Clip shows shocking moment Tom Cruise breaks his ankle filming stunt but carries on anyway

A clip from Mission Impossible - Fallout shows the eye-watering moment when star Tom Cruise broke his ankle but carried on anyway.

The movie, released back in 2018, was the sixth in the franchise, with the 61-year-old actor playing lead character Ethan Hunt.

As is the usual, Cruise performed his own stunts for the movie. And in a scene running across rooftops in London, the actor sprinted and jumped across buildings (obviously with some safety wires involved).

However, when he leaped and grabbed onto one of the buildings, his foot took some of the blow and snapped back – breaking his ankle.

In the incredible scene from the movie, you can actually see him pull himself up onto the rooftop straight after it happened and begin limping. And being the epic star he is, he carried on acting. Check it out:

When this took place in August 2017, they had to halt production of the film for at least nine weeks to allow Cruise’s injury to heal, Far Out Magazine reports.

This cost the studio about $80 million in total as they had to pay cast and crew for the break without their lead star. Filming did resume just seven weeks after the injury occurred, though.

In an appearance on The Graham Norton Show in 2018, Cruise revealed they had started shooting again although his ankle wasn’t ‘fully healed’ yet.

Before re-watching the clip, Cruise explained: “You can see I’m wearing two wires, they’re basically just safety wires, because I’m going to full tint and I’m sprinting as hard as I can and I hit the side of the wall – that’s the stunt.

“I hit the side of the wall and I climb up on the wall and I’m supposed to run past the camera.”

Paramount Pictures

Showing a slow-mo video, which Mission Impossible co-star Rebecca Ferguson warns ‘don’t watch’ if you’re squeamish, Simon Pegg said ‘nobody’s foot should do that ever’.

Host Norton says this is ‘why Tom Cruise gets paid the big bucks’ and the actor said he knew he’d broke it ‘instantly’.

Cruise added: “I didn’t want to do it again. We got the shot – it’s in the movie.”

Pegg also revealed that at the time of filming everyone who saw Cruise complete the scene said it was ‘so him’.

Reacting to the video on Twitter, users wrote: “This is why I will always watch a Tom Cruise movie.”

And another even put: “It made the scene so much better.”

Topics: Tom Cruise, Film and TV, Celebrity

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@jessbattison_