3 days ago
QuickCheck: Does Tom Cruise hold the record for holding his breath underwater the longest for a movie?
PETALING JAYA: If you haven't watched 'Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning' where lead actor Tom Cruise performs most of his stunts, you should see it.
You have to admire his tenacity and dedication in performing these death-defying stunts, including holding his breath for six minutes during an underwater scene in 'Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation'.
But is it true that Cruise is the movie star who held his breath underwater the longest for a movie?
VERDICT:
FALSE
While Cruise's stunt in the 2015 movie was impressive, another movie star beat him to it, and that's Kate Winslet.
She held her breath for seven minutes and 15 seconds while filming the 2022 movie 'Avatar: The Way of Water.'
Winslet, who plays the Metkayina's Ronal in the film, learnt to freedive with the rest of the cast to film their underwater scenes.
This record also landed the Titanic star in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest breath-hold on screen by a lead actor, beating Cruise's record as well.
Winslet was surprised that she beat Cruise's record while filming the movie, which earned about USD2bil.
"Poor Tom... I mean, I don't know Tom at all – I've never met him in my life – but I'm sure he's getting very fed up of hearing this story of how I broke his record," she told USA Today.
"I loved it, though. I was amazed how good I was at it and how I just kept getting better," she added.
Winslet's co-stars managed to hold their breath for a significant amount of time while filming as well.
Sigourney Weaver reportedly held her breath underwater for six and a half minutes, while Zoe Saldaña held as long as five minutes.
Director James Cameron was proud of Winslet's performance for the role.
'Kate's a demon for prep, so she latched onto the freediving as something that she could build her character around,' he told The New York Times.
Cameron added that due to the nature the character Winslet was playing, she had to be utterly calm underwater – and said that she was a natural at it.
The next instalment in the sci-fi franchise, 'Avatar: Fire and Ash', is scheduled to be released by the end of 2025.
Anyway, read more about Cruise's latest movie 'Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning' here ( lifestyle/entertainment/2025/ 05/18/039mission-impossible--- the-final-reckoning039-review- tom-cruise-puts-it-all-on-the- line )
and read about how he almost died doing one of the stunts for this movie here ( lifestyle/entertainment/2025/ 05/16/actor-tom-cruise-nearly- died-during-stunt-for- 039mission-impossible---the- final-reckoning039 ).
SOURCES
world-records/737211-longest- breath-hold-on-screen-lead- actor
news/kate-winslets-filmed- avatar-2-underwater-breath- hold-record-die-1235459216/
asithappens/free-diver-avatar- way-of-water-kate-winslet-1. 6692890
com/kate-winslet-broke-tom- cruises-underwater-record-in- avatar-2-2022-12
