Producer and actor Tom Cruise, who plays “Ethan Hunt” in Mission: Impossible Fallout, walks the red carpet for the US Premiere at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on Sunday, July 22, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Cheriss Mai/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
You don’t have to be a movie lover to know that Tom Cruise is the lord and master of the action genre. No matter how hard Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson, Keanu Reeves or Chris Hemsworth try to seize the throne with their large-scale shows, nobody manages to overcome the adrenaline-pumping experiences that the actor experiences Impossible Mission creates itself through its constant risks. Whether it’s hanging on to planes taking off, scaling the tallest building in the world, or jumping off a cliff on a motorcycle, there’s no doubt about it Tom Cruise He is the king of the riskiest cinema.
But it wasn’t the first.
We’re so used to associating risqué films with the Top Gun star that we actually forget Patrick Swayze It was in front of him in the early 90s.
Patrick Swayze He died on September 14, 2009 after an intense battle with pancreatic cancer. He was only 57 and had spent much of his career fighting stereotypes associated with his dancing skills and handsome face. He wanted the industry to take him seriously. That they don’t just see him as the sensitive actor who could dance and make the crowds sigh with “Dirty Dancing” (1987) and “The Shadow of Love” (1990). I wanted to make films that felt real and authentic. Does it remind you of anyone? Because that’s exactly what Tom Cruise wants when he jumps into the void in his films.
LONDON – NOVEMBER 28: Actor Patrick Swayze (R) and wife Lisa Niemi arrive for the UK Premiere of ‘Keeping Mum’ at Vue Leicester Square on November 28, 2005 in London, England. (Photo by MJ Kim/Getty Images)
That was the wish of Patrick Swayze to break the stigma that haunted him that he wasn’t hesitant to take on projects that would make a difference. Both as a rude man in El duro (1989) and a criminal villain in Punto de quiembre (1991). And in both productions he was ahead of Tom Cruise and took the risk scenes to an unexpected extreme so far.
Lebanese-American actor Keanu Reeves and American actor Patrick Swayze stand on a beach during filming of the 1991 action film “Point Break” directed by Kathryn Bigelow while Swayze holds a surfboard. (Photo by Richard Foreman /Photos International/Getty Images)
That’s what his loved ones said in the 2019 documentary, “I’m Patrick Swayze.” For example, in the first installment, in which he played a tough security guard alongside Sam Elliott, a fight ensued towards the end of the story when his character, James Dalton, went up against a criminal played by Mashall Teague. It was a life-or-death struggle and Patrick Swayze wanted it to feel authentic. It was his first action film since Dirty Dancing and he wanted it to make a difference. So he pulled his partner – who was a martial arts expert – away and asked him not to pretend. let her feel the pain Let them transfer it. And they gave everything.
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The only rule was that they didn’t touch her face or head as they still had to finish shooting the film. And so they started punching and kicking each other. They hurt themselves and made them bleed. Every scream we heard at the scene was real. Any throbbing sound too. And they ended up with a broken rib (Swayze) and a bruised eye socket (Teague).
Years later, he returned to his old ways when it was his turn to play the adrenaline lover in Punto de Quiembre. Patrick Swayze She took her role so seriously that, once again, she wanted the entire storyline surrounding her character to feel authentic. That we would see him surf the waves and skydive, despite the studio’s objections.
She’s never skydived before, but when she agreed to star in the film with Kathryn Bigelow opposite Keanu Reeves, she immediately started practicing. He got up at 4 a.m. to practice and do skydives. Every day and behind the studio.
“The studio would have been in shock if they knew what they were doing,” says his agent Nicole David in the documentary. When the superiors found out about it, they sent him a violation letter. But it was late. He had already learned what it took to give his character the same adrenaline rush.
And the thing is, Patrick has an agreement with the studio: after he’s filmed all his dialogue, he’s allowed to film the risky scenes. That means once they were sure the movie was done, without risking the production costs by jeopardizing the life of its star, they could recreate the same thing the stuntmen had already filmed. “You never do that, replace scenes that have already been filmed with a double and re-shoot them with the real actor,” remembers his brother Don Swayze. But Patrick did.
And although the iconic skydiving sequences had already been filmed with stuntmen, Patrick repeated them. And that’s why we see him floating in the air. Out of his own desire to restore authenticity to the screen, to get up at the crack of dawn, to study and train to the fullest, and then to make what’s happening as real as possible. How does it work? Tom Cruise.
“Before Tom Cruise did his ‘HALO’ jumps, Patrick did that in Breakpoint,” recalls Rob Lowe, who worked with Swayze on Francis Ford Coppola’s Rebels (1983), in the documentary. “Do you think Tom doesn’t remember all those years Patrick did it first?” he asked wryly. Even stuntman Cliff McLaughlin adds, “Patrick was the lead actor that all stuntmen knew could do anything. That he was an athlete who could do whatever he wanted. And in his case it wasn’t a question of ego, he liked doing it.
This all happened in the late 80’s and early 90’s when Tom Cruise He had no intention of becoming the king of cinematic risk. At that time, he devoted his efforts to building a reputation as a serious actor. He belongs to the select circle of Oscar winners, such as “The Color of Money”, “Rain Man”, “A Matter of Honor”, “No Way Out”, “Interview with the Vampire” or the production that earned him his first nomination brought in, “Born on the Fourth of July” shows. But after he starred in his first major stunt sequence, everything changed.
It ended with a scene Impossible Mission, where he escaped from a restaurant after a giant aquarium exploded. And so, the 1996 film opened the curtain on a new act in his career, fueled by adrenaline and intent on offering viewers the most intense cinematic experience possible, surpassing himself with every sequel and with increasingly risky scenes. But obviously he wasn’t the only one, nor the first, to jump into the void to give us authentic experiences on the big screen.
American actor Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt fleeing a collapsing restaurant aquarium in a scene from the film Mission: Impossible, 1996. (Photo by Murray Close/Getty Images)
Because Patrick Swayze Expected several years earlier, he relied on cinematic authenticity to show that he was far more than just the romantic hero and skilled dancer of his films. And although we see today Tom Cruise As the king of risky scenes on the big screen, reinforcing his role as synonymous with cinematic adrenaline by increasing the level of risk with each film, the truth was that he was already expected.
The world probably didn’t know. After all, it hasn’t had the same media coverage that Tom Cruise has had since the first scene in Mission Impossible. But Patrick vary He had done the same thing by skydiving and challenging the industry for the love of art. And that several years earlier.
This article was written exclusively for Yahoo en Español by Cine54.
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