Tom Cruise Perfected A Mission Impossible Stunt So Much That He “Forgot To Breathe IRL”, He Recalled Saying “I Had To Turn My Autonomic System Back On”
In a past conversation, Tom Cruise opened up about how Mission: Impossible – Fallout’s underwater scene affected him off camera.
Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout Stunts Were Perfection & Made Him Forget How To Breathe IRL! Action Star Once Recalled “I Had To Turn My Autonomic System Back On” ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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Tom Cruise is an action star who has impressed us with his stunts for decades. While the 60-year-old actor loves to put his body on the line with his work, aka the daredevil action scenes, the Mission: Impossible series has seen him do some of the craziest stunts. Some of it includes cliff rock climbing (MI2), scaling the Burj Khalifa (MI4), hanging off a plane and staying underwater for over 6 minutes (MI5) and more.
While the upcoming Mission: Impossible movies are sure to give us more such daredevil action sequences by Tom, we are today talking about the time he literally forgot how to breathe. The actor confessed that his dedication to perfection actually affected his bodily functions once. Read on.
During an appearance on the Graham Norton Show over six years ago, Tom Cruise got candid about holding his breath for 6-and-a-half minutes to shoot an underwater stunt and its impact on his day-to-day life. While recalling how everything was set up for the underwater shoot after he received training from divers, the action star said, “It was too late to say no.”
Talking about the impact the stunt had on his bodily functions in real life, Tom Cruise explained, “You have these three divers they came in trained me how to do it. It’s… it’s not pleasant. It’s really… You get to the moment where you train your system to – I’m now controlling my breath. “The ‘Top Gun’ star continued, “I’ve got a low heart rate anyway, a very low heart rate which means my body isn’t using as much oxygen, but also we did things to bring the heart rate down lower with certain breathing exercises.”
He continued explaining, “And I trained for a long time to the point where I’d finish the sequence… there will be times when I’m sitting and talking in meetings, and I wouldn’t breathe. I realised ‘I am not breathing,’ and I had to turn my autonomic system back on to breathe again… but I’ve done that now. I’m done with that.”
Watch Tom Cruise talking about shooting the long Mission: Impossible – Fallout underwater scene, controlling his breathing and forgetting how to breathe off-camera here:
Stay tuned to Koimoi for more such interesting Hollywood stories about your favourite stars.
