Tom Cruise turned 61 on Monday, but no one would know it from all the physically demanded stunts he does in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.” And if the actor has his way, he’ll keep doing stunts like that for another couple of decades, like Harrison Ford in the “Indiana Jones” franchise.
As the seventh “Mission: Impossible” film hits theaters next week, Cruise has no plans to take it easy in the latter stages of his career. Deadline reports (via The Sydney Morning Herald) that Cruise looks at Ford’s recent return to Indy at 80 inspires him as an action star. “Harrison Ford is a legend; I hope to be still going. I’ve got 20 years to catch up with him,” Cruise said “I hope to keep making “Mission: Impossible” films until I’m his age.”
So if Cruise has his way, he’ll still be running around saving the world as Ethan Hunt for another twenty years. But don’t expect Ford to pick up the fedora and whip again after “Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny.” The actor confirmed James Mangold‘s film is the final time he’ll play the archeologist adventurer, but he has no plans to retire from other roles. “I don’t do well when I don’t have work,” Ford told CNN’s Chris Wallace in a recent interview. “I love to work, I love to feel useful. It’s my Jones, I want to be helpful.”
Wallace then asked Ford why he keeps acting depsite his age, to which the actor replied, “It is the people that you get to work with. The intensity and the intimacy of collaboration, it’s the combined ambition, somehow forged from words on a page. I don’t plan what I want to do in a scene and I don’t feel obliged to do anything, but I am naturally affected by the things that I work on.” Next up for Ford? At least two turns as Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross in the MCU. The first, “Captain America: Brave New World,” hits theaters on July 26, 2024.
If the ambition and shared intimacy of a project is what gets Ford back on-set, for Cruise it’s finding more death-defying stunts to pull off. And “Dead Reckoning Part One” has plenty of those. But isn’t Cruise continuing to do them into his seventies and eighties ridiculous? Sure, but it isn’t surprising to hear from the actor, who’s never been afraid of pushing his limits. But Ethan Hunt sprinting around at eighty could be a limit Cruise may not be able to hit.
“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” hits theaters everywhere on July 12.
