Tom Cruise Refused to Kick Pom Klementieff in the Stomach for ‘M:I 7’ Stunt

Tom Cruise may be fine cruising off a cliff on a motorcycle for a film stunt, but the actor draws the line at physical contact with co-stars.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” actress Pom Klementieff revealed to Entertainment Weekly that she begged co-star Cruise to kick her in the midsection during an action scene. Cruise, however, refused.

“I kept telling him to just kick me here,” Klementieff said. “I was squeezing abs. [I said], ‘You can just go for it.’ He was like ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ I was like, ‘But it’s going to help me!’ But he wouldn’t do it.“

The “Guardians of the Galaxy” star also spoke about the production as a whole, saying, “It was so special to be on location in Rome. We were shooting during COVID, so we were very lucky to be here. I was trying to not laugh too much because I was having so much fun in the car following the Fiat.”

She added of her alter ego, “When Christopher McQuarrie cast me for the role, he didn’t know which name the character would have. It was cool to name me Paris, me being from France, and then they decided that I would speak French because I speak French in real life. [Paris] is very different style-wise from every other actress in the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise. She has a side that’s a bit more punk and she doesn’t really give a fuck. So that was cool.”   

Director McQuarrie agreed, saying Paris is a “chaotic element” of the action film.

“It doesn’t matter how deep in the background she is, you’re going to be watching her at all times and wondering what she’s going to do,” he said. “She’s a rebel, she’s a killer, she’s extremely skilled and quite lonely too.”

“Dead Reckoning” also features one of McQuarrie’s long-dreamed-of stunts: crashing a 70-ton train.

“We’re enormous fans of Buster Keaton, John Frankenheimer, David Lean, all of these filmmakers who at one time or another had a fabulous train wreck,” McQuarrie said earlier this year of working with lead actor, producer, and visionary collaborator Cruise. “I thought, ‘I’ve earned that, I want to wreck one too.’ I think the energy that went into developing it, designing that, building it, and then making a sequence that justified its existence was probably the biggest challenge of my entire life.”