As Hollywood’s number one action man, Tom Cruise’s career has often been filled with dangerous stunts that he insisted on doing himself. While mentioning on several occasions how he always wanted to test his limits, Cruise harbored a litany of near-death experiences, throughout his career.
Although the actor has lost count of how many times he kissed death and narrowly escaped, his terrifying incident while filming The Last Samurai seems to hold a different place in his life. Putting his body through grueling stunts has often landed Cruise in the hospital, unlike his 2003 movie that almost dropped him in a coffin, and that too headless.
Tom Cruise Learned Sword Fighting For The Last Samurai
Choosing to be a daredevil star, who likes to perform his stunts all by himself, Tom Cruise sustained several injuries while filming. However, none of his stunts get done without the actor engaging in proper training. Cause, jumping from a building, riding off a cliff or even climbing the Burj Khalifa, required the star to get trained more than having safety precautions.
Thus, discussing his grueling training period for each movie, Tom Cruise distinctly recalled his 2003 movie The Last Samurai. Sitting for an interview with BBC Radio 1, the actor recalled his 5 hours of training each day to be swift with swords. “I spent a year training for Last Samurai, 5 hours a day to be able to handle that sword,” Cruise shared.
Certainly, opting to do his stunts that involved real swords required some legit training, and with the penchant to challenge his limits, Tom Cruise evidently trained for a year to get his scenes right. However, despite intense practice, when the time came to perform the fight scenes while riding mechanical horses and swinging swords, Cruise nearly got his head chopped off.
The Last Samurai Almost Chopped Tom Cruise’s Head Off
Unwilling to use body doubles for his scenes, Tom Cruise has been performing his own stunts for almost four decades. However, while the actor often ended up in a hospital with broken bones and bruises after cheating death, he nearly booked his coffin following his fight scene in The Last Samurai. Almost going headless after a swift swing from his co-star’s sword, Cruise had a terrifying incident while filming.
Recalling his 2003 epic period action drama, Tom Cruise and his co-star Hiroyuki Sanada discussed the scene where the Hollywood action star almost got beheaded. Evidently, there was a technical issue with the mechanical horses that instead of stopping Sanada’s horse at a certain distance, went on marching forward and nearly leading to a tragedy.
“One day we were shooting, I was on a mechanical horse and Hiro (Hiroyuki Sanada) was on one too. He was approaching me and then suddenly his horse hit me and his sword was right here (points an inch from his neck). Luckily Hiro is trained in martial arts. I trust him” Cruise shared.
Hiroyuki Sanada further shared how “the film crew watching from the side all screamed because they thought Tom’s head would fly off.” However, eventually, nothing bad happened and Cruise cheated death, like always.
