Tom Cruise has leapt from great heights under the guidance of Ben Winston, co-founder of Fulwell73 and creative producer of the Los Angeles Olympics 2028 handover, one time before.
This time, however, it was different. The whole world was watching.
Cruise, who previously jumped out a plane alongside James Corden on The Late Late Show, which was exec produced by Winston, revved up the Paris Olympics closing ceremony Sunday as he started the engine on the handover to L.A. for the 2028 Summer Games.
After Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo passed the Olympic flag to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (the first Black woman mayor to receive the official Olympic flag during a Closing Ceremony), and Simone Biles (the most decorated U.S. female gymnast of all time), Cruise leapt into the Stade de France before taking off on his motorcycle.
The Mission: Impossible star, who interrupted filming of the latest installment of the action movie franchise to perform the stunt, then leapt from a plane to the Hollywood sign, passed the baton to Team USA Olympians including mountain biker Kate Courtney, track and field legend Michael Johnson and two-time Olympic medalist skateboarder Jagger Eaton, who took it to the beach — literally.
Winston told Deadline that what viewers of the ceremony saw was almost identical to what he pitched Cruise, with one small difference.
“I said to [Cruise], H.E.R. does the national anthem, she starts rocking out her guitar. We see a man on the roof in a balaclava. He jumps off the roof, he grabs the flag, he drives through Paris, gets on the back of a plane, takes his balaclava off and we reveal it’s you,” Winston said. “[Cruise] said ‘I absolutely love it, I’m 100% in.’ I remember how excited he was. He said, ‘There’s only one thing. There is no way that you’re going to use a stuntman. ‘It’s me on that roof, I’m jumping, I’m doing it all. There’s no man in a balaclava’.”
This was a year and a half ago. Winston explained that with a stuntman it would only require one day of filming, rather than five or six. “He was like, ‘We either do it and we do it wholeheartedly and we do it fully, or we don’t do it,’ ” Winston added. “He’s an incredible man, and just the single greatest collaborator you could ever work with. He’s inspiring. He’s hardworking, kind to everybody around him.”
After the Olympians took the flag across the city, there were performances by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who performed “Can’t Stop” from their By the Way album, followed by Billie Eilish playing “Birds of a Feather” on the top of a lifeguard tower. Then Snoop Dogg, arguably one of the breakout stars of the Olympics, performed “Drop It Like It’s Hot” and teamed with Dr. Dre on a surprise performance of “The Next Episode.”
“There’s a lot of amazing L.A. artists, there’s a few other amazing hip hop stars like Kendrick Lamar being one, but those three were my first choice,” Winston said. “They were in my original deck before they even said yes a year and a half ago. I was so certain that when I was pitching the idea I already had Red Hot Chili Peppers on as the soundtrack to the Tom Cruise film,” Winston added.
Winston, whose Fulwell73 produces series such as Hulu’s The Kardashians, said he took his first meeting with LA28’s Casey Wasserman in January 2022.
The majority of it was shot live, although Winston admitted that some of it wasn’t able to be shot live due to security concerns on the beach. “Some people have said none of it was live. Some said all of it’s live. Actually, it’s a bit in between, but for various different issues, because obviously you’re exposed in the middle of the beach, and we had to keep it quiet what was happening for security reasons. If it had leaked where we were or what was happening, then we would have been shut down. I’m very aware that we can’t afford to be shut down, because we’re live to a billion people globally. It was a complicated project,” he added.
The Grammys exec producer admitted it was a bit tense. “It was a very stressful one. It was probably my highest stress levels I think I’ve ever had in my career. We had some tech issues connecting from Paris to L.A. You’re combining so many elements that have to be played, and you’re also kind of at the mercy of the Olympic broadcasting team, and the Paris team. There was a lot of technical stuff that was tricky and testing, and then you’re also aware that the biggest movie star in the world was about to jump off a roof,” he added.
Winston and his team have plenty of experience in live television with projects such as Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodgers Stadium and Adele: One Night Only.
The live shows were directed by Hamish Hamilton, who has also directed a lot of live television. Glenn Clements collaborated with Winston on the film, Dave Piendak and Raj Kapoor served as producers, Patrick Menton oversaw talent, and Misty Buckley and Gloria Lamb led set design for the beach concerts.
“It’s a bit like when you have a baby and the baby comes and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, this is a nightmare stress, they’re sick on you and need changing and then they turn 3 and they’re really cute and you’re like ‘Let’s do that again.’ That’s a bit like live TV. When you’re in it, you’re asking why am I doing this?,” he said. “Then I was looking around it yesterday and looking at the team, and I was like, ‘We had had the greatest musicians in the world on that stage. We had Tom Cruise, the greatest movie star, and we also had the best of the best in our industry come and deliver it.’ ”