Tom Cruise’s hectic plane stunt in American Made

YOU expect most stunts these days to be shot in front of a green screen and then later jazzed up with computer magic. Not this one.

TOM Cruise is no stranger to action. A certifiable movie star since the 1980s, the actor has leapt, punched and sprinted his way through almost two dozen action flicks.

Just search “Tom Cruise running” — it’s a thing.

In his latest movie, American Made, Cruise plays a real-life pilot, Barry Seal, who flew planes as a drug smuggler and was later recruited by authorities to play double agent.

The movie is directed by Doug Liman, the man who kicked off the Bourne franchise and who directed Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow.

In a behind-the-scenes video released today, Liman says there was never any question that Cruise would be doing most of his own stunts and that the most dangerous thing was a sequence they shot of the movie star in a careening plane on a suburban street in Atlanta.

Most films would’ve shot this scene in a studio against a green screen with everything to be jazzed up with computer magic later on. But not in American Made. Cruise says it was important to them to shoot the stunt “practically”.

“It’s just so crazy, the world is so crazy and it has that spirit of this outlaw,” Cruise says. “It’s absolutely outrageous.”

It helped that Cruise has had a pilot licence for over two decades — guess something from Top Gun stuck.

Watch the video above to see the insane action.

American Made is in cinemas from Thursday, August 24.

Originally published as Tom Cruise’s hectic plane stunt in American Made