New details about Tom Cruise’s stunt at the 2024 Paris Olympics are coming to light.
The “Mission: Impossible” star closed Sunday’s ceremony in true Hollywood fashion by leaping into the Stade de France and hopping on a motorcycle, before a pre-taped clip showed him skydiving toward the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles and the 2028 Olympics.
While the feat seemed most inspired by the stunt-laden “Impossible” franchise, former “Late Late Show” producer Ben Winston told The Hollywood Reporter that this symbolic passing of the baton was instead influenced by a 15-year-old bit — from Conan O’Brien.
“I liked the idea of doing the bulk of it in Los Angeles but with an amazing open in Paris,” Winston said Monday. “This is such a weird reference, but remember when Conan O’Brien started on ‘The Tonight Show’ and moved from New York to Los Angeles?”
“He did a really fun sketch going cross country,” he continued about O’Brien’s hilarious 2009 opener. “That has always stuck with me. So I was like, ‘How do Tom Cruise and all these incredible athletes take that flag from Paris to L.A.?’ It’s a weird inspiration.”
Winston recalled learning that “there’s this tradition of a 12-minute show” to symbolize the Olympics’ journey from one host nation to another and immediately thinking: “Well, it would be the coolest thing if we snatched the flag, and we could get Tom Cruise to do it.”
While he originally planned to have a masked stuntman pull off the more dangerous moments, Winston said filming the closer — which had onlookers in the Hollywood hills believe they were filming the next “Impossible” movie — went even better than expected.
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“Tom’s feedback was, ‘I love the idea, only we’re not doing a stuntman in a balaclava. I’m going to be the one who jumps off the roof, and I’m going to be the one who drives through Paris,’” he said Monday. “Obviously, that’s better for me.”
Cruise clearly succeeded in his ongoing mission to become the most death-defying A-lister in town, and notably grabbed an Olympics flag from gold medalist Simone Biles and LA Mayor Karen Bass after abseiling into the packed Paris stadium.
While he’s certainly pulled off similar stunts before and promoted “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) with dizzying flying lessons for former “Late Late Show” host James Corden, the feat of insuring Cruise was likely just as difficult as the Olympics stunt itself.
“It was definitely a consideration when we were doing the ‘Top Gun’ stuff for ‘The Late Late Show,’” Winston told THR. “It was like, ‘Well, who does the liability lie with — the show or Tom?’ I still don’t know the answer on this one.”
