I’ve noticed over the last couple of years that when actors work with Tom Cruise, some of them fall in love with the action star’s sky-related hobbies. For example, he paid for his Top Gun: Maverick co-star’s flight training, and now Glen Powell, who played Hangman, is a pilot. The same kind of effect happened to the actor’s Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One co-star Pom Klementieff, who revealed she fell in love with skydiving after the man behind Ethan Hunt gifted her lessons.
Klementieff, who plays the assassin after Hunt in Mission: Impossible 7, spoke about all her favorite things with NYT. It’s an eclectic list that included her motorcycle, baking, “not-safe-for-work socks,” Quentin Tarantino and more. However, the item that stuck out to me was skydiving. She mentioned that she took it up after being given lessons as a wrap gift from Tom Cruise. The thoughtful present, turned into quite the hobby for the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 star, as she said:
I’ve jumped 104 times since October 2021, when Tom Cruise gifted me skydiving lessons as a wrap gift. I love the rush, I love the precision, I love how sharp it makes me. When I jump off a hot-air balloon very early in the morning and the sun is rising and it smells like mist — it’s magical.
It sounds like Tom Crusie’s “need for speed” (and skydiving) has rubbed off on the Dead Reckoning Part One cast member. The Top Gun star is known for being quite the adrenaline junkie both on and off screen (I mean did you see that motorcycle cliff jump in M:I 7?), and he seems to love sharing that passion for extreme hobbies with his friends and co-stars.
This story about Pom Klementieff getting into skydiving because Tom Cruise gifted her lessons reminds me a lot of how Glen Powell got into aviation. The Top Gun: Maverick star got his license in 2020, and he noted in his Instagram post about it that the Maverick actor played a big part in the accomplishment. The Set It Up star said his co-star gifted him flight lessons for Christmas, and he was inspired to pursue aviation because he had watched the actor/producer “rocket off into the sunset” while filming the legacy sequel.
Much like Powell, Klementieff found her passion for the sky after working with Tom Cruise. While she said she was “stressed” working with the M:I star because of the secrets they had to keep about the movie, she also called him “generous,” and “such an inspiration.”
Hopefully, we’ll get to see Pom Klementieff and Tom Cruise jump out of planes together. But, for now, we can look forward to them facing off in Dead Reckoning Part One, which is set to premiere on the 2023 movie schedule on July 12.
