10 Best Mission: Impossible Stunts
5. The Underwater Vault Heist: Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
The underwater scene in Rogue Nation was another example of when a Mission: Impossible stunt helped test the limits of human endurance.
When Ethan Hunt is charged with breaching an underwater facility with the assistance of his boundless colleague, Ilsa Faust, filmmakers scratched their heads on how to achieve the scene with the best possible fluidity, no pun intended.
As always, the solution lay in Tom Cruise doing something mad. So came the specialist training to allow him to hold his breath underwater for elongated periods of time. Screen time dictated that he'd be underwater for three minutes, but off-screen preparation before and after the shot increased that to a whooping six minutes without taking a breath.
The end result was a scene that was a hell of a lot more believable than it would have been through any other method. Big credit also goes to Rebecca Ferguson for performing the underwater feat on a near even footing with Tom Cruise. Her motto of "If Tom can do it, so can I" ain't an idle one, but she did it.