10 Movie Scenes Where Actors Weren't Faking

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, the fifth entry in the international espionage franchise, features one of the most daring stunt sequences a Hollywood A-lister has ever helped put to film.

In the film's opening sequence, IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) has to prevent a group of terrorists from transporting nerve gas out of Belarus via a large military cargo plane, but, in order to achieve this, he has to run along the wing as it speeds up for take off, before hanging on to the outside of the plane as it climbs into the sky.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, real-life Action Man Cruise performed all of the stunts himself, sprinting and sliding across the Airbus's wing and then clinging onto the side as it took him up 1000 feet in the sky for around seven minutes, with cameras mounted on the plane and another unit filming from a helicopter. And the only thing standing between Cruise and certain doom was a wire, which was later erased in postproduction, and a pair of big, rubbery contact lenses to protect his eyes from wind, bugs and anything else floating around up there.

As we are avidly awaiting Mission Impossible 7 and 8, it is safe to say things went well and Cruise returned to earth in one piece. But, given he performed the stunt an astounding eight times, it is surprising he came back at all.