Tom  Cruise, who will premiere Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – at the Cannes Film Festival tonight, said today that the secret to performing all his own stunts is that he feels ‘no fear.’

Cruise, 62, famously shattered his ankle leaping between two skyscrapers on the previous Mission: Impossible and was a surprise addition to a media session on Wednesday afternoon with his long-time movie collaborator and close friend, director Chris McQuarrie.

Taking the stage at the Debussy Theatre to wild applause Cruise talked about his great love of cinema, his pᴀssion for telling stories, and became emotional as he discussed this last-ever entry in a franchise which has run for 30 years.

In this Mission: Impossible he wing-walks on a vintage biplane and also acts in an extraordinary underwater sequence set on board a submarine.

He said: ‘How do I feel about fear? Oh that’s exciting. I like the feeling. It’s not paralysing it doesn’t bother me, I enjoy it. In any endeavour people can be afraid, I don’t mind confronting it and going in. I wanted an interesting life that’s very dynamic.

‘I try to know before I go on set as much as I can. I have a goal and I have a list of what I need to learn to get to the goal and I go up and down the list and keep attacking it, ‘Oh I had better learn how to fly a helicopter.’

Tom Cruise was just three minutes away from catastrophe whilst filming a wild stunt for Mission: Impossible 8 that saw him pᴀss out

The actor, 62, will premiere Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday evening

He went on: ‘People say be careful. I say be competent strive towards being capable and look for know that you can apply and when you apply it gets you the results that you want. It’s a constant study.’

McQuarrie added of the stunts: ‘Tom and I are often watching in the edit room and thinking: ‘Someone should have stopped this thing.’

‘The craziest stunt in this movie, and there are many, is towards the very end of the film. It was the result of my foolishly showing Tom a Tiktok video thinking he would be amused by it.

‘He said I could do that and I said no you couldn’t – and he said yes I would. I do I regret saying things to Tom.’

McQuarrie explained that the biplane stunt which saw the actor wing walking was particularly terrifying. ‘There was no radio so I had to fly up in a helicopter (to direct him) step onto the skid and do hand signals while he was on the wing of the biplane.

‘When you leave the cockpit its wind over 140mph from the propellor. You are breathing but not actually getting oxygen. There is a stopwatch every minute that he goes out there and Tom has 12 minutes. We know from experience that the fatigue is breaking him down, it’s like two hours in the gym at that point.

‘We got to 12 minutes and I would lean out and make the cut sign and he would make camera rolling gesture.

‘There was more than one moment where he was so physically exhausted he could not get back up off the wing, and we could not tell if he was conscious or not. We had agreed not to cut until he made the sign.

Prior to the premiere, Tom was a surprise addition to a media session with his long-time movie collaborator and close friend, director Chris McQuarrie (both pictured)

Chris explained that the biplane stunt which saw the actor wing walking was particularly terrifying

‘At this point there were only three minutes of fuel, and you know the plane can’t land if Tom is on the wing. He’s got three minutes to get up and has been on the wing for 20 minutes.

‘He raised his head and put it into the cockpit to grab oxygen enough to have the energy to drag himself off the wing and then he got into the cockpit and landed the plane. No one can do that except for Tom Cruise.’

McQuarrie added that he believes Cruise – who has never won as Oscar – was very underrated as an actor.

He revealed that in Mission Impossible: Fallout one scene was sH๏τ at a location where there were only five hours of available light. ‘Tom said: ‘Do everybody else (in the scene). Tom Cruise’s whole performance was delivered in the last eight minutes of available sunlight.’ He added that the scene in Top Gun: Maverick with the late Val Kilmer, who was ill, was delivered by Cruise at the first take.

Cruise sounded emotional about the final instalment of the film and said: ‘ I have just put everything into it and its joyous doing it. T here’s not a day I didn’t go and try and do it the best I can.

Tonight it’s 30 years, the culmination of this. It has come to this moment now. We’ve had an amazing time doing it.’

He added: ‘I love coming to Cannes. The history here is extraordinary.’

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning will be released in theaters on May 17 of this year

Read More Mission: Impossible 8 director says action sequence almost gave fan ‘heart attack’

Mission: Impossible 8 features returning stars Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, Pom Klementieff and Henry Czerny, all of whom are back from the previous film.

The stacked cast will also be augmented by new faces, including Bob Odenkirk, Parks & Recreation star Nick Offerman, Ted Lᴀsso’s Hannah Waddingham, Ozark actress Janet McTeer and Katy O’Brian.

ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning and The Final Reckoning were at one point billed as the last films to star Tom in the Mission: Impossible series.

However, McQuarrie backed away from that idea during the publicity campaign for the first film, and Cruise has since expressed interest in continuing to explore what Ethan Hunt’s adventures might be like well into old age.

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning will be released in theaters on May 17 of this year.