Tom Cruise could be the first actor ever to film in space! The Top Gun: Maverick star, 60, is involved in a pitch with The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman on the unnamed film per Universal Studios. “I think Tom Cruise is taking us to space, he’s taking the world to space…[and could be] the first civilian to do a space walk outside of the space station,” UFEG Chairman Donna Langley said in an interview according to BBC News. “That’s the plan. We have a great project in development with Tom … Taking a rocket up to the Space Station and shooting,” she added.
Donna also offered details about the film’s storyline. “[It would involve] the character [going] up to space to save the day”, she added, noting that they would shoot on the International Space Station. Most of the story, however, would be set on earth.
The move would be history making, but also in line with Tom’s professional accomplishments — particularly with what he’s achieved with regards to his own stunt work in the Mission: Impossible series as spy Ethan Hunt. In an outtake from director Christopher McQuarrie, he even dangled from an airborne biplane. Back in 2017, Tom unfortunately injured himself with while performing a rooftop leap — slamming into a cement wall mid-stunt.
At the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the New York native recalled doing his first-ever stunt as a child. “I think I was about 4½ years old, and I had this doll, and you throw it up in the air and a parachute comes down. I played with this thing, and I’d throw it off a tree, and I was like, ‘I really want to do this’,” he remembered during a panel discussion with journalist Didier Allouch per PEOPLE magazine.
“I remember taking the sheets off my bed, and I would tie a rope … and I climbed up to the eave, and I got up to the roof. I looked and my mother was in the kitchen — she had four kids — and I jumped off the roof,” he went on. “It’s that moment when you jump off the roof and you go, ‘This is not gonna work. This is terrible. I’m gonna die.’ And I hit the ground so hard. Luckily, it was wet. I don’t know how it happened, but I figured out after that my face went past my feet as my ass hit the ground. And I saw stars in the daytime for the first time, and I remember looking up, going, ‘This is very interesting.'”
Ultimately, that moment as a youngster inspired Tom to take on the challenge of doing his own stunts later on. “Now, here I am on a movie set … but I was the kid who would climb to the rafters or climb the tallest tree. I wanted that, I wanted to do that, and how do I develop these skills and make it part of the story and character?” he also said. “Even if I wasn’t working on a movie, I was studying film, I was pushing myself to learn different skills. I was like, ‘I’m going to put this in a movie one day,'” he added.