#Tom Cruise Told One Mummy Co-Star That He Only Runs Alone, But That Soon Changed

Working with well-known actors can often lead to some predictable fan requests, even from fellow actors, like asking De Niro to say, “You talkin’ to me?”, or insisting that Ian McKellan scream, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” at all times. When it came to working with Tom Cruise in 2017’s The Mummy, Annabelle Wallis had only one dream: she wanted to run alongside him onscreen. But the road to fulfilling that dream turned out to be trickier than expected, as Wallis says.

“I got to run on-screen with him, but he told me no at first. He said, “Nobody runs on-screen [with me],” and I said, “But I’m a really good runner.” So, I would time my treadmill so that he’d walk in and see me run. And then he added all these running scenes. So, that was it. It was, like, better than an Oscar. I was so happy! I was so happy that I got to run on-screen with Tom Cruise.”

The “Tom Cruise runs away from danger” trope has become a well-worn meme by this point, given the actor’s movies always having at least one long-take shot of Cruise in perfect running form, arms pumping strenuously as he speeds away from explosions, exploding bridges, oncoming sandstorms, into traffic, and sometimes even into the very heart of danger.

It is understandable that Annabelle Wallis would want to be a part of that cinematic tradition, and to date, she might be the only actor to accompany Cruise on one of his onscreen cardio routines. And that experience is something that the actress appears to cherish as she heaped praise on her former co-star.

“He’s Tom Cruise. He’s his own thing. He’s such a movie star, and he does his own bloody stunts! He means business, and he loves this business. He’s a cinephile. I think people are in awe of that kind of passion and love for cinema and a desire to excel, to keep growing and keep pushing boundaries. He’s on a different level.”

While The Mummy did not win any favors with critics or at the box-office, it seems Wallis has moved on from the failure. Meanwhile, Cruise has also refocused his energies away from the fledgling “Dark Universe” franchise that the movie was supposed to kickstart, and towards planing his next movie filled with impossibly dangerous real stunt-work.

While writer-director Christopher McQuarrie has promised the upcoming installment of Mission Impossible starring Cruise will take the franchise’s history of filming realistic action scenes to the next level, there is also the sequel to Top Gun that is gearing up for release, which will feature a category of aerial stunts the world has never seen before, according to Cruise, who will be reprising his iconic role as Maverick for the movie.

Finally, there is the upcoming action-adventure movie with Cruise signed on as actor and producer, which will be filmed in actual space, with help from Elon Musk and NASA. There is little chance of a running scene set in space, but knowing Cruise, he’ll probably try his best to add one in there. This news originated at The Hollywood Reporter.

Topics: The Mummy, Dark Universe, Universal Monsters