Henry Cavill is known for his acting capabilities which won millions of hearts across the world. The actor even got immersed in action sequences with his work in the DCEU as Superman. Though the training sessions did him great to prep for the role, it still wasn’t enough when the actor switched the action sequences from fantasy to the real world.
He first appeared in Mission: Impossible – Fallout and served as quite an enthralling supporting character to Tom Cruise. However, he was still not trained to perform the iconic Halo Jump which was one of the iconic action sequences in the spy film series’ history.
Tom Cruise Executed The Halo Jump Sequence, Not Henry Cavill!
Even after years of training to perfectly become a superhero, Henry Cavill was unfit to do a HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) stunt. While filming for Mission: Impossible 6, the Halo sequence that Tom Cruise successfully performed was a complicated sequence that was first designed during pre-production.
However, it was the last to be filmed as it required a whole year to plan that one stunt. He was required to free-fall for a while at dusk out of a giant C-17 plane eventually opening his parachute at a low altitude. However, it was not as easy as the sequence (distance of 7 km / 25000 feet, traveling speed of 265 – 320 km/h) was performed with the specially designed oxygen mask that had RAF assistance to light up Cruise’s face.
Due to its limitation of capturing the shot for about three minutes a day during sunset, it was shot in the Emirates. It took the Top Gun actor and the skydiving camera operator, Craig O’Brien (who kept a distance of three feet from Cruise while filming as per instructions) to do a total of 106 jumps to get three possible takes.
To excel in the Halo jump, the crew had to practice on wind tunnels. Not just that, they had to do five skydives a day with one in the morning, three in the afternoon, and one at dusk.
After several attempts, they eventually got successful in taking a perfect shot. While the former was much interested in doing the sequence, Cruise stopped him.
Tom Cruise Didn’t Let Henry Cavill Do the Halo Jump in Mission: Impossible 6
In an appearance on Good Morning America, The Witcher actor opened up about “begging” his co-star to let him do the difficult stunt. However, Cruise still kept adamant about convincing Cavill due to the gravity of the sequence.
“He said look, ‘Henry I know what you’re thinking, I know how you feel. I would feel the exact same way but if you jump and we do the sequence in the air without you having hundreds of hours of training, you’ll probably kill everyone’ and I said ‘I’ll let you off this time Tom.’”
Even though he was quite involved in practice for the scene, he eventually accepted his condition as he perfectly knew that he still lacked the proper training, unlike Cruise who has been doing stunts on his own for a while now. Meanwhile, Cavill will be reprising his role as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher for the last time. The third season will be released in two volumes on June 29 and July 27, 2023, respectively.
Source: Paramount Pictures
