we can confirm it. But Tom has been you know, he's gotten actors to push themselves, right, And I'm thinking about there's this great story about de Niro and Charles Groden when they were doing Midnight Run and they had to they had to ride down the rapids. They were in the in the water they had to fall into. They jump into the rapids and they have to ride it through and Groden looks at it and goes, I'm not gonna

Is, I don't I don't think Charlie.

Should do this.

I don't think should do this? Does I mean does does Tom?

I know Tom a scintilla and I and I am so impressed with him when he goes and pushes another actor like, uh uh was it Rebecca Ferguson who's in the car with him, Hayleette?

Well, I'm so sorry. So does she have to be.

Co worse into believing that Tom can take her on this ride without hurting her?

Yeah, you know, it's it's it's conditioning.

So like with all the casts, and that's where Tom and I are work on it together. So it's actually, you know, on the physical sides of my wife's part.

Of the program.

She does all the all the nutrition and the training and the food and you know, so she gets there sort of gets all the actors in shape so that I can try and break them, you know.

I see, that's that's whatever.

She's a good team.

Tom and I try and break him.

So it's all about really conditioning because they've they would have come out of a dramatic role or a different type of movie, a smaller action movie or a movie that didn't demand them doing so much. But you know, Tom wants to shoot everything subjectively so we can stay with the character and not cheat to a wide shod or and over shoulder of a double doing it, which takes you out of the character, you know, you know, briefly, especially if you're in a highly emotionally connected scene. So

It's it's so rewarding.

Wait, do you know the name Dara Robinson? Where are you familiar with?

Yeah?

So that story always freaked me out because I you know, as a fan, I watched many of the spectacular stunts that Dar did. And for people who don't know, Dar Robinson and died while making a film doing what many would consider a relatively simple stunt where he had to lay a motorcycle down. And my understanding is he had prepped it beautifully. They were doing it, I think, up on Mulholland Drive here in California, and he just added

Yeah, it's always a small stunts.

You know, it's not the it's not the big as a stunt man or you know, performer out there, it's not the big stunts because the big stunts are normally so prepared and so you know, rehearsed.

It's a small ones.

You go over just a fight, and you go over a table and you happen to land on the breakaway chair, but the breakaway piece is sticking upright, and this god cuts into you and you break a couple of ribs, or gets stitches or puncture a lung or and you never saw it coming.

So Prepper is absolute key.

So like on Mission Impossible five Rognation with a big bike crash the high side, and on the Morocco we did that, and it was often I'd look down and I always tell my guys, if you know, if you look twice, you know, if in doubt, take it out.

So I look down this road sign.

It was a mile way down there, and I'm like, well, you know what if he gets off the bike late, you know something, let's I kept looking at it, Let's take it out.

Well, he would have gone.

He would have gone through it about two meters of metal road sign the prepper is key. If there's a gutter that's low, and I think I should raise that because he could catch an edge and get into a roll and break right level it.

Raise it. I don't.

I take any risk out that I can, And then you leave it up to the ability of the performer, you.

Know, do you guys, do you do what the FA does? Like there was a death on Deadpool too, there was a stunt guy dt. Do you then do all the stunt coordinators everybody get all the intel, all the information so they can figure out what went wrong. The industry tries to figure out what went wrong so it doesn't happen again. Yeah, we do.

I actually, you know, investigate a lot of accidents on set, you know, stunt accidents privately, and it's it's they generally are they all avoidable. It's it's either bad prep or someone being complacent and they're rehearsed a lot and not doing that job. It's you know that's generally what happened, like plane crashes a lot of the weather or whyres just don't find bad weather or hit wise.

So can you comment before you go to on the russ thing, because for a person who is a novice in that world, you know the alec baldmin think on the movie set. You yes, he's shooting the gun at somebody and he's pointing at the director. Is there a comment on that? How does that happen?

You know, it's it's a stranger on that because first of all, having a live firing range close to a set is kind of unusual. But if you do that, it has to be very you know, sanitized completely on its own. There should be no cross contamination of a live firing weapon be able to come into a set. But you know, it's the job to me and in my experience in thirty odd years, the armor is in charge of weapons, so the armorer makes sure that the

Right.

But so anyway, that's my in my opinion. I don't know any more than that. I don't know any details on it, but that is the process, or somewhere in that process it broke down between the responsibility the armor and the first idea. It was something went a mess.

