Tom Cruise Breathed in Carbon Dioxide for ‘Mission: Impossible 8’ Stunt

Tom Cruise told Empire magazine that he breathed in his own carbon dioxide while filming a grueling action set piece for the upcoming “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” The sequence finds Cruise’s Ethan Hunt underwater exploring the wreckage of a submarine. The action scene was filmed in a an “8.5 million liter water tank on a gimbal that can rotate on command,” Empire reports. “Cruise dons a specially-designed suit and mask” but “he can only wear the gear for 10 minutes at a time, before suffering from hypoxia (an absence of oxygen in body tissue).”

“I’m breathing in my own carbon dioxide,” Cruise said. “It builds up in the body and affects the muscles. You have to overcome all of that while you’re doing it, and be present.”

Cruise’s longtime collaborator and “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” director Christopher McQuarrie said shooting the underwater set piece was “so challenging and so terrifying” and “really physically punishing” for Cruise.

“He’s in a rotating structure filled with debris, and you had to find a way to make that environment look as chaotic and unhinged as humanly possible,” McQuarrie said. “But in a way that you could repeat, and that Tom could navigate, and survive.”

Cruise previously revealed to Empire that he passed out repeatedly while filming a different action scene for “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” one that finds the actor dangling off the side of a flying airplane.

“When you stick your face out [of an airplane], going over 120 to 130 miles an hour, you’re not getting oxygen,” Cruise said. So I had to train myself how to breathe. There were times I would pass out physically; I was unable to get back into the cockpit.”

“Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” is set to hit theaters May 23 from Paramount Pictures.