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- For the 25th anniversary of "Mission: Impossible," Tom Cruise looks back on the vault hanging scene.
- The actor said that he kept hitting his face when trying to hover over the floor.
- He finally pulled it off on the final try.
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Before Tom Cruise pulled off dazzling stunts in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise like climbing the tallest building in the world or hanging on the side of a plane taking off, the superstar was just trying to hover over the floor.
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the first "Mission: Impossible" movie, Cruise looked back on the toughest stunt of the movie: his Ethan Hunt character repelling into the vault at a fictionalized CIA headquarters.
"We were running out of time, and I kept hitting my face and the take didn't work," the actor told Christopher McQuarrie, who has directed the most recent "M:I" movies, in a new interview that's featured in the 25th anniversary remastered Blu-ray release of the movie.
Cruise said that director, Brian De Palma, was convinced they couldn't do the scene in one take.
"Brian was like, 'One more and I'm going to cut into it,' and I said, 'I can do it,'" the actor recalled.
Cruise added that before the final take, he asked crew members for coins, he then put them his shoes to balance his weight.
"I went down to the floor and I didn't touch," Cruise said. "I remember thinking, 'Oh, my gosh. I didn't touch.' And I was holding it, holding it, holding it, holding it. And I'm sweating and I'm sweating. And [De Palma] just keeps rolling."
Cruise finally realized they got the shot and the only reason why they didn't cut is because De Palma was messing with him.
"I just hear him off-camera and he's got a very distinct laugh," he recalled. "I can just hear him start to howl and he goes, 'Alright, cut.'"
Cruise hovering over the floor became the landmark shot of the movie. It wasn't just the most suspenseful scene in the movie, but was used in all the movie's marketing and has since become one of the iconic shots of the franchise.
"Mission: Impossible," which also starred Jon Voight and Ving Rhames, is streaming now on a variety of platforms, including Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.