Tom Cruise: Holding His Breath for Over 6 Minutes.

The Mission Impossible movies with Tom Cruise are always exciting and each new movie is better and more action packed. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation was incredibly well done, and just as always, Tom Cruise performed his own stunts in the movie, including holding his breath for up to 6 minutes!

Tom Cruise has been performing his own stunts for years, and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation was just another instance of his skills. During the movie, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) was required to dive into a liquid cooled storage facility to replace an identity chip.

The task required Ethan to hold his breath underwater for up to three minutes, enduring muscle exertion that would deplete the oxygen in his body. 

In the film, Ethan Hunt runs into issues as he is trying to replace a chip, and ends up blacking out. In real life however, Tom Cruise had a great deal of training from military free diving trainers to prepare him for this video scene. Rebecca Ferguson also took this breathing training as they prepared for filming. 

During the acting scenes, Tom Cruise would hold his breath up to 6 minutes in order to take screen shots in one continuous take, giving an authentic look of carbon dioxide build up reflex and drowning.

Tom Cruise was watched over by stunt teams and never had any problems, but the director and others were concerned when he looked like he was going to drown, but was just doing it for the show.

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Also, check out our great snorkeling gear for your own underwater adventure, although we do not recommend diving into a liquid cooled, data storage facility.