The action film star explained that he uses fear to “create an emotional effect” on audiences.
ByJaelani Turner-Williams
September 15, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Tom Cruise told GQ in a video interview that he doesn’t consider himself scared of death, as he wants to create an “emotional” impact on movie viewers.
- The actor has sustained multiple injuries on movie sets throughout the years, particularly the Mission Impossible franchise.
- Cruise says he uses stunts to “connect” with audiences of all backgrounds.
Tom Cruise considers himself fearless when it comes to death-defying stunts.
The legendary actor, who’s almost unrecognizable in new film Digger, spoke about transmuting fear into the quest for adventure in a new interview with GQ Senior Projects Editor Zach Baron. Around the 4-minute mark of the video below, Baron outright asked if the entertainer fears death, which Cruise denied.
Among Cruise’s most frightening self-performed stunts, as chronicled by The Hollywood Reporter last year, was wearing only a safety cable in a risky rock climbing scene in Mission Impossible IIand holding his breath underwater for a daunting six minutes for a scene in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.
“Look, I think you could look at my life and go, I like standing on the edge of a cliff physically and metaphorically, meaning I look at life as an adventure and I always have,” Cruise told Baron.
“I want to understand life and cultures and if I wonder what are those people?” he continued. “How do they feel? Do they think the way I do? Do they laugh at the same thing? How do I connect with them?”
Cruise added that he often uses fearful stunts to “create an emotional effect” on movie viewers.
“Do I fear death? No, I don’t,” he continued. “It’s not like I’m afraid. I understand life has certainties and uncertainties and in making movies and living life, what interests me is, like, let’s move the uncertainties more into the certainties, but I want to create other uncertainties so that, you know, we’re moving forward and it’s part of the adventure of it.”
Cruise also told Baron that fear itself is just unfamiliarity, and that sitting with it has never been uncomfortable for him. “I’m not afraid to be afraid. I’m not afraid to go, okay, I know this is a leap and let’s take the jump. Let’s go,” he said.
Some of Cruise’s movie stunts have gotten him injured, like a sustaining a broken ankle while running between two buildings for 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and nearly breaking his back during a midair fight scene in last year’s MI: The Final Reckoning.