Yeah, So as we're wrapping here, I got to ask, you are you're taking Tom into space?

Is that?

The next thing? We had heard rumors that to do the ultimate stunt. It's going to be somewhere somewhere above the earth, and you're smirking? Is that true?

Not?

You can't portray you'll be fired. What's the answer?

Exactly?

No, I blink twice.

Yes, you won't want the crucive bix.

Wait, thank you, I.

Said, good luck out there, and my friend stay safe. Please you do spectacular things.

You thrill a thanks man, continued success. You're apparently the man, so congratulations, and be careful in space. In space, be careful mission in space. Remember you can't breathe in space, and no one can hear you. Scrept so much.

Guys, thank you?

All right? You know, can I just say something? I hope I'm wrong. Somebody's going to get hurt somewhere along the way and by the way, and I don't want to hear that phrase. There's that phrase that drives me crazy every time I hear it. Died doing what he loved. Really, I think that's how people want to die doing anything I love. Can I just say that right now, because if I if I'm.

Loving it, I want to stay alive to keep doing it. I want to die taking out the garbage. Oh, I didn't make it, it.

Would be so sad too, because mine would be taken a nap.

Yeah, I love you, you turn me around. I love a good nat I got to do it.

I love That's that's how I want to.

Go, you bet.

I also want to say, just because it's stunt meant it's been so many years since I've seen him that I have forgotten his last name. But my stuntman, Brian was a rodeo guy who covered me for all the roll gold stuff and did a lot of stunts for me and got hurt from me several times. Wade was talking about, you know, like a breakaway chair and you gonna pay. I was supposed to do a thing where I get catapulted out a breakaway window and land in a breakaway horse trough and I.

Said, I could do that. That looks like fun. I could put the pads on me. I could do that.

And they said, well, let Brian do it once and someone had kicked the catapult just a smidgeon with their toe. So but you know, a little thing changes the angle in a big way at the end point, and he came down instead of in the trough, on the trough, and yeah, it's breakaway, but I think he broke his Sternham on the way in. He jumped off the landing at a mall onto a pole and wanted to get you were supposed to you.

Well, I was never going to do that, but he was.

He did it with such force to make sure he got to the pole that actually broke his teeth.

His face hit the pole. I mean he took some hits.

It's going to be a special breed to be a something, which is why Ron Toman came on my radio show and when he did the Hellboy Yeah, and we played the two minute trailer and I said, how much of that is you? And he said none? I said why? He said, why would I be running, jumping doing anything I got? I said none. He said, I'm not in it.

I actually said to Ron, good god man, I know how old you are. Look how you beefed up for Hellboy went, but you were schmuck prosthetic. I'm wearing a prosthetic chest. By the way, did you see my favorite my face?

Do you know what we learned? What's the secret behind Tom Cruise of stunts?

You want to say it together?

Yeah, Tom Cruise, that's got to be that man, David Google High. What did we learn today, sir? What's going on?

Well, I guess we learned why David Harbor actually got the hell Boy job.

Well, this has been a fascinating episode with all the stuntman talking, all the crazy stuns in the preparation that we've been talking about. But my question was who was the first stunt woman ever.

To do.

That's a really good question.

We were talking about Buster Keaton and all that. In the early days of Hollywood. Even back then, they were doing something called wigging, where you would help a man do it and they would get a woman put on a wig and appear to be the female actor. But there is a woman. Her name. Her birth name was Rose August Wenger, but she later changed her name to

She looks so like.

The star of a very very popular show called The Hazards of Helen. Then she became the stunt woman for the star and in fact she did it so well. When the actual star of Hazards of Helen left the series. Helen Gibson actually replaced her and became the star went on to have a very long career in the silent era.

Wait, Hazards of Helen was a was a TV.

Show, It was a serial.

It was a series of film serial.

In the theaters. Absolutely now here. But let me just describe one of the.

More don't touch my bell, don't touch the bell.

I do the bell? It go ahead, David, I'm.

Sorry, all right, if you're done with the bell fighting.

Well, we had an infringement of brights.

But okay, true, there's there's always seems to be a touching thing. So here's one of the stuns. And again I don't think that they probably did the types of planning and execution and tying that to that end.

Well, they only had slide rules back then, so you know.

