Beau Bridges says Tom Cruise ‘gets better with age’ as ‘Top Gun’ star keeps defying Hollywood odds

Tom Cruise’s “Jerry McGuire” costar Beau Bridges thinks the 63-year-old actor is getting better and better with age.

“I really appreciated working with him,” Bridges, who starred alongside Cruise in the 90s romcom, told People while attending the “Matlock” For Your Consideration event last week. “He’s a wonderful actor and just gets better with age. I mean, he’s still doing all those crazy stunts and stuff. Yeah. And I like working with him. I thought he was great.”

Bridges isn’t the only actor who has thoughts on Cruise’s legendary stunts.

Earlier this year, Ethan Hawke revealed that he has grown “angry” with Cruise, explaining that the “Mission: Impossible” star’s high-risk stunt work has changed what audiences and studios expect from actors across Hollywood.

“Tom Cruise has totally changed what’s expected for actors,” Hawke told Variety at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in February. “Some part of me is getting angry over the years because everyone somehow feels like they’re less if they use a stunt team.”

While Cruise — who is returning for “Top Gun 3” — has never appeared in a superhero movie from Marvel, DC or any other comic-book franchise, the actor cemented his status as an action movie icon by insisting on performing increasingly dangerous, real-world stunts himself in blockbuster franchises including “Mission: Impossible,” “Top Gun” and “Jack Reacher.” 

Last year, Cruise nearly broke his back while performing a stunt for “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”

In bonus content from the digital release of the film, Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie detailed one of the film’s most harrowing sequences: a high-flying biplane battle between the actor’s character, Ethan Hunt, and Gabriel, portrayed by Esai Morales.

The scene showed Ethan leaping from one plane onto another, as he clung to the wing midair.

“Oh, this almost broke my back,” Cruise said, per Entertainment Weekly.

“You’re talking about a lot of pain here,” McQuarrie chimed in.

Cruise’s character was seen in the video clip grabbing a seat belt, holding on for dear life, as the plane flipped upside down. 

“Now watch this, the thing we haven’t talked about, holding on to this belt,” McQuarrie described, while Cruise said, “Oh God, that was brutal.”

The director continued to explain, “This separated the joints in Tom’s fingers from the force, so by the time we finished this sequence, your hands were absolutely swollen – oh my God, it was so painful to watch.”

During the intense scene, Cruise’s character was forced to crash into the side of the aircraft. As he remembered the pain, the Hollywood actor said, “Oh, that was brutal. That hit, that was a hard one.”

McQuarrie joked, “And you improvised that, thank you very much. I appreciate that. You were like, ‘I think we’re gonna need that,’ and I was like, ‘I didn’t ask you to do that.’”