SimplyAbuDhabi XLII

What about your role as performer?When you’re in the middle of one of those incredible stunts, do you ever say to yourself, ‘What am I doing here?’ – what is it like in the moment? TOM CRUISE: There’s just a lot going on when I’m doing something like that because it’s the whole performance, it’s not just doing the stunts. There are so many things going on. For example, there’s a scene where I’m off the cliff in Norway. I’m concerned that if the bike gets unbalanced, it’s going to disrupt the air flow. I have only a few seconds until I hit the ground. I have to hold as long as I can for the shot. I have a helicopter flying over so I’m watching the speed of the aircraft, and if go too soon or we mix up our timings, that helicopter can actually blow me off of the ramp. And I have drones and I don’t want them to hit me. So, as I’m going down the ramp performing, I also know the lenses, I know the speeds and once I exit the ramp I’m worried about, ‘Is my speed correct? Am I going to have enough to be able to fly a little bit and how deep do I go into that hole?’ And once I open I want to make sure – and you can see this online – you can see when I’m testing it, I opened incorrectly and I started going toward the side of the wall of the hole. And I pulled away quickly. And then I have to fly out of there. So there’s a lot going on. It’s all about cinema, it’s all about story. It’s not just, you know, that we come up with these things and I enjoy doing them and I train. For many, many years I’ve been training, I’ve been driving motorcycles and cars since I was a little kid. And sky diving, I fly jets, I fly airplanes of all kinds, old airplanes and war birds, I fly helicopters, parachutes… so all of these things. I also sing and dance! I kind of have these things and I want to apply them to my films. Will the singing and dancing be for ‘Part Two’? TOM CRUISE: It will be a musical! [laughs, joking]. You heard it here. [laughs] So these are the things where I’m just constantly looking to increase my ability as a storyteller and what kind of skills can I improve to entertain the audience. And it’s all about, ‘How do I engage the audience?’ You have an amazing ensemble around you for this film, with some returning favourites. What can you tell us about them? TOM CRUISE: This cast is extraordinary. Simon Pegg, Ving 114 | Simply Abu Dhabi