Tom Cruise’s new film Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is stuffed with spectacular stunts, but one in particular has grabbed the world’s attention: riding a motorbike off the top of a 1,240 metre-high crag, plummeting down its vertical, semi-cylindrical face, and opening his parachute, base-jump style, just before he hits the ground.
Cruise says its “far and away the most dangerous thing [he’d] ever attempted”, and in a video released by the film-makers, revealed he had trained for the stunt by making more than 500 skydives and 13,000 motocross jumps over an 80ft mound, as well as training for a year in base jumping (a specialist skill involving parachuting from fixed objects including radio masts and skyscrapers). A practice ramp was constructed in a quarry in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, stuffed with fall-breaking plastic bags, before taking on the actual leap off the Helsetkopen in Norway. Cruise performed the stunt six times for the cameras.
