While Tom Cruise Is Off Doing His Own Stunts, Here’s How His Bored Stuntman Keeps Busy

One of the key press narratives pushed by Paramount in the campaigns for the past three Mission: Impossible movies has been that star Tom Cruise is willing and able to do his own stunts.

For 2011’s Ghost Protocol, the focus was on his work during the sequence where Cruise’s Ethan Hunt has to climb the exterior of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. For 2015’s Rogue Nation it was on the scene where Hunt is hanging off the outside of a transport plane while it’s taking off.

The same story has emerged in the build-up for the sixth installment in the M:I series, Fallout. Interviews with the cast and crew have talked about how dedicated Cruise is to doing his own stunt work, and that message has been conveyed in featurettes where everyone highlights how many times he’s willing to make a HALO jump for a single shot or put himself in danger for a key helicopter chase sequence.

Those stories and videos often mention how dangerous it is to put a star of Cruise’s caliber in such high-risk situations, when stunt people are usually a better bet as they have the training to film these sequences. So if Cruise is doing this all himself, how is the unoccupied stunt man the studio has on call spending his time?

According to a new cross-promotional video, he picks up a little extra cash by driving for Uber.

The video features a documentary-style interview with Cooper Adrian, the fictional stunt double Paramount was legally obligated to hire despite him being largely extraneous due to Cruise’s impressive work ethic. Adrian talks about how he just doesn’t have a lot to do on-set because there’s no need for him, even if Cruise sprains his ankle. So with lots of free time on his hands, he picks up Uber passengers.

Uber created the video to promote its sponsorship of the red carpet premiere of Mission: Impossible – Fallout happening July 12 in Paris. That premiere will be livestreamed on Uber’s YouTube channel, bringing the interviews and other events to people around the country. There was also a (now closed) sweepstakes that awarded the winner a trip to that same premiere event.

This isn’t Uber’s first movie marketing partnership.

In 2016, the ride-hailing company helped promote Bad Moms by offering chauffeured rides to the theater and Star Wars: Rogue One by replacing images of cars with images of Star Wars vehicles and ships. It previously worked with Paramount on a promotion for 2014’s Transformers: Age of Extinction where riders in select cities could request a ride in the same kind of truck used for Optimus Prime.

Chris Thilk

@ChrisThilk

Chris Thilk is a freelance writer and content strategy consultant in the Chicago suburbs. You can find him at ChrisThilk.com, where he shares his thoughts on content marketing, media and movie marketing.