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  • With Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation out now, let’s take a look at 7 things you probably

  • didn’t know about the fifth film in the super-spy series.

  • Although Tom Cruise has a good deal of experience stunt driving, before filming Rogue Nation's

  • high-speed car and motorbike chases along winding Moroccan roads, he spent an intensive

  • six weeks training, working with stunt co-ordinator Wade Eastwood, whose speciality is car stunts.

  • Cruise learnt to drift drive and, according to Eastwood, the actor rode the BMW S1000RR

  • sport bike at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour!

  • When Ethan Hunt dives into an underwater facility to change a security profile card, the chamber

  • where he has to swap out the card is labelled 108.

  • This is an Easter Egg for JJ Abrams' TV series Lost, where the number 108, or a sequence

  • of numbers which added up to 108, often appeared. Rogue Nation is produced by Bad Robot, a production

  • company founded by Abrams, who also directed Mission: Impossible 3.

  • The name of Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson's character Ilsa was inspired by a character

  • of the same name played by another Swedish actress in a 1940s movie.

  • That actress was Ingrid Bergman and the movie was Casablanca, which starred Humphrey Bogart.

  • By the way, not so coincidentally, part of Rogue Nation was actually filmed in Casablanca,

  • Morocco. During Ferguson's first meeting with director

  • Chris McQuarrie and Tom Cruise, they compared Ilsa in Mission: Impossible to Ingrid Bergman

  • and fellow Swedish actress Greta Garbo in terms of their grace and the use of light

  • and shadows in the way they were filmed.

  • To get ready for some especially dizzying stunts, Rebecca Ferguson spent over a month

  • training in pilates, explosive running, fight technique and firearms for 6 hours a day 6

  • days a week. Her training also included numerous 12-foot

  • practice drops in the stunt rehearsal area before she tackled the real 75-foot drop from

  • the roof of the Vienna State Opera House on her first day of filming!

  • By the end of the shoot, Ferguson had done that drop 40 times!

  • Oh, and by the way, she also had to overcome her fear of heights and claustrophobia to

  • bring those stunts to life.

  • Remember the movie's opening stunt which Tom Cruise actually did himself, hanging on to

  • the outside of an Airbus A-400-M military transport plane as it flew up to 5,000 feet

  • in the air? Well, that scene was shot at the RAF Wittering

  • airbase in Cambridgeshire, England. A special rig was built to attach the camera

  • to the outside of the plane and the movie's cinematographer operated it remotely from

  • inside the plane. To capture additional footage from a different

  • angle, they also filmed from a helicopter flying beside the plane.

  • As the airplane was travelling up to 180 miles per hour, the force of the wind was so great

  • during filming that Cruise had to have special contact lenses made to cover his eyeballs

  • so he could keep his eyes open and still protect them from engine fumes and airborne debris.

  • Cruise gave director Christopher McQuarrie strict instructions not to cut once they started

  • filming unless he gave a signal to do so by touching the top of his head!

  • In the end, Cruise did the stunt a total of 8 times to make sure they got all the shots

  • they needed.

  • To make the movie's underwater heist scene as real as possible, Tom Cruise trained intensively

  • in free diving, which is basically diving without breathing apparatus!

  • Cruise built up to doing a 40-metre free dive and could actually hold his breath underwater

  • for around 6 minutes after training in Florida and the Cayman Islands with veteran athletes

  • including freediving expert Kirk Krack. The scene was filmed in a tank measuring about

  • 40 foot square at Leavesden Studios in the UK.

  • For added realism, water movers from the Special Effects department were used in the tank to

  • make Cruise's hair move and so he could swim against the current. However, the force of

  • the moving water was so strong that they had to tether Cruise to avoid him getting pushed

  • backwards. Cruise has said that the dive scene was the

  • most physically challenging part of the movie for him, and it took him significantly longer

  • to recover from than any other scene.

  • Although shooting a Mission: Impossible action scene can be pretty intense, Tom Cruise and

  • Simon Pegg still found time for fun on set while they were filming a car chase scene

  • in Casablanca. The two actors kept themselves amused during

  • long stretches in the car in the scorching Moroccan heat by playing pranks, including

  • sneakily switching on each other's car seat heater and waiting to see how long it took

  • the other one to notice!

  • Now, let me know in the comments below, what crazy stunts would you like to see Tom Cruise

  • do next in Mission: Impossible 6? And which is your favourite Mission: Impossible

  • movie and why? If you enjoyed this video, do please share

  • it, hit the thumbs-up button and subscribe for more things you didn't know, as well as

  • movie reviews and interviews. Thanks for watching! Yippee-ki-yay, movie

  • lovers!

With Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation out now, let’s take a look at 7 things you probably

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