Tom Cruise is flying high these days with his first billion-dollar movie Top Gun: Maverick crushing it at the box office. Even with his forthcoming seventh Mission: Impossible movie, Dead Reckoning Part One on the horizon, this has not stopped the 60-year-old from slowing down on the dare-defying feats, this time taking Late Late Show host James Corden with him. When Cruise appeared on the Late Late Show, he told the host that he jumped from a plane at an altitude of 25,000 feet for his role in Mission Impossible. Corden replied:
“Meh…You say ‘jump’ but it’s falling. I think we’re all getting carried away with the ‘Tom Cruise: Action Hero’ thing.”
Those words prompted Cruise to challenge Corden to go “falling” with him plus insist on training the host for an adventure in the friendly skies. Of course, the British comedian's landing was not as smooth as his mentor's, but he made it back to earthly soil safely, with a little help.
James Corden Attempts an Impossible Mission to Become a Top Gun Maverick
A reluctant Corden agrees to fly with Cruise but not without protests, to no avail. The 43-year-old admitted to feeling like it was a mistake and confessed to trying to get out of this airborne training with Cruise over fear the actor would crash. Speaking to Alison Hammon on the British magazine show This Morning, Corden stated:
“Producers on the show got an email from me saying, ‘Guys, this is stupid. He’s an actor. He’s not a pilot. When you’re in a plane, and its just you and Tom Cruise, if something goes wrong, you’re both dead.”
However, Cruise has had his pilot’s license since 1994 and owns several planes, including a luxury Gulfstream jet and his beloved P-51 Mustang, a WWII fighter that appears in Top Gun. Cruise told Hello magazine:
“The P-51 Mustang you see in the movie is actually my plane, so I got to pilot in those sequences. I also got to be in the jet fighter a lot more this time, which was thrilling. It was something I had been working up to.”
Although there were hilarious moments where it looked as if Corden would have welcomed the sweet relief of death, he did conquer his fears, looked danger in the eye, attended Tom Cruise’s faux boot camp, took flight on his own (well, on ground by trying to run away) and passed Maverickism 101.