Tom Cruise still feels the need, the need for speed and, well, just about anything else that gets his adrenaline pumping.
But while the megastar is certainly no stranger to doing many of his own stunts, will there ever be a time when he'll simply leave the dangerous thrills to others?
"Not yet, not yet," the actor told E! News with his trademark laugh at the New York City premiere of Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol. "I'm sure there will be, but not yet."
Ah, but does wife Katie Holmes want him to stop, say, dangling from skyscrapers, much like he does in his new flick?
"You know, she knows and appreciates what I do," Cruise said with a smile, who went on to recount his days making the 1986 hit Top Gun.
"When I said 'I'll do Top Gun,' they had to put it in my contract that I got to fly in the F-14, and I wanted shots in the movie of me in the F-14," he recalled. "When you look back at the legends of [silent movie stars] Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Chaplin—those guys, they were just doing on-camera stuff and that's what I grew up on."
In other words, all the derring-doing boils down to one thing.
"I'm a cinephile geek. I just love movies, and I just want to entertain an audience and do what I can," he said. "I love the adventures and [Katie] understands."
Hard to argue with that. (And be sure to listen to what Cruise has to say about the possibility of a Top Gun sequel!)
Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol, currently playing in limited release, opens wide tomorrow.
—Reporting by James Chairman