If there is one actor in Hollywood who seems to be getting more and more bankable with age, it is the inimitable Tom Cruise. At a time when a good number of top actors have drifted into the shadows, he continues to occupy the limelight.

Thanks to the spy series, his Mission Impossible franchise, he has carved a niche for himself as a cracker of a box-office star.

He is very committed to his roles, and prefers to perform his own stunts. We have all seen it how he did those amazing action-packed sequences by scaling the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, in the ‘Ghost Protocol.’ It ranks among the most spectacular scenes in the film, and marks a defining moment in the franchise.

The stunts, chancy that they are, however can backfire at times. In one incident, as Cruise jumped from one rooftop to another in London, he broke his ankle.

That does not mean he is not bothered about safety, particularly with the pandemic wreaking havoc all over the globe. Recently, he shouted at the crew of his latest film, ‘Mission: Impossible 7’ for failing to abide by measures to stem the coronavirus.

He saw them breaching safety protocol by standing too close to one another in front of a computer screen. 

Talking of ‘Mission: Impossible 7,’ it will delight his fans in the UAE no end to hear that the actor will also be shooting scenes for the film in their endearing, iconic city Dubai. The British tabloid newspaper, The Sun, said filming “will resume in the UK later this week before it goes off to Dubai.” Several cities in Europe, including Venice and Rome, figure in the shooting locations.

Interestingly, Cruise also bought two state-of-the-art Covid-secure robots to patrol the sets of his film, the tabloid reported.

Here is a spicy footnote: he is said to be dating his co-star in the film, Hayley Atwell.

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