Working with Tom Cruise can be risky business, something his co-star Jake Johnson knows firsthand.
The veteran action was infamously caught on tape yelling at crew members on the London set of Mission: Impossible 7 over an apparent breach of COVID-19 safety protocols, as heard in a leaked, expletive-filled recording posted by The Sun in December. In the audio, which went viral, Cruise complained about a lack of social distancing and told the alleged offenders, "If you can't be reasonable and I can't deal with your logic, you're fired."
"He's an intense guy," Johnson, who worked with the actor in the 2017 movie The Mummy, told Matt Wilstein on the writer's Daily Beast podcast The Last Laugh in an episode released on Tuesday, Aug. 10.
The New Girl alum continued about Cruise, "In terms of a filmmaker, he wants to entertain an audience and if you're not all about that, you're going to get knocked off the bronco. Because he is there to entertain an audience and he's willing to really put himself in harm's way to do it."
Soon after Cruise's tirade was leaked, a source told E! News, "Tom is a perfectionist and wants things done in a certain way. His intentions are good, but it does make for a very tense environment."
In May, the actor himself opened up about the incident, telling Empire magazine, "I said what I said. There was a lot at stake at that point. But it wasn't my entire crew. I had the crew leave the set, and it was just select people."
A month later, production on Mission: Impossible 7 shut down temporarily due to what Paramount Pictures said was a "positive coronavirus test results during routine testing."
The film in now the final stages of production. Cruise's co-star Rebecca Ferguson announced on Instagram last week that she has officially wrapped on the project. Mission: Impossible 7 is set for release in May 2022.
Cruise has long been notoriously intense when it comes to action scenes in movies. On the podcast, Johnson recalled how he worked to keep up with him on The Mummy.
"We jumped over buildings together that exploded," he recalled. "We were on a three-story building that collapsed and I landed on my back and told him that something went wrong because I got hurt. And he said, 'Injured or hurt?' I said, ‘What's the difference?' And he goes, 'Can you go again or is something broken?' And I was like, 'No, I mean, I can go again.' Then he goes, 'So you're hurt. Of course you're hurt. You fell off a three-story building.'"
Johnson added, "He's not faking it. When you see him on a horse and he gets thrown off and he tucks and rolls, his back is bruised. But he loves the shot."