Exactly and silent. So it broke something you already heard it yet.

So she was standing on two galloping horses. Okay, so picture that, and then she had to grab onto a rope dangling from a bridge and swing on from that rope onto a moving train all in one shot.

Wow did she hang it?

She did make it. She lived to a ripe old age in her eighties, so she she did very well for us.

Amazing.

But yes, that was Helen Gibson recognized as the.

First ladies and gentlemen. Helen Gibson.

That's pretty. But think of think of that for a second. What that involves the horses to your own horses that's already gonna die. Grab that and then get an didn't get onto that train? Yeah? Done, no problem?

Yeah yeah, wow. Has anyone worked it out?

No, there's no working anybody checked the rope. Don't worry but home.

Wait, let me get on my meal program. How do you meal program?

Yeah? I love it.

By the way, I love the me on a meal program in preparation of jumping the most the waves, wife does the whole You know what food?

You know what?

Good is the meal program for me? When I have to go out the plane. It gives me something to throw up. Otherwise it'd be drying.

You're not good with stunt. You wouldn't be a good stunt.

I have done stunts. I've done a fair amount up.

What do you mean Yeah, yeah, yep, Because stunts to you is you're gonna be running up steps. What did you do? Stumach?

Okay, movie I directed, Don't Bet Your Fingers. I did a stunt involving almost sixty eight stunt drivers where I had to cross the eight lanes of Hollywood Belong. Well, they're spinning out all around me. Now, I'm I'm telling you. I felt door handles brush my leg. I mean it was it was day. It was definitely Dan.

The stunt was about walking.

The stunt was walking and not David. I've done wire work.

I got up in the air on wires how far one hundred feet?

What movie?

It was for a World Gold commercial. It had to look like I was doing it. I did a layout to dunk to dunk the basket and they put a camera one hundred feet up. They put me on wires and I would an acrobat would do this tumbling run and then he would do like the back layout, and then it was me shooting up to the camera, throwing myself backwards, flipping over and coming back down.

You have one belt under, you have a harness.

It was a hip point, so I could do the flip and so it's it's the way. No, you'd see the wires. They had to take the wires out, and I let me tell you something. I got used to the height pretty quickly. I got that the flipping when you start to go over backwards, it's you go, this is us.

Wrong, and you grabbed the wires.

That's what happened is I'd grabbed the wires and we did five takes and they finally said, Jason, you can't grab the wires.

I mean, you got to get through this.

And the only way I did it is I psyched myself out and I went, Okay, there are no wires. I'm going to jump up, I'm gonna throw this flip and I'm gonna get back down, and I pretended it was all me and I did it and we did.

One flip and they, you know, the crew went and that's yeah.

Never, I don't think I've ever been more proud of you.

Thank you you. Sands Food realized kind of a risk.

Yes, So the only question I have I was speaking of stunts and Jason's career. Did Michael Richards ever hit you with the door.

Hit me with the door?

No?

The only time I ever got hurt, honestly in the show, and you can see it happened because it's in the episode. There's an episode where George is wearing it to pay, and Elaine hates it, and so Julia ripped it off my head and then she goes to throw it out the window. And what she does is she raises the Venetian blinds to throw it out.

And then what was supposed to be is I was supposed.

To reach through the window as if I was trying to grab it, and then she would let the blinds drop on my back. And she went a little too soon, and my head went right into that hardwood bottom slat that gives the blinds weight, and I broke it with my head and I had a welt.

That's the only time I got hurt. No, Michael.

Inadvertently hit Julia with a bag of golf clubs one time on a stunt. Michael was very good at what he did, but he messed up very rarely and almost never with anybody else's Jeopardy But.

David anything else, any corrections.

A daring, daring, daring show. I dare say, we we out there. This was our riskiest show ever.

All Right, see you all, lady Dabs for seeing you, Thank you Wade, thank you producer Lar. And next to your next episode, I guess no, let's.

Tell us something amazing.

Really, as another episode of Really No Really comes to a close. I know you're wondering what are the most dangerous stunts ever attempted in film? That list in just a moment, but first let's thank our guest, Wade Eastwood. You can follow Wade on Instagram where he is at Waite Eastwood. Our little show hangs out on Instagram, TikTok YouTube, and threads at Really No Really podcast, And of course you can share your thoughts and feedback with us online

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