Tom Cruise Fought His ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ Co-Star on Top of a Speeding Train at 60 Miles per Hour: ‘Trial By Fire’ Is ‘How Tom Likes to Do Things’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Riding a motorcycle off a cliff and learning the dangerous sport of speed-flying weren’t the only requirements for acting in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.” Tom Cruise also had to fight co-star Esai Morales on the roof of a train moving at 60 miles per hour.

The latest “Dead Reckoning” behind-the-scenes featurette confirms that Cruise and Morales, the latter of whom plays the film’s villain, shot the fight scene practically, meaning they were literally strapped to the top of a train as it sped through a valley in Norway. “When we started talking about this movie in the terms of a sense of adventure, an action sequence on a train is something we always wanted to do,” writer-director Christopher McQuarrie said. “We wanted to build upon the previous films and apply that knowledge to something practical and real and bring this train sequence to another level.” “There was not a surplus of trains available to be wrecked,” he added. “We had to build the train if we wanted to destroy it.

To shoot it practically was extremely challenging. Not just to execute it, but to design all of the different train carts that could function on a real train track.” The train’s speed hit the 60 miles per hour mark during filming.

That might seem crazy to film on, but for Cruise it’s just another day on the set of a “Mission: Impossible” movie. “I’ve done fight scenes, but to do them on a moving train is trial by fire,” Morales said. “But that’s how Tom like to do things.” A previous featurette revealed Cruise hit speeds of up to 50 miles per hour while speed-flying during one sequence of the movie.