INSIDE MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TOM CRUISE TAKES FLIGHT AGAIN

THE STAR TALKS ABOUT HIS LOVE FOR STUNTS AS HE TAKES ON MORE RISKY BUSINESS IN MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE—THE FINAL RECKONING

- By JACK SMART, ALLISON ADATO, CHRIS NASHAWATY and ERIK FORREST JACKSON

When Tom Cruise, in describing one of his Mis-sion: Impossible stunts, says, “It takes your breath away,” he doesn’t mean that figuratively. For his upcoming eighth appearance as world-saving secret agent Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning (in theaters May 23), Cruise, 62, crawled in and out of two 1940s-era biplanes as they zoomed over a South African mountain range at more than 120 mph. “It’s actually hard to breathe on the wing,” Cruise tells People, noting he had to bury his face in his sleeve to get enough oxygen to move. “It was brutal.”

ACCEPTING THE MISSION Tom Cruise "literally will risk his life for the audience," says Simon Pegg (second from right, with costars Pom Klementieff, Greg Tarzan Davis, Cruise and Hayley Atwell).

DEEP DANGER

Cruise and director McQuarrie (right) designed a giant water tank to film inside a tilting, rotating submarine, a Final Reckoning sequence that will "have audiences holding their breath," promises stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood.