10 Stars Who ONLY Trusted Themselves To Perform Big Movie Scenes

9. Tom Cruise Flew The Helicopter For Real - Mission: Impossible - Fallout

In recent years Tom Cruise has picked up quite the reputation as a stuntman enterprise in his own right, gleefully putting actual, single-occupation stuntmen out of work by agreeing to do most of the job himself.

The last three Mission: Impossible movies have continually raised the bar on Cruise's daredevil antics: in Ghost Protocol he clung to the side of the Burj Khalifa, in Rogue Nation he was suspended from a plane and held his breath underwater for an inhuman amount of time, and topped everything that came before with his mind-melting helicopter stunt work in last summer's Fallout.

Cruise pitched the stunt and, true to form, rubbished suggestions that a stuntman would get to do the "fun" stuff while he'd simply be composited into the scene with green screen.

The A-lister ended up spending three months training to pilot the helicopter, and when it came to shoot the climactic chopper chase, cameras were mounted around the vehicle to prove to audiences that he was actually doing it all - including a death-defying corkscrew spiral stunt that even veteran pilots would be twitchy about trying.

Quite how Cruise will find a way to top this for the upcoming seventh film is anyone's guess, but if history is any indicator, he'll damn-sure find a way.