Tom Cruise was the "only pilot" on ‘American Made’.
The 55-year-old actor is a keen aviator and famously prefers to do his own stunts, so for his role as pilot-turned-drug smuggler-turned-informant Barry Seal in the biographical drama, he undertook all the flying sequences himself.
Director Doug Liman said: "Tom not only flew the stunts in the movie, he’s flying the airplane the whole time, you look at the credits and he’s the only pilot listed but he actually ferried the airplane to Colombia himself, to have that experience."
And Doug – who also flies planes in his spare time – was amazed at how well Tom was able to tackle some of the trickier maneuvers.
He told Collider of one particular scene: "I’m a pilot and I would not land on that airstrip, ever. Tom’s got no problem, in fact he planted it so well on the airstrip he’s on the runway forever, we were really worried about it going off the far end, all the actors are at the end who he does the scene with but he landed so early the shot goes on forever.
"Tom also landed on that same airstrip at night with just one pick-up lighting the area. I’m sure you’re like, ‘That’s not Tom, that’s a stunt double, but Tom did not have a stunt double.’…
Tom added in the joint interview: "It was lucky, I was like, I’ve got this, I can do one more landing, and that was it. We landed, got the shot then took off."
The two men enjoyed researching Barry’s life and producers ended up having to tell them to stop because there was so many anecdotes they were keen to include in the film.
Doug said: "In South America we met a pilot who knew Barry Seal and he was like ‘Oh I loved Barry, he stole an airplane from me, took it out for a test flight and never came back.’
"We heard so many stories that we wanted to factor in… The producers finally were like, ‘Just stop talking to people who knew Barry’. "
Tom Cruise did all his movie flights
