It’s no secret that Tom Cruise is the master of committing to the action and pulling it off in the most practical way possible, and as our review for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning highlights, said action turns out to be epic on screen. However, it also means lots of planning and training go into the creation of his movies, and his co-stars in the extra action-filled ones go through a boot camp of sorts. It happened on Top Gun: Maverick famously, and the latest M:I movie had some intense training too, as Greg Tarzan Davis, who starred in both films, explained to us.
In the lead up to Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’s release on the 2025 movie schedule, there’s been a ton of hype around its epic plane stunts and overall action. So, when CinemaBlend’s Jeff McCobb interviewed the cast, he asked Greg Tarzan Davis, who plays Degas in Dead Reckoning and Final Reckoning and Coyote in Top Gun: Maverick, if the M:I boot camp was similar to Top Gun’s training. In response, the actor said:
You know, you never know what you’re going to do. So Tom is like, ‘Hey, you want to always be prepared.’ So he put us through these different programs like motorbike riding, dirt bike, weapons, martial arts, skydiving, drifting, racing. So, you go through a particular type of boot camp to be confident and showing that you’re able to do any and everything.
“Always be prepared” seemed to be the motto on both M:I and Top Gun, which makes sense considering both feature death-defying action that requires training and specific safety protocol to pull off. So, basically, in terms of Mission: Impossible, whether their characters touch a dirtbike or get behind the wheel for a chase or not, the actors are prepared to do it, and they understand the mission they’ve chosen to accept.
During Top Gun: Maverick’s boot camp, the cast went through training that prepared them to fly in F/A-18s. Flying with fighter pilots is no easy task, and Lewis Pullman even admitted to throwing up in the cockpit at one point. Miles Teller also said they got “put through the wringer” while filming the movie.
Teller also noted that since they were all “mini Toms making this movie,” they needed to train like him.
It sounds like this mentality and rigorous training apply to Mission: Impossible, too. While they aren’t flying fighter jets in these movies, they are getting into car chases, fights and partaking in some terrifying stunts, so boot camp seems necessary. As Greg Tarzan Davis pointed out, they wanted to be “confident” and “able to do any and everything.”
Overall, learning the story behind how casts train for movies like these makes me appreciate the project even more. While witnessing the epic movie magic on a big screen is incredible, I’m even more in awe when I learn about how much time, effort, preparation and training went into pulling something off.
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To see all this training Greg Tarzan Davis described in action, you can catch Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning in theaters on May 23. You can also see him and Tom Cruise making some epic action together by streaming both the Mission: Impossible movies and Top Gun: Maverick with a Paramount+ subscription.