If you’ve been wondering why Tom Cruise has been spending his entire summer vacation at the Paris Olympics, he’s reportedly been holding a Mission Impossible secret for months. The 62-year-old actor is supposedly making an appearance at the Closing Ceremony on Aug. 11.
With the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics just four years away, there is a symbolic handoff from one host city to another in the final event of the Summer Games. TMZ, the first to report the news, says Cruise will be “rappelling down from the top of Stade de France … landing on the stadium field and carrying the official Olympic flag.” It won’t end there, though, because Cruise has more spectacular stunts in mind.
“Expect a major Hollywood production,” a source told Deadline — and that’s exactly what the audience is going to see. After Cruise is done rappelling, fans will see “Tom’s journey on an airplane … flying with the Olympic flag from France to Los Angeles, where he skydives down to the Hollywood sign,” per a TMZ source. He slyly recorded this part in March without a single media outlet discovering what he was up to. The flag will make its way around the city via other athletes. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass will also be in attendance to receive the Olympic flag from Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo — and somehow the Top Gun star will fit into the narrative.
The final details in France are complicated and TMZ even suggested that Cruise might use a stunt double, but as an actor who prides himself on doing his own stunts — this scenario is doubtful. He was reportedly the one who came up with the idea in the first place, so it’s no surprise that he’s been a big supporter in Paris. Cruise, who revealed on The Graham Norton Show in 2014, that he “always loved fast cars, motorcycles, hiking and climbing,” doesn’t exactly love being questioned as to why he doesn’t use his stunt double.
“No one asked Gene Kelly, ‘Why do you dance? Why do you do your own dancing?’” he told The Hollywood Reporter in May 2022. Now that we have our answer to that burning question, get ready for Cruise to make his mark on the Paris Olympics on Aug. 11.
Before you go, click here to see Team USA Olympians over the years.
