Tom Cruise says the secret to pull off his stunts is a big breakfast.
“I actually eat a massive breakfast,” Cruise said in a new interview with People about his diet before performing high-risk stunts like walking on the wing of a biplane for Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.
He continued, “The amount of energy it takes—I train so hard for that wing-walking. I'll eat, like, sausage and almost a dozen eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and fluids. Oh, I'm eating! Picture: It's cold up there. We're at high altitude. My body is burning a lot.”
Cruise explained that his fascination with wing-walking goes back to childhood and was inspired by old footage of early aviation daredevils.
“I remember seeing old footage of wing-walking,” he told the magazine. “Those aircraft were only traveling at, I don't know, 40, 50 miles an hour. This aircraft is up to over 120 miles an hour. Going out there, I was realizing that it takes your breath away.”
The wing-walking stunt that will appear on the latest Mission: Impossible installment continues Cruise’s tradition of extreme action sequences.
Another extreme stunt on The Final Recknoning sees Cruise on an extended underwater sequence that limited his oxygen intake while he wore a clear mask instead of a standard mouthpeace.
“You're not going to feel as connected with the character if I went with a regular mask and a thing in my mouth to breathe,” he said. “Luckily when you're flying jets you train for hypoxia and for carbon dioxide buildup. You start to be able to perceive your body and how it's reacting so that I knew when to stop.
"On Mission, if it was easy, I guess we wouldn't want to do it," he added.
Mission Impossible — The Final Recknoning will hit theaters on May 23.