Tom Cruise on filming the most dangerous stunt of his career for 'Mission: Impossible 7'

Tom Cruise has revealed that Mission: Impossible 7 will feature the most dangerous stunt of his career – which could have gone horribly wrong in a number of ways.

Cruise, 58, is not just the face of the Hollywood blockbuster action films – he is also known for fearlessly taking on many of his own stunts rather than using a body double.

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Now he has explained to Empire just how risky his most recent shoot was, with a tricky scene involving a motorbike, a helicopter and a cliff jump.

The star had to ride the bike off the edge of a cliff as a helicopter filmed the hair-raising stunt.

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He said: “If the wind was too strong, it would blow me off the ramp. The helicopter was a problem, because I didn’t want to be hammering down that ramp at top speed and get hit by a stone. Or if I departed in a weird way, we didn’t know what was going to happen with the bike.

"I had about six seconds once I departed the ramp to pull the chute and I don’t want to get tangled in the bike. If I do, that’s not going to end well.”

Cruise, who has been filming the seventh instalment of the action film franchise in the UK, said there was the heightened emotion of knowing that he was helping the whole cast and crew to get back to work after the pandemic had put many of their industry out of business for months.

He said: “All those emotions were going through my mind. I was thinking about the people I work with, and my industry. And for the whole crew to know that we’d started rolling on a movie was just a huge relief. It was very emotional, I gotta tell you.”

Mission: Impossible 7 is due to be released in the UK in May 2022.

Watch: Tom Cruise on making a Mission: Impossible in the coronavirus pandemic