Tom Cruise shares footage of gruesome ankle break on set of Mission Impossible: Fallout
Production was suspended for nearly two months while the actor recovered.
Tom Cruise and some of the stars of this summer's Mission Impossible: Fallout appeared on The Graham Norton Show last night (26 January) to promote the new movie, and Cruise brought along some unexpected footage.
It wasn't a trailer, but the gruesome evidence of an injury that Cruise suffered while filming a stunt in London's Blackfriars Bridge, which delayed filming last year but didn't end up delaying the release of director Christopher McQuarrie's anticipated sequel to 2015's Rogue Nation.
Cruise suffered a broken ankle in the botched stunt, which saw him leaping between two buildings during a chase sequence.
"I was chasing Henry [Cavill, his co-star]and was meant to hit the side of the wall and pull myself over but the mistake was my foot hitting the wall," he explained to Norton and the audience.
"I knew instantly my ankle was broken and I really didn't want to do it again so just got up and carried on with the take. I said, 'It's broken. That's a wrap. Take me to hospital' and then everyone got on the phone and made their vacation arrangement."
The incident took place in August, with production resuming seven weeks later in early October.
Footage filmed on mobile phones and pictures taken from afar were published after the accident, but this is the first time the filmed footage has been seen by the public. It shows Cruise's leg clearly buckling on impact and the actor limping away quickly in an attempt to complete the shot.
Cruise reprises his role as Impossible Mission Force agent Ethan Hunt, alongside his Graham Norton Show guests Simon Pegg, who plays Benji in his fourth appearance in the series, and Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, who was the breakout star of Rogue Nation.
Henry Cavill was also there, he plays an unnamed character.
Fallout will also star Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett and Vanessa Kirby.
Mission Impossible: Fallout is set for release on 27 July, 2018. The film's title was officially revealed last week alongside the first looks at the film, showing Cruise's London leap, him clinging on to a flying helicopter and Cavill and Bassett's characters in Paris